Subscribe
Follow Us
The Houston Rockets had a huge opportunity to grab home-court advantage back from the Golden State Warriors in this first-round NBA Playoffs series, but they let it slip through their fingers. After trailing for much of the first half, the shorthanded Warriors came back and picked up a 104-93 win in The Bay to grab a 2-1 series lead.
Golden State did it without Jimmy Butler, who sat out with a pelvic contusion but is trending toward playing in Game 4. Golden State was limited on offense without Butler, but Stephen Curry more than picked up the slack. The star guard scored 36 points on 12-for-23 shooting to go with seven rebounds and nine assists in a vintage playoff performance.
Curry is obviously at the top of very opponent's scouting report and especially so with Butler in street clothes. However, the Rockets still couldn't stop him. After the game, Houston head coach Ime Udoka explained what went wrong that let Curry go nuts in Game 3, via TalkBasket.
“The communication off the ball with Red’s was really off,” Udoka said before later adding that the team failed to consistently get the ball out of Curry's hands like it needed to.
Curry got a lot of open looks working off the ball, coming off screens. He also found some driving lanes to the basket with some give-and-go actions after Houston blitzed him in ball screen actions, so those are things that need to be cleaned up before Game 4.
The Rockets lost home-court in this series after Game 1, when the Warriors pulled away from them in the second half to get on top in the series. Now, all of the pressure is on Houston to get a win in Game 4 and avoid going down 3-1 in the series.
Winning Game 4 figures to be even tougher than winning Game 3 was with Butler presumably back in the lineup after the scary fall that he took in Game 2.
However, this Houston team is one of the best defensive teams in the NBA, so they have what it takes to slow Stephen Curry down more than they were able to in Game 3. Whether they can do that remains to be seen, but they need to in order to keep their chances of advancing alive.
