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All good, bad, and STEPH BACKs of the Golden State Warriors' 118-113 win over the Houston Rockets in Game 6 on Friday to close their second-round series, 4-2.
Winner: OG Splash Brothers
Kevin Durant's size space was important for the sixth game, and for just over two-quarters, Stephen Curry did not do much to fill it. After Durant felt a calf strain in the fifth game that will keep him from staying at least a week, there was a belief that we would see the Warriors of the day, with Curry leading the charge, straightening up at about thirty meters and clowning the opponent abreast. his way to a winning signature. As if the desire for nostalgia was not real enough, Andrew Bogut also started in the center.
But Curry was cold. And not in this kind of freezing cold, but rather as if it would be expensive at Golden State, maybe at the series. In the first half, Curry scored three fouls, played just 12 minutes, shot five times and missed them all, and scored zero points for the game. first time in his playoff career. And yet, Houston could do nothing more than keep the game tied at halftime. This is largely because Klay Thompson was fire on Curry ice.
There is something about Thompson and Game 6s. In the final of the 2016 West Conference against Oklahoma City, he has accumulated 41 points. two years later, against Houston, he was 35. In the first half, Friday, Thompson scored 21 points, scored five and scored eight of his 15 goals. In the regular season, Thompson has 15 or 15 times in the competition. whole game. Usually, when Thompson catches fire, the Warriors look like an unstoppable force, but in that context, he saved his life. And yet, by the time the story of the night was about to pass, Curry had disappeared and Thompson's courageous efforts were simply not enough to close Houston, the two ancestors of this Warrior dynasty did not leave that will happen.
Curry scored his first bucket with just under 10 minutes in the third quarter. Slowly but surely, he began to warm up and suddenly he was cooking. The 3 started to enter – not only the 3 open, but also the disputed and unbalanced. At each stroke, Curry repainted the paint in the second half and only missed four field goal attempts after half-time. In the end, he finished with 33 points – 23 in the fourth quarter only.
Thompson was not finished either. The Warriors were up three minutes and they had 36 seconds left and Curry was stuck on the right side of the field. He bounced the ball to an open player, Draymond Green, who drove and surrendered to Andre Iguodala, who slipped the ball to Thompson. Thompson's 28 feet splashed and sealed the game. The bullet had found its way from one Brother Splash to another, Splash Brother, scathing between the tights that helped give the franchise the first title. The room was an old school warrior in a T-shirt. When the buzzer sounded, Thompson and Curry combined to get 60 of the Warriors' 118 points. The peacock we were waiting for ensued.
Loser: Chris Paul
Let's say that with the series in play, in a match in which the Rockets did not only need to win, but they should have won, Chris Paul has arrived. He was a little boring – was looking for contact on almost every game and created it when he needed it – and hit the fashionable midrange jumpers as he had returned to his climax. Paul scored 27 points, collected six assists, made three 3s and grabbed 11 rebounds, the highest number on his team. (The starting point for the Rockets has had such a totality of twists, which involves their center, Clint Capela, but it's at least a moral victory for Paul, his six-footer.)
In the third quarter, Paul split the story into the playoffs by forcing through Golden State's defense with deceptive dribbling and then, at the last possible moment, returning two perfect lobs to Capela. But the basketball gods would not let Paul spend the night. He made three of his five shots in the fourth quarter, he took more rebounds and seemed to want to beat the Rockets. But Houston could not stop and Paul could not handle the Curry attack.
"They just outperformed us," Paul told reporters in postgame. "They played smarter than us and did the big games, and we did not do it."
It was a succinct and precise summary of the evening, but that does not necessarily describe Paul's performances. Whatever the case may be, another chance to break into the NBA finals had escaped him. Paul is 34 years old. We'll see if this was his last and best chance to definitely change the conversation about his playoff career.
Loser: James Harden
We have to start here: Harden scored 35 points on 25 throws, hit six 3, caught eight rebounds, added five assists and even managed four steals. It was, in all points of view, a good game Harden. But he also missed five free throws. And you may have noticed that the Rockets have lost five points.
Harden was an 88% free-throw shooter in the regular season, and in the playoffs he had no games in which he missed more than two free throws. Until the sixth part. I do not subscribe to the notion that a moment may be too big for a professional athlete or do not believe in a "clutch gene", but Harden does not help the argument to prove otherwise.
With only 2:24 left and the Rockets had just reduced the Warriors' lead by two points, Harden had the ball and a chance to regain the advantage – but he was holding the ball. right forearm and made Draymond Green fly. The turnover led to a Curry lay-up on the possession that followed. Paul answered with a layup on his side, then Curry hit a 3 who silenced the crowd. Harden responded by doing this:
Undefendable does not begin to describe it. Harden has worn the Rockets this season; While Houston played more like a lottery team early in the season, Harden did everything possible to bring them back to the fight, including scoring at least 30 points 32 times in a row. But he actually threw this game with an irony. Whether it's fair or not, another playoff attempt will open the title MVP, and perhaps even the entire Rockets offensive system, to a heavy dose of doubt.
Winner: Andre Iguodala and the bench of warriors
The Rockets game plan had to be easier with Durant. The talent imbalance had been compensated and they could send more defenders to Curry and Thompson and force actors like Iguodala to beat them. The 34-year-old had enough space and time to make a cake before he got to three. But Iguodala got one in the first quarter. He hit another in the second. Two in the third. And a crucial element in the fourth. In the end, he had made five triples in eight attempts. The last time he had had at least as much in a match was in 2013, his first season with the Warriors. The most important task of Iguodala on the field has always been defense, especially in this series, as he has been paired with Harden most of the time. But he is more than solid in the playoffs: 11.8 points per game, six more than in the regular season.
And yet, Iguodala was not the most unlikely source of offense for warriors. With only 10 minutes left in the second quarter, Steve Kerr had already faced 11 players due to Durant's absence and Curry problems. In one way or another, they could stay afloat. Until then, the Rockets bench had dominated the exhausted group of Warriors. It also forced Durant to average 42 minutes per game. But in the sixth game, the Golden State bench improved: Kevon Looney scored 14 points (6 of 8) and captured five rebounds, and Shaun Livingston earned 11 points – his first double-digit playoff game. These two players spearheaded a 33-point night off the bench, while the Houston bench could only accumulate 17 points. Depth was a problem throughout the season for the Warriors, but in the sixth game, he could have made the difference between advancing and having to play a seventh game.
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