Rockets reassert themselves with team effort
HOUSTON — The Houston Rockets were the best team in the NBA in the regular season and played like it Wednesday in Game 2 of the Western Conference finals against the Golden State Warriors.
James Harden and Eric Gordon each scored 27 points on a night Houston had five players score 16 points or more.
“We can beat anybody, anywhere at any time playing the way we play,” coach Mike D’Antoni said after the 127-105 win that tied the series at a game apiece, with Game 3 on Sunday at Golden State.
The Rockets didn’t trail after the first quarter and led by double digits for most of the game.
P.J. Tucker added a playoff career-high 22 and Trevor Ariza had 19 as both bounced back after struggling in Game 1, a 119-106 loss. Tucker had just one point in that game and Ariza scored eight, but was limited on defense after collecting his fifth foul early in the third quarter.
“I never worry about my offense … it’s all on defense,” Tucker said. James Harden, driving on the Warriors’ Stephen Curry, scored 27 points in Houston’s 127-105 win in Game 2 of the Western Conference finals. “If we get stops we’ll be able to run. It changes the game and it changes the way we play, and we know that.”
The Warriors made three free throws to get within 11 early in the fourth quarter before the Rockets scored the
next 11 points, with three-pointers from Gordon, Tucker and Harden to make it 111-89 with about 6½ minutes to play.
The Warriors’ Kevin Durant made a basket after that, but Houston scored the next eight points to extend the lead to 119-91 with about five minutes left.
The Warriors got frustrated in that stretch, with Durant getting a technical for shoving Harden in the back and Draymond Green pushing Ariza out of bounds seconds later. It was then that coach Steve Kerr sent all of his starters to the bench for good.
Gordon came off the bench to make six three-pointers, Tucker tied a playoff best with five and Harden added three.
“They were more settled tonight and they hit timely shots,” Durant said. “The first quarter was still the most important part of the game. Eric Gordon hit two big threes and that kind of settled them in. Those shots did it for them.”
Houston avoided losing consecutive games for the first time this postseason.
“We got outplayed the whole game ... we got it handed to us,” Kerr said. “You can look at it any way you want ... and parcel it out, but it didn’t matter who we had out there, we got beat.”
The Milwaukee Bucks officially announced the hiring of Mike Budenholzer as their new coach.
“The tremendously supportive fans in Milwaukee and throughout Wisconsin are waiting and ready,” Budenholzer said in a statement released by the team. “Now it’s up to us to put all the pieces together, and I can’t wait to get started.”
Budenholzer, the former Atlanta coach, replaces Joe Prunty, the former assistant who went 21-16 in the regular season after replacing the fired Jason Kidd in late January.