Harden advances while aiming for bigger goals

HOUSTON — The Houston Rockets spent almost no time celebrating their firstround playoff series win over the Minnesota Timberwolves on Wednesday night.

For the top-seeded Rockets, it simply moved them a little closer toward their goal of bringing the franchise its first title in more than two decades.

“This was a pretty good step for us, a step in the right direction, but we’ve got a long way to go,” James Harden said. “We [don’t] have this team just to win one playoff series.”

From the moment Chris Paul joined the Rockets in a blockbuster trade from the Los Angeles Clippers last summer, the Rockets have talked incessantly about their desire and belief that the pairing of the two star point guards could propel this already good team into contender status.

A 65-win regular season led by Harden’s MVP-caliber play and Paul’s work in a top supporting role gave the Rockets the NBA’s best record for the first time in franchise history and added to the belief that this could be the year they win it all.

Despite not playing their best at times, the Rockets easily handled the eighthseeded Wolves, turning in three blowout wins in the 4-1 series triumph, capped by Wednesday’s night 122-104 victory.

“We’ll continue to get better, work on some things, figure out who we play and take it from there,” Harden said.

They move on to the Western Conference semifinals for the second straight season and look to return to the conference finals for the first time since losing to the Golden State Warriors in 2015.

But first they’ll get a few days to rest as they await the winner of the series between the Thunder and Jazz. Utah leads 3-2 after Oklahoma City overcame a 25-point second-half deficit to avoid elimination Wednesday night.

Coach Mike D’Antoni said it’s difficult to do too much preparation before they know who they’ll face.

“We’ll watch it. Get some popcorn and enjoy the NBA like everybody else does, then we’ll break it down,” he said. “We’ll have plenty of time to prepare and get in there and do what we do.”

While the Rockets have their eyes on winning their first title since taking backto-back trophies in 1994-95, the next round will be a benchmark of sorts for Paul considering his disappointing playoff history.

The nine-time All-Star has faced criticism after making nine previous playoff trips without advancing past the second round. The worst of those flops came in 2015 against Houston when Paul and the Clippers had a 3-1 lead in the conference semifinals. They got blown out in Game 5 and squandered a 19-point second-half lead in Los Angeles in Game 6 before falling in Game 7 at Houston.