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HOUSTON – The Trail Blazers will get crack at them in the NBA Western Conference finals.
Then the Eastern Conference champions — the Bucks, the 76ers or the Raptors — will get their chance, too.
But it’s probably futile.
If the Rockets couldn’t stop the Warriors on Friday night at home, in front of a sellout crowd at Toyota Center, with Golden State perhaps more vulnerable than ever this season, it’s highly doubtful any team can.
“With them, you cannot make a mental mistake, not for a second,” Houston coach Mike D’Antoni said after the Warriors beat his team 118-113 in Game 6 and clinched the series. “Obviously they present a big hump, and we just didn’t get over it.”
That hump now looks more like Mount Everest after Friday night.
Kevin Durant, sidelined because of a strained right calf and expected to return during the Western Conference finals, was in Oakland, California, recovering from a strained calf muscle in his right leg.
And Steph Curry was scoreless in the first half, having missed all five of his shots and committed three fouls, leaving him on the bench for 12 minutes.
During that stretch of vulnerability came the first clue of how great the Warriors are. At halftime, the score was tied at 57.
“These guys are a historically good basketball team,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “You don’t do this, you don’t do what these guys have done without an incredible combination of talent and character.
“I could go down the list, but I thought Steph epitomized that tonight.”
After stinking up the joint in the first half, Curry scored 33 points in the second half. He shot 9 of 15 from the floor and made all 11 free throws, including eight in the final 34.5 seconds.
But while Curry proved again he’s clutch, the Warriors also revealed something new.
Their bench, supposedly the thinnest it’s been during Golden State’s run of three NBA championships in four years, is potent. With Kerr calling on even little-used reserves such as Quinn Cook, Golden State’s bench outscored Houston’s bench 33-17.
Klay Thompson helped keep the Warriors in the game with 21 points in the first half and 27 on the night.
But Houston’s Chris Paul noted the performance of Andre Iguodala, usually overshadowed by the Splash Brothers.
“They say make the other guys beat you,” Paul said. “And Iguodala, how many 3’s did he hit?”
Five.
“Five out of eight,” Paul said. “They say make the other guys beat you, and they sure did that.”
For the second year in a row, the Warriors eliminated the team that seemed to have the best chance to beat them.
“We’re not losing to some scrubs,” Houston’s James Harden said.
Indeed, on a night they should have been beatable, the Warriors looked like champs again.