What’s next for Golden State Warriors-Houston Rockets?
The Golden State Warriors lost to the Houston Rockets on Jan. 20, 116-108. With the season series complete, what do we know about how a potential playoff encore might look?
From the opening tip of the Golden State Warriors’ third and final meeting with the Houston Rockets this regular season, ABC‘s Jeff Van Gundy was already complaining.
“Give me a rational explanation why they’re only playing three times this year,” the NBA critic/broadcaster said, going on to suggest that they should play “nine times.”
Van Gundy may very well get his wish. With the Rockets’ 116-108 victory over Golden State on Jan. 20, they moved to 3.5 games ahead of the Spurs for the No. 2 seed in the West. While San Antonio is dangerous (as are other second-round contenders like the Minnesota Timberwolves and Oklahoma City Thunder), there does not appear to be a team in the conference equipped to beat Houston at full strength.
Just as the Rockets appear a cut above the rest, however, Golden State seems yet a cut higher. At least, it did, before dropping its second game in as many tries against a healthy James Harden.
There are varying opinions on how important these regular season results are. But we are building up a large-enough sample to start to understand the intricacies of potential Western Conference Finals matchup.
Both teams built on their backcourts
The Rockets do not have anything close to a Kevin Durant or Draymond Green. Even if Harden and Chris Paul are a better duo than Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson, the overall talent disparity is difficult to reconcile.
However, there is sneaky value in Houston’s backcourt edge. Durant may be a greater player than Harden or Paul, but both can do something Durant cannot: run an elite offense without their co-star.
Curry without Durant obliterates all one-superstar iterations, as the Warriors score 121.4 points per 100 possessions. But when Durant plays without Curry, that number drops to 110.6.
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Houston’s offensive rating is always stellar, so long as either Paul or Harden is out there. With Harden and no Paul, it is 116.4. With Paul and no Harden, it is still 115.6.
Curry may make his team go, but the Warriors’ ability to survive without him has always been a relative plus. Consider that last year’s Finals were relatively even with LeBron James on the court (minus-1.8 net rating for Cleveland), and that Golden State’s convincing 4-1 series victory was almost entirely achieved across the 28 minutes James sat (minus-37.4 net rating). While it’s easy to say Golden State made its bones during Curry’s minutes (plus-7.5), its minus-0.5 rating when Curry sat (51 minutes) was just as crucial, if not more so.
The Rockets are different from any team Steve Kerr‘s Warriors have ever played. They are relentless for 48 minutes. Kerr cannot simply match Thompson’s minutes with Harden’s like he did in the past, or as he has with Kyrie Irving, Damian Lillard and Russell Westbrook. Thompson might be the team’s best Harden stopper, but he is also its best on Paul.
Shaun Livingston and Andre Iguodala are not terrible options, but neither has the agility they once did. Curry has never been able to handle Harden. He’s sometimes disruptive against Paul (mostly because Paul seems to think he can take greater advantage of the matchup than he can), but cannot deny him getting to his spots.
Even with the Warriors’ stable of superstars and defensive specialists, the Paul-Harden pairing has series-altering potential.
Golden State’s advantages
Curry, of course, is still the greatest force in this series. The Rockets held him to a poor night in the Jan. 20 game (19 points on 20 shots, six turnovers), but that was more about Curry missing shots and playing sloppily at the end of a five-game road trip than it was about high-pressure defense.
Of all Houston’s impact defenders — Paul, Trevor Ariza, Luc Mbah a Moute, PJ Tucker, Nene, Clint Capela — none is really built to guard Curry. Paul is too small, and no one else is quick enough. For the Rockets to make other guys beat them, they have to commit multiple bodies to Steph.
This, of course, is what the Warriors are built for. Thompson and Durant are the best alive at scoring against a compromised defense, while Green is a 4-on-3 maestro. Those three stars can actually be defended rather well by Ariza, Mbah a Moute and Tucker, but that also means the Warriors have forced better offensive players off the floor in Ryan Anderson and Eric Gordon.
Whatever edge the Rockets have in the non-Curry minutes, Golden State has when its best guys are in. There is no lineup dilemma. The four All-Stars plus any one of Iguodala, Livingston, Jordan Bell, Zaza Pachulia, David West or Omri Casspi will match up favorably with whatever combination Mike D’Antoni decides on.
Can Houston win?
The Rockets will not get swept by the Warriors. It seems unlikely that they lose in five. Their ability to pressure Golden State’s defense for 48 minutes will make it a tough series. When Curry sits, his team will be definitively outmatched, which is a new phenomenon.
For the Rockets to actually win the series, they will have to hang close enough with the starters and closers out there to make those non-Curry minutes matter. It looks like they’re still one dynamic player away from doing that.
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Short of a trade or buyout, they’ll need either Mbah a Moute and Tucker to hit shots (like they did on Jan. 20, combining for 26 points on 17 shots), or Gordon and Anderson to defend. The former seems more likely, but both are tall tasks — especially in a Game 6 or 7. For Houston to win, that is undoubtably what it will take.