Warriors on brink of another 3-1 collapse as Rockets’ advantages continue to add up

Throughout NBA history, there haven been 290 instances of a team going down 3-1 in a playoff series, and only 13 times has that team come back to win. The Houston Rockets put themselves in position to become the 14th with a blowout Game 6 win over the Warriors on Friday, setting up the two best words in all of sports on Sunday night in Houston. 

Game seven. 

On the flip side, the Warriors know all too well about blowing a 3-1 lead, as they are one of the 13 teams to do so. Nobody needs any reminders about the 2016 Finals. Certainly not in Golden State. But this storyline will be front and center over these next two days as the Warriors are most definitely on the brink of having it happen again.

Their three wins notwithstanding, the Warriors have felt like the team playing uphill for the majority of this series. They’re being suffocated by Houston’s defense and killed on the offensive glass, and their desperate, if valiant, efforts to punch above their weight have caught up with them over the last two Rockets blowouts. 

Not even Houston’s 23-point differential over Games 5 and 6 does adequate justice to how thoroughly Golden State has been dominated since going up 3-1. Houston’s defense, which has suddenly added another layer of destruction with the throwback rim protection of Steven Adams, shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. But a lot of people are probably surprised by this Rockets offense averaging 123 points over the last two games. 

They shouldn’t be. 

Houston was damn near a top-10 offense this season, so let’s end this talk right now about scoring being some kind of debilitating weakness. Yes, they lack a go-to scorer in the most traditional or consistent sense, and if you don’t want to look any deeper than that, then yes, you’re going to be surprised when this team puts buckets on a team like Golden State, an elite defense in its own right. 

The Rockets have plenty of shot-creators and shot-makers, and on any given night any one or two of them can get it going at an All-Star level. When they don’t, sure, offense can look like a lost cause. But when they do? Combined with this defense, you have a serious problem on your hands. 

Jalen Green won Game 2 for the Rockets with 38 points. Alperen Sengun had 31 in Game 4 and 21, to go along with 14 rebounds, six assists and three steals, in Game 6. Dillon Brooks had 24 in Game 5. Fred VanVleet, who had 29 with six 3s on Friday, has 80 points and 18 3-pointers over the last three games of this series. This four-point play from VanVleet to begin the fourth quarter, after the Warriors had cut the deficit to two, was a dagger. 

“I thought the key play was the four-point play to start the [fourth] quarter,” Steve Kerr said. “That’s on us as a staff. We’ve got to make sure [our guys are] matched up. They just threw it, we didn’t guard VanVleet when he threw it up the floor, knocks it down, gets the free throw. Felt like a game-changing play.”

Indeed, this is a Houston offense that sources out scoring by committee. In some ways it makes them even more difficult to defend, since there isn’t what most people would call an obvious No. 1 to which Golden State can devote disproportionate attention. 

“One thing about this team is we’ve prided ourselves on our balance all season and having different guys that can step up and make shots when it’s in rhythm,” VanVleet said. 

Collectively, the Rockets have one-on-one advantages all over the court. They are younger, faster, more athletic, much bigger, hungrier (both Jimmy Butler and Draymond Green pointed to Houston being quicker to the 50-50 loose balls as perhaps the main separator in this series so far), and they’re clearly not intimidated in the slightest by Golden State’s pedigree. 

Pedigree, in fact, might be about the only thing Kerr’s guys have to lean on at this point, as the Warriors’ actual basketball advantages in this series are becoming more and more limited as Houston’s confidence continues to climb. 

Understand, this isn’t just some slugfest the Rockets are only managing to control by mucking up the game. The Rockets might just be a better basketball team than the Warriors, whose famed offensive system is systeming so much, while the Rockets expose the lack of individual creation outside of Curry and lean more and more into the traditional size and speed elements that win most tales of the basketball tape. 

Shooting and defense has always given Golden State the edge, even while operating at a pretty consistent size disadvantage over the years. But recently the Rockets, whose defensive discipline against Curry’s unrelenting movement has belied their youth, have been significantly more efficient from 3, and they’re actually shooting a better percentage as a team for the series as a whole. 

While the Warriors missed 15 of their first 16 fourth-quarter shots, guys like Jabari Smith Jr. and Tari Eason can, and have, hurt the Warriors as forgotten-about snipers. Brooks is over 38% from 3 for the series. VanVleet is on absolute fire. Five Rockets are averaging at least 14 points in this series. For the Warriors, that number is two. 

In other words, Stephen Curry and Jimmy Butler are largely trying to win a two-against-five scoring battle. When they get help from Brandin Podziemski or Buddy Hield, it’s doable. When they don’t, they’re putting all their eggs into the Curry-needs-to-go-crazy basket. 

Against a defense that is solely devoted to taking him out — even as great as Curry still is — that’s tough. He’s capable. Two years ago the Warriors looked outmatched against a faster, younger team in the Sacramento Kings only for Curry to go for 50 in Game 7. Maybe he’ll do something like that again on Sunday. He’s remaining positive, even as the momentum of this series has clearly swung away from the Warriors. 

“In February, if you told us we would have a Game 7, we’d take that all day long,” Curry said. “How we got here, not happy about it. But we do have another opportunity.”