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OAKLAND, Calif. – James Harden, Chris Paul and the Houston Rockets organization have sat down over the past year to lament "What if".
What if Paul did not pull his hamstrings in last year's Western Conference final against the Golden State Warriors? What if the Rockets continued to control the show? And if they had played against the Cleveland Cavaliers in the NBA Finals?
It's a life of if, the old ones in the bar, so, alone with your thoughts in the dark, though.
That's why this moment is vital for the Rockets. It's a chance to grasp this karmic turn. Kevin Durant's calf injury Wednesday night in the third quarter of the Warriors' 104-99 win in the fifth game of this year's conference semifinal propelled the series out of its orbit.
This changed Houston's opportunity. In the blink of an eye, the Rockets underdog status was canceled. No Durant. No cousins DeMarcus. Stephen Curry in a kind of weird funk that has afflicted his whole game for a week. Houston had already vaporized the 20-point Golden State advance.
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The warriors understood it. They squeezed each other and stared at each other as Durant descended the tunnel.
"We all looked at each other," Curry said. "There were some smiles as to what it meant for us as a team – the guys who would have to step up their efforts in those moments."
The Rockets knew it too. It was a three-point game 14 minutes from the end. Durant was gone. They all suspected that it was serious, perhaps an injury to the Achilles tendon.
Iman Shumpert, who had been close to Durant when he shot a few moments before the injury, had sworn Durant had not landed. He asked his Rocket teammates if they had seen him, perhaps thinking that by the time he had not felt Durant.
"Even in war, you do not want to hurt another guy," said Shumpert.
Durant had not sat on Shumpert, they told him. It was touchless and he had looked back as if someone had kicked him, a classic reaction to an Achilles tendon injury or calf. The Rockets knew that Durant would not come back.
They knew that if they could win those 14 minutes, they would have leverage. It was a chance to change the meaning of the story. It was a chance to make the game 5 the last match of the warriors at Oracle Arena.
Paul only scored three points in this sequence, missing his three shots. Harden, perhaps due to some fatigue, came out with nine minutes of change compared to normal practice. When he came back after a break, the Rockets lost seven minutes to play. Harden took a single shot in the last minutes.
With this precious chance in their palms, the Rockets simply could not perform.
The memories will be in place of Curry, who finally scored 12 points in the fourth quarter. The Rockets were not agile enough to choke him, so the Warriors were forced to deploy a formation with limited shooting options.
Memories of warriors avoiding the ball and entering the locker room with a 3-2 series and learning that manual tests showed that Durant had avoided an Achilles injury. Memories of coach Steve Kerr, who relayed the inspiring speech delivered by Liverpool FC manager Jurgen Klopp the day before, calling his team a "fierce giant".
The Warriors won a match without Durant on which to support while they scored 47 points in the second half. And the Rockets added an extra layer to their Warriors nightmare.
Rockets can not go out that way. If they do, they might never be able to recover from it. Paul has worked his entire career to get this kind of luck. He dealt blow after play in the playoffs.
One year, when he was in New Orleans, pick-and-roll partner Tyson Chandler was injured. On two occasions, when Paul was with the Los Angeles Clippers, he lost his star teammate Blake Griffin in the playoffs, once as a result of an ankle injury and once in the foot.
In 2015, Paul was injured on the hamstring and missed two games in a second-round series that the Clippers lost. In 2016, he broke his hand with his 2-1 team against the Portland Trail Blazers and his team lost the next three games without him.
Then, of course, last year, he dropped in the last seconds of the fifth game while the Rockets had taken the lead 3-2. You'll remember the rest: the Warriors won sixth and seventh places en route to another title.
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Harden has struggled to return to the NBA Finals since 2012. His tenure in Houston has been defined by glorious regular seasons, then by disappointments in the playoffs. After this week's big games 3 and 4 in Houston, Harden was well placed for the fifth game.
He does not have it.
But Durant will probably not be back for match 6 or a potential match 7. Paul, Harden and the rest of the Rockets missed the opening that had been presented to them in Game 5. But as the Warriors of last season, who rallied after seeing Paul fall, the length of the Rockets dropped. a playoff series offers them a last chance.
Missing on this one, following last season, would be pure misery. The Rockets now have something they really do not expect: the advantage. They always said that they thought they could win directly, but their confidence in whistles from the start of the series was telling: to defeat the Warriors, they needed some help.
Durant's misstep presented them within reach of this copper ring. Paul is 34 years old. Harden ate the apple several times without achieving his goal. This could be the last chance.
"We want their best shot, do you know what I mean?" Paul said. "J & # 39; hope [Durant is] d & # 39; agreement. We will see."
We will see about a lot.
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