ENOUGH OF THAT
Push has come to shove, so Rockets have to get physical
After two seasons with Golden State sand kicked in their faces, the Rockets finally pledged to hit back.
They watched video of their latest losses, running the Warriors’ dominance in the past two seasons to 13 wins in 14 games and a 2-0 lead in this season’s first-round playoff series. The lesson and the message that came from it was as clear as a hard screen or a well-placed elbow.
“Be physical,” Rockets interim coach J.B. Bickerstaff said. “Be assertive. Change the narrative of this series by the way you decide to play them. Outscrap them. Be nastier. Mix it up. Whatever it takes to win, do it.”
He got much more specific than that, with a description of the Warriors’ play in the first two games sounding as much like a message he hopes officials heed as an example for his players to follow. But the Rockets came away from
the day’s session saying they had learned from the Golden State example.
“When the bully is kicking your butt, there is only one way to respond,” guard Jason Terry said. “There’s actually two ways, but I prefer to come back and swing and fight. The other way is to run and go home. If you lose, that’s where you’re headed anyway. For us, we want to hit back, be the aggressor, fight first, and see what the results are.
“People’s perception of them is that they’re a finesse team, but if you look at the tape, they’re more a physical team. Watch how they set screens, watch how they get open, watch how they hit first. That’s what you see when the film is run over and over again.
“You’ve got to bring the fight to them, not let them hit first.” No let-up in Warriors
Much was made about a few moments in Game 1, starting with an altercation between Pat Beverley and Stephen Curry and continuing to moving screens by Draymond Green and Josh Smith. But those were isolated incidents. The Rockets came away believing they need to match the Warriors’ every-play physicality when setting screens, battling for position and crashing the boards.
“I thought we needed to be a little more nasty,” Bickerstaff said. “Things are too free-flowing. You go back and watch them play, and you watch a shot go up, you watch Andrew Bogut grab Dwight (Howard’s) jersey, you watch him push guys in the back. (If ) Klay Thompson wants to get open for a shot, he twohand chest-shoves. They’re willing to do whatever it takes to win. We have to be willing to make those same types of plays.
“In order for us to win, the aggressiveness, the assertiveness, the momentum has to change. It has to change in our favor. This is playoff basketball. This isn’t Tuesday night in February in Milwaukee. It’s time for the physicality to ramp up. It’s time for the game to get a little chippy. … It’s time to go.”
The Warriors were the NBA’s top-scoring team in the regular season and averaged 116.3 points in the three-game sweep of the Rockets. The Rockets are not likely to apply Spursstyle defensive clamps on Golden State, but with Curry playing just 19 minutes in the first two games, the Warriors are well off their usual pace, averaging 109.5 points on 45.9 percent shooting.
“It’s not going to be low-scoring,” guard James Harden said. But he also said the Rockets have not played “playoff basketball.”
“Little bit more physical,” he said. “And offensively, be more aggressive.”
Rockets center Dwight Howard went one step further.
“It’s got to be an ugly game,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be pretty. We’ve got to get in the trenches and fight.”
Those sorts of games, however, are most often won by the team that defends best and limits mistakes most. In the first two games of the series, the Rockets allowed an average of 28 points off turnovers and 21.5 second-chance points, giving the Warriors far more help than they normally need. Mental side vital
The Rockets would not seem suited to winning a low-scoring game, even if they can somehow keep the Warriors in check. But in many ways, mental toughness is just as necessary as physical toughness to beat Golden State.
The Rockets believe the Warriors have had both. Finally, they said they had been smacked around enough to hit back.
“We haven’t been aggressive,” forward Corey Brewer said. “They have been able to do what they want freely, get wide-open shots. We have to force those guys to do things they don’t want to do.
“We have to come out with a lot more intensity. Those first two games, they kicked our butts. We have to take that personally and come out and do something about it.”
“When the bully is kicking your butt, there is only one way to respond. There’s actually two ways, but I prefer to come back and swing and fight.” Rockets guard Jason Terry