With everything on the line, grit-and-grind effort needed
Something — anything — from Chris Paul.
A roaring home crowd that pulls the Rockets through all four quarters and refuses to allow Mike D’Antoni’s team to quit. Just a little Joe Johnson? A single Ryan Anderson 3?
Whatever it takes for these Rockets.
Whatever they need to survive Game 7 of the Western Conference finals and finally overcome the Golden State Warriors.
I had the NBA’s reigning champs winning this in seven before the Rockets temporarily lost home-court advantage in Game 1. With this erratic, randomly lopsided series now tied 3-3 and a final Game 7 in downtown Houston, it’s still easier to envision the Warriors in their fourth consecutive
NBA Finals than picture the Rockets returning to their first since 1995.
What has happened to D’Antoni’s once historic offense?
The Rockets are averaging an abysmal 91 points during the last four games, haven’t broken 100 in any of those, totaled just 25 second-half points during a Game 6 blowout defeat, and scored only nine in the fourth quarter Saturday night during the Warriors’ 115-86 revival at Oracle Arena.
How much does James Harden have left?
The league’s expected MVP was the best scorer on the court during the first half of Game 6. But Harden’s team collapsed in the final 24 minutes, and the Rockets’ leader again looked exhausted as a critical playoff game suddenly got out of hand.
How much, if anything, can the Rockets get out of CP3?
Like D’Antoni, Paul has waited his entire career for a game like this. We know Paul is going to do everything possible to take the hardwood Monday night. But if he receives a green light, how much can he give, and how long can a 33-year-old with a healing hamstring last?
Of course, all is not lost for the 65-win Rockets.
They fought all season for a Game 7 on their home court, and now they have it. D’Antoni’s team also poured in 39 points during the first quarter of Game 6 and led this series 3-2 not that long ago, looking like the stronger and tougher team.
Then Paul went down, and another huge question mark appeared.
One All-Star versus four isn't going to cut it. It's going to take a real team.
The last four games of this series present an answer for the Rockets’ path to the NBA Finals. Two defeats by an embarrassing 70 combined points, with the Warriors running D’Antoni’s squad out of the gym and the Rockets again looking like a pretender as Golden State soared. The Rockets’ two wins? Gritty, chippy, drag-it-out affairs with defense, iso ball and a slowed-down offensive attack eventually wearing the Warriors down.
“The problem with them getting 115 is because we turned it over around 20 times. It's a double whammy,” D’Antoni said Sunday, after declaring Paul questionable for the allimportant Game 7. “We don't score, first of all, and they get out in transition. Yeah, we’ve got to dictate it by our good play, in the sense of we can guard them, but we can guard them in the half court. It’s tough in transition, but that means we have to limit our turnovers.”
Golden State shredded the nets in Games 3 and 6, totaling 241 points, while the Rockets couldn’t even reach 90 either night. The team built to beat the Warriors captured Games 4 and 5 by keeping the winning total below 100, resorting to what Steve Kerr referred to as “trench warfare” to come one win away from the NBA Finals.
If Paul puts on a cape in Game 7, maybe the Rockets can start running again. If not, every indication is that their best shot to survive the Warriors is to fight as one and ride a raucous home crowd to another old-school playoff W.
Harden is shooting an unMVP like 41 percent from the floor and just 31.1 percent on 3s in the playoffs. Eric Gordon is connecting on only 37.7 percent of his shots, while Trevor Ariza is hitting 39.4 percent of his field goals and 31.7 percent of his 3s. The fact that those were the Rockets’ top three scorers in Game 6 tells you all you need to know about just how off D’Antoni’s offense has been the last week. And where’s Clint Capela? The Rockets had the makings of a new Big Three as these conference finals began. Capela pulled down a game-high 15 boards in Game 6. But he took just three shots, scored only two points, and represented a minus-32 on the court.
D’Antoni’s insistence on a tight seven-man rotation — it was often just six guys in Game 6 — had the Rockets sucking California air late Saturday night. If the coach who’s never reached the NBA Finals can find a new opening in Game 7 — Anderson, Johnson, more Luc Mbah a Moute, anyone — he’s got to trust the look.
Six points from P.J. Tucker isn’t enough. Neither is a 6-of-18 night from Ariza or zero fourth-quarter points from the face of the franchise. Can the Rockets do this? Yes. They have the same amount of wins as the superpower Warriors. They’ve also blown out Golden State in this series and won two more games in a style no one thought possible just a few weeks ago.
But it’s going to take all four quarters. A crowd that refuses to be silenced. Maybe the best playoff game of someone’s life. Forty-eight constant minutes of Fight as One. This is the battle the Rockets wanted — the final test they’ve spent three years building toward and waiting for.
Game 7 in downtown Houston isn’t the time to back down.