Rockets are only hope to stop Golden State
Martin Rogers: Warriors are favorite to win fourth title in five seasons
LOS ANGELES – So there are 16 teams in the NBA playoffs and therefore 16 potential champions ready to lift the trophy in mid-June. If you’re buying that, you probably also like investing in penny stocks, think timeshares offer good value and are thinking about buying a greyhound.
For the realists among us, there are two serious contenders to win the championship. Or, more accurately, one moderately plausible scenario in which the Warriors won’t clinch yet another title. So pick your poison.
The most popular view goes along these lines: Golden State will collect its fourth triumph in five years, unless James Harden and the Rockets can stop them somewhere before they even get to the Finals.
“We are one of the few teams in the NBA that just worry about (ourselves) on any given night,” Houston veteran guard Chris Paul said.
That is the kind of statement you tend to hear quite a lot from optimistic, positive-minded players. Given that Paul is a Rockets player, he is one of only a handful of people in the NBA who can state it with any level of accuracy.
For while Houston went into last year’s postseason with the best record in basketball at 65-17, this year, despite being at least 11 games worse off, they could be better set up for success.
Normally the team that takes down a dynasty gets tacit thanks and the implied support of the neutrals, yet that isn’t guaranteed this year, if and when the Warriors and the Rockets face each other in the Western Conference playoffs. It could happen as early as the second round. Golden State has simply won too much too often to remain universally liked, while Harden and the Rockets have been bombarded with criticism.
Harden’s method of accumulating points by an isolation-first tactical approach has been maligned as being “bad for basketball,” being “morally deficient
basketball” and of “pushing the limits” of the laws of the hardwood. He has been derided for flopping and flailing because, in truth, he flails often and flops sometimes. Last week, Clippers television analyst and former NBA player Don McLean said Harden was “cheating” the game.
Through the noise, Harden has scored at a rapid rate and averages 36.3 points per game. He takes more than 11 free throws per game and not everyone likes it, but they need to get used to it, because the Rockets’ momentum going into the playoffs is real.
Houston is 18-3 since a defeat to the Lakers right after the All-Star break and is blowing teams away at times, notably trouncing the Clippers, a possible firstround playoff opponent, on their own floor Wednesday.
The Rockets stack up with the Warriors better than anyone else, partly because Harden can only be slowed, not stopped, and partly because they believe they can, a thought process solidified by getting mightily close to doing so in the Western Conference finals a year ago.
Back then they led the series 3-2 and had everything in their favor until Paul strained his hamstring in Game 5 and Golden State pounced.
The problem for the rest of the league isn’t that the Warriors are difficult to beat, believe it or not.
Steve Kerr’s team has lost 24 times this season, 11 of those coming at home in the final campaign of their Oracle Arena residency.
The hapless Lakers have beaten them, and so have the flimsy Mavericks, and, on an utterly peculiar evening, the inept Suns.
No, the issue is trying to beat the Warriors in the postseason, when their minds and focus are fully loaded, and in managing to do it four times in a sevengame span.
While Houston matched up outstandingly well from a personnel standpoint last year, a little bit of extra toughness might have made a ton of difference.
This time there seems to be a great sense of resiliency, forged perhaps from struggling through adversity. The early part of the regular season was a battle to find chemistry, with Carmelo Anthony’s brief stint a disaster and Paul’s midcampaign injury layoff a serious test.
“We are healthy now,” Harden said. “Before All-Star we were not healthy. We had guys coming in and out of our team.
“We finally got our rhythm, these (last) 20-something games have been great for us. We have to take full advantage of this opportunity (to) take care of business and do what we are supposed to do.
“This is the best we have played, and it has come at the right time.”
Similarly, Paul knows that bouncing back and resurrecting the season is a neat narrative, but it comes with a catch.
“No one cares about the story,” Paul said, “unless you win it.”