Game 7 WCF: Golden State Warriors (4-3) 101 - 92 Houston Rockets (3-4)

First published May 29th 2018

In less than 90 seconds the Warriors had 4 fouls, two of those on Klay Thompson, and Green had 2 turnovers. But nothing about this early game was normal. Pace was high mostly because of the 7 turnovers between the two teams with less than 4 minutes.

Klay picks up nº 3 with 8:20 to go on the first. I find it curious how, being a Harden match-up that the Rockets completely ran away from all series, he was just relentlessly attacked. But this dangerous source of shooting and the most consistent scorer in the past few games is now sitting and it made it very easy for Houston to defend, since there was a desperation and obsession to find Durant or Curry. Kerr sure wanted some shooting with Young and Cook out there to close the quarter. The Warriors were in the bonus for so long but there wasn't a lot of success on the part of Houston to exploit that. Harden did get a great scoring quarter.

Midway through the second even our free throws were miserable. Abused in the paint, more sloppy turnovers, more offensive rebounds. To understand how bad this was to watch let's point out that Houston had a +10 point lead with 8:30 to go in the first half and it was a miserable score of 34-23! It's pretty clear no team was shooting well but FTs and second chances gave the Rockets a 5 point lead out of the first. The Harden/Capela PnR resulted in two easy lobs for the big man after Draymond spent most of the series doing a wonderful job stopping it.

Houston getting those great looks with offensive rebounding was just murdering the Dubs. PJ Tucker continues to shine, as did Capela, but the issue of Warriors players not caring about defensive rebounding remains (Swaggy plz). Only Green ever tries to box out anyone. Durant, considering his size, is incredibly frustrating in this aspect. And i'm pretty sure Kerr was screaming the same thing considering how much more careful Durant was about that when he came back for the second half.

I can't stress how different it is when KD works harder on defense. When he's bothering people at the rim every aspect of our game becomes better from it. He's getting more buckets resulting from his effort at the back than in the awful ISOs he's been doing this series and knowing how great of a job Ariza did contesting his breakaway threes.

Coming from this, the Warriors 3rd quarter happened. The first time i felt momentum really change was the Nick Young three. Miscommunications are happening on both sides but the Warriors are getting some flow from those chances. No one benefits from that environment more than Curry. ^{I chose this over the one with the moving screen.} Houston went ice age cold from the outside which only fueled this run even more. By the end of this play they were in a 0-22 run from three and would go on to a playoff record 0-27 before making another.

Curry started the final quarter in a three guard lineup instead of coming back in around 7-6 minutes to go. Early, this became an fight back-and-forth between Harden and Curry plays. One of those saw Curry missed an open three but Harden turns it over on the other end for a Curry-assisted Klay 3 point shot, creating a 10 point lead to the Warriors. And then this and this is just not about strategy. KD had been missing these shots for 2 and a half games now.

The Rockets turned to Gordon: stripped Durant on a drive, assisted a PJ Tucker three and got two shots in the paint. And doing it against good defenders and bigger guys, using the most of his great acceleration and first step. He had a fantastic performance in the first half as well. He seemed engaged straight away, carrying the minutes without Harden as well. He would however go cold with the rest of his teammates on the third.

I should mention that Durant had a couple of big shots in the mid-range against Gordon. I criticized Durant for attacking Gordon on post ups because Eric is strong and you can't bully him like that. Here, however, Durant was facing him directly and shooting his normal shot over him. He's not Ariza and can't contest that rise so that's how you beat him.

James Harden had a couple of very costly and abysmal turnovers in the clutch that simply killed the game. I thought they played very well in the final plays after that, particularly on defense, but the deficit was nearly beyond reach. But even earlier, in the third quarter warriors run, Harden reacted to the game slipping away by just breaking down mentally and rushing multiple plays and it was huge.

In a few individual notes... Bell might be the guy Harden gets to the basket the easiest with. I'm not sure he ever missed a layup driving on him. He started with an unfortunate game, even had two offensive rebounds where he couldn't get anything because he missed-timed it. But his chemistry with Curry in the third was awesome during that run so overall he just brings something to the offense that the alternatives don't.

I don't really get why you'd attack Looney so much when Nick Young is on the floor, but i saw Harden requesting the specific switch for Looney. I get it if you want the PnR with Capela but for an ISO you should just kill Swaggy straight up. Curry was never afraid to look to attack Ryan Anderson when he was out there. Ryan had 0 FGA in his minutes so the most he contributed today was providing rest for others. If he wasn't shooting why not get Luc instead of him?...

Curry had a really good defensive series. Klay staying on the court even with all those fouls for as long as he did to me deserves great praise. Impeccable second half. And finally a great deal of praise for Livingston who really stepped up as the 5th guy for this team's clutch players, handled a lot more minutes than what he usually does and in many points of this series was a crucial player in looking for better ball movement.

I'm sorry i wrote a fucking essay here, but being a game 7 i wanted to touch a lot of stuff. People might feel this was more inevitable than it actually was...

(Reddit)