Fired-up Houston shows why it is NBA’s top seed
HOUSTON — After the Warriors’ comfortable Game 1 win in the Western Conference finals, many wondered whether the Rockets could make this a series. Houston answered decisively Wednesday night, blowing out Golden State to even things at one game apiece.
Both teams return to Oakland for Game 3 on Sunday, ready to resume this highly anticipated NBA matchup.
For the Warriors, the Game 1 victory made it easy to forget that this is a team prone to emotional letdowns. Game 2 provided plenty of reminders.
Over the past few playoff games, the Warriors began to resemble the group that steamrolled through the postseason
spring with a 16-1 record. But Golden State let bad habits resurface in Houston. After enduring a 127-105 beatdown by the Rockets at the Toyota Center, the Warriors face an important question: Was their Game 2 implosion simply a lingering hangover from Monday’s victory, or the sign of something more troubling?
“We got what we deserved,” Golden State head coach Steve Kerr said. “They kicked our butts. There’s no other way to say it.”
After the Warriors pulled away in the second half Monday for a 13-point win in Game 1, many wondered: Is Houston not the contender that its 65win regular season suggested it was? Is Golden State poised for another easy path to the NBA Finals?
Rockets head coach Mike D’Antoni responded to such skepticism with an emphatic message: With the series — and by extension, his team’s season — essentially hanging in the balance, he would stick with the isolation-heavy system that had paved Houston’s way to the overall No. 1 seed. The Warriors knew exactly what to expect.
But less than 48 hours after committing nine turnovers in Game 1, Golden State coughed up the ball five times in the first five minutes Wednesday. After holding the Rockets to 39.1 percent shooting in the first 12 minutes, the Warriors were slow switching off ball screens in the second quarter. With plenty of room to operate, Houston forward P.J. Tucker — fresh off a one-point dud in Game 1 — had 13 of his 22 points in the period.
With about a minute left in the half, Trevor Ariza knifed through the lane for a dunk to give the Rockets a 64-45 lead. It was around then that Draymond Green’s mother, Mary Babers-Green, tweeted, “I could have stay in the room and watched @EMPIRE & @STAR!”
Unlike numerous times this season, when Golden State has wiped away first-half miscues with one of its signature thirdlast quarter runs, it continued to miss wide-open jumpers and surrender plenty of clear looks at the rim. With the game well out of hand midway through the fourth, Tucker drained a three-pointer in front of the Warriors’ bench as the crowd hollered in delight.
As his teammates headed toward the bench for a timeout, Warriors forward Kevin Durant stopped a referee and pointed to his right wrist, complaining about an earlier non-call. It wasn’t long before Durant was assessed a technical foul for again jawing with an official. Moments later, after Green was called for his fourth foul, a chant rained down: “DRAY-MOND SUCKS!”
“We were trying to be too cute with our exchanges and our switches and all that stuff instead of just manning up and playing one-on-one defense,” Warriors guard Stephen Curry said. “Whether they score or not, as hard as we’re working on the defensive end, they’re working as hard on the offensive end to get shots up.”
On a night it could’ve effectively sealed the Rockets’ fate, Golden State was forced to face familiar issues. Players had gotten consumed with the officiating instead of focusing on the next play. Far too often for Kerr’s liking, the Warriors too often stood and stared as Durant (37 points on 13-for-22 shooting) tried to beat his man off the dribble.
Perhaps most concerning was that, more than two weeks after he missed more than a month with a knee injury, Curry has yet to regain a consistent rhythm. In 34 minutes, he had 16 points on 7-for-19 shooting, including 1-for-8 from three-point range. Two nights after holding his own defensively, Curry repeatedly surrendered easy shots to James Harden (27 points, 10 rebounds).
It didn’t help that, without the rapid ball movement that frees him up for open jumpers, Warriors guard Klay Thompson totaled only eight points on 3-for-11 shooting. Even Green didn’t look like himself. Perhaps Golden State’s most important player these playoffs, he botched several defensive sequences and let his frustration affect his offense.
The Warriors have three days to review the video, correct mistakes and try to take back the series lead with a Game 3 win at Oracle Arena. Golden State is as equipped as any team in years to recover from a 22-point pummeling.
“An off day will do us good,” Thompson said. “We just need to get away for a bit, refocus, come back and be the team we know we can be. We’ll be OK.”
“We got what we deserved. They kicked our butts. There’s no other way to say it.”
Steve Kerr, Warriors head coach