The Toyota Center was packed Monday night for a huge matchup between the two best teams in the NBA, the Houston Rockets, and Golden State Warriors. This series is likely the most competitive series we're going to get for the remainder of the year. With these two superteams, everyone was anticipating the showdown, and game one didn't disappoint. With a Golden State win, here is my summary of the game:
[First Half]
After the first play of the game, the Warriors get entirely lost on a double screen and leave Harden WIDE open for a three-pointer, a bad shot by the Warriors on the other end leads to a Harden layup then Draymond pushes Harden away. Draymond receives a technical, and by now you think the Warriors are in deep trouble. They fall behind by nine when they shore up things that were plaguing them. One of the most significant items on my to see list was the switching, in the first part of the first quarter, switching on to weak defenders was very prominent. Harden and Curry both matched up with each other on back to back possessions allowing a bucket. After Iguodala got his second foul, the Rockets were adamant about switching Looney onto Harden. Looney struggled at first, but after a few possessions did okay. Kevin Durant as we know is unguardable and is getting what he wants when he wants for the most part. But, when a smaller guy is matched up with him in the post, the Rockets are really fast about the help side defender grabbing the smaller guard and putting him on the player who is guarding them. It hasn't worked a lot so far, with Paul on Durant multiple times in the post.
Curry has looked good, sometimes he gets caught dribbling too much, and the result was him losing the ball. When he didn't over-dribble, he attacked the basket multiple times and had success, one on an easy lay-in and the other on a switch hand layup. The only time he wasn't successful was when he was blocked by Capela. Speaking of Capela, he has been phenomenal, he has been there for a couple of lobs and dump downs underneath the basket while switching on to Curry and Durant being wildly successful. Capela stymied two Curry drives with a steal and the block while making Durant pass out twice. Harden has been spectacular in every aspect besides defense. He is hitting his step-back threes with ease and getting to the rim at will. He hasn't made a statement with his passing like he usually does quite yet, and he never did. The value of the three-point shot is evident with Durant and Harden, with Durant making eight field goals, same with Harden, but Harden has 24 points (with free throws obviously.) The Rockets can not play Gerald Green in this series. He is a total liability defensively. He got caught sleeping on a Klay Thompson cut, took an ill adviced three, and got beat on more defensive possessions.
[Second Half]
An Easy cut and finish by Iguodala from Green and that was the telling sign of what was going to happen in the second half. Harden and Capela went out with 2:41 left in the third quarter with the Rockets down eleven. With the game on the verge of getting out of control, Durant then got a wide-open midrange jumper and then draws a charge on the other end, he then comes out. Which at the time didn't make sense because the Warriors could've slammed the door. The Rockets proceeded to cut the lead to seven, but it just wasn't enough.
The Warriors began clicking on all cylinders. They took advantage of the switches and defended well off the switches. The most significant thing I saw that might have helped the Rockets cut the lead is the ability to not have two defensive liabilities on the court with Gerald Green and Harden. Harden in the second half was atrocious on the defensive end, getting back cut by Thompson, beat by Durant and Curry on multiple occasions. In the fourth quarter, the Warriors kept the foot on the gas pedal, allowing nothing comfortable on the offensive end. The ball was not moving at all for the Rockets, which it usually doesn't, but the struggle here is that the Warriors are too talented on the defensive end and have more talent there than the Rockets. It is tiring for players like Harden to go into Isolation, and the Warriors don't have to expound that much energy.
Another aspect I wanted to watch and see was the wing players for both teams. The Warriors wing significantly outplayed the Rockets. Ariza had five fouls and shot 1-5 from three, Tucker had one point and shot 0-3 from the field, Green finished with 6 points, but awful defense and Luc Mbah Moute was horrendous with 0 points and 0-6 from the field along with several missed layups and dunks. On the contrast, Golden State had Nick Young go for 9 points, and 3-5 from three, Livingston with 7 and five rebounds, and Iguodala was the standout with 11 points, 2-3 from the field and four rebounds and fantastic defense. Thompson was the key to the game I feel like. He provided no fear in shooting and was keeping the Rockets on their toes the whole night. Draymond Green was fantastic tonight with filling up the stat sheet and disrupting a lot of things the Rockets did offensively. He showed why he is so valuable to this team and showed kids all around that you don't need to score to affect a basketball game.
We can talk about Harden lighting it up, but he got badly exposed on the defensive end, and if the Rockets want to win the series, they need to hide him, or he needs to fight through better on the switches to stay on his man. He cannot be matched up with Curry or Durant a lot, or the series will be over fast. After Chris Paul got into that altercation with Durant, he struggled the rest of the night. The Rockets need a second scoring option next game and can't rely on Harden to create all of the offense. It is a poor start, but they can recover by doing better preventing switches on to guys they don't want on the Warriors stars while generating offense on the other end. Although the role players struggled for Houston, Harden needs to do a better job getting his teammates involved, and hopefully, he can find that for game two. The Rockets need to hit shots (45% from the field) and generate some stops as well.
Final: Golden State 119 Rockets 106
Durant- 37 points, 3 rebounds, 1 assist, 1 block
Thompson- 28 points, 4 rebounds, 2 assists, 2 steals
Curry- 18 points, 6 rebounds, 8 assists, 2 steals, 1 block
Green- 5 points, 9 rebounds, 9 assists, 2 steals, 2 blocks
Harden- 41 points, 4 rebounds, 7 assists, 1 steal
Paul- 23 points, 11 rebounds, 3 assists, 1 steal
Capela- 12 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists, 1 steal, 2 blocks
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