It looked unlikely a week ago, but the Houston Rockets have tied their series against the Golden State Warriors at 3-3. They won back-to-back elimination games to do it. There will be a Game 7. It will be played in Houston. If the Rockets can win that Game 7, they’d be finally ending a chapter in Houston history. But can these Rockets really become just the fourteenth team to come back from a 3-1 deficit?
Rockets’ Game 7 Chance To Lay Old Demons To Rest
The “Rivalry”
While the odds are, in many ways, still against them, the Rockets are now just one win away from eliminating the Warriors. The Stephen Curry-led Golden State Warriors. The team that overshadowed and undermined the entire tenure of Houston’s second-greatest ever player. With James Harden‘s promising Los Angeles Clippers having just been eliminated by the Denver Nuggets, he may go down in history as the best player to never win a ring. But not having one will always keep him out of discussions of the very best. As a Rocket, Harden lost three separate playoff series to Curry’s Warriors, twice in the Western Conference Finals.
If there was a rivalry between the Rockets and the Warriors, then it was like a sibling one, where the younger brother is still a little kid whose arms never quite reach long enough to punch back. The Rockets never beat the Warriors in the playoffs. Their biggest claim is that it took a Chris Paul hamstring injury and an infamously officiated Game 7 for the Warriors to prevail in 2018. But prevail the Warriors did, all the way to another title.
Harden abandoned ship after the 2019-20 season, and the Rockets took five years to make the playoffs again. The fact that they ran straight back into Curry’s Warriors felt predetermined somehow. It was either the ideal, symbolic new beginning or a cruel last twist of the knife. When the Rockets sank into a 3-1 deficit, the knife felt distinctly twisted.
How The Rockets Got To Game 7
There have been two major changes for the Rockets since going down 3-1. One has been the complete embrace of their reliance on big man Steven Adams. The other, not exactly a brilliant coaching adjustment of any kind, is that Fred VanVleet has started hitting shots. Over the first three games of the series, VanVleet shot 6-29 from three. Over the last three, 18-27. Not only did Golden State have to completely abandon their strategy of giving him open pull-ups, but VanVleet still shot 6-9 in Game 6, long after they’d already done so.
Golden State even started to deploy ball denial and traps against the offensively-limited guard in the second half. Oftentimes, teams just need their superstars out there to give the defense something to worry about and make things easier for the role players. Curry himself is a prime example of this. If Golden State is going to give VanVleet the superstar treatment, then the Rockets can get away with not having one, even if future star Amen Thompson did have a monster Game 5.
The Big Fella
As for Adams, the biggest guy on the floor has had an outsized impact all series long. He certainly doesn’t have to be stuffing the statsheet for Warriors coach Steve Kerr to want him out of the game. Adams, the rebounding Goliath, had only five rebounds in 31 minutes in Game 6. In some ways, it was reminiscent of his days as Russell Westbrook‘s personal box-out caddy. Mainly, though, it’s hard to get rebounds when you’re the guy missing at the free-throw line. Kerr tried to hack Adams as he has done throughout the series. This time, Houston coach Ime Udoka was wise to the desperation of the move and left Adams in the game to take 16 total free throws. He made nine, finishing with 17 points on only four field goal attempts.
Will It Last?
Unfortunately for the Rockets, it remains to be seen whether what got them to a Game 7 will be sustainable. One concern for Houston is that Game 7 isn’t going to be called the same way as Game 6. Houston took 46 free throws in Game 6. Obviously, Adams did have a third of those by himself from the intentional fouls. But the whistle was out in force throughout Game 6. VanVleet, who rarely gets to the line normally, took nine of Houston’s other 30 attempts. It wasn’t all to the Rockets’ benefit, though, as Warriors star Jimmy Butler shot free throws just about any time he got the ball anywhere near the rim, finishing with 14 attempts.
The whistle in Game 7 will almost assuredly be tighter (except possibly in the case of Butler, whose bewitching influence on playoff officials is bewildering to fans and opponents alike). Even after a physical and hard-fought series, Houston may struggle to adjust. Udoka and the veteran VanVleet can try to prepare the young team as much as possible, but there’s no teacher like experience. Golden State’s core has plenty of that. Draymond Green‘s concerns about his team’s intensity are unlikely to be a factor either. Nothing brings out intensity quite like a Game 7 in the NBA playoffs.
The Last Word
Deep down, Rockets fans know losing to this Golden State team wouldn’t be the end of the world. The young Rockets are ahead of schedule. Few expected them to make the playoffs outright, let alone with the second seed. Their offense all season has looked like something destined to let them down in a seven-game series. In spite of that, they’ve put themself just one win away. Not just from an unlikely second-round appearance either. They’re one win away from finally showing they’re all grown up, and that the older brother has reached the age for naps. They just have to put the win to bed.
Photo credit: © Cary Edmondson-Imagn Images
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