11 of 36 from the arc. Barely 30%. Utah shot 38%. And we win by 20. We've won games with hot shooting. We've coasted in those games. And we'll need a couple of those games again. But we can't count on them. When we do, and when the shots don't go in, we can lose. We just saw that in Game 2. To be a great team, a killer team, a championship team, we need to win the games where we shoot badly. We need to play with such defensive energy and focus that we give ourselves a cushion. That's what we did tonight. We won the battle of turnovers, 8-16. We won the battle of blocks, 7-4. We won the battle of steals, 8-3. We won the battle for free throws, allowing them 5 fewer attempts and 7 fewer makes. 11 of 36 from the arc, and we held a 25+ lead into the fourth, before we subbed in our garbage guys. Imagine we're playing the Warriors. The Jazz shot 11-29. Say the Warriors shoot 14-29. That takes 9 points off our margin. Say they earn 6 more free throws than the Jazz did, and make all but 1. That takes another 5 off our margin. Say they commit 3 fewer turnovers and avoid 2 buckets off those turnovers. That's another 4 or 5 points off our margin. Say they get 3 more steals than the Jazz did, and score off 2 of them. Call that another 5 points. We still win. With all those Warriors-level bonuses conceded, and us shooting like we shot tonight, we still win that game, if we play this kind of defense and build this kind of cushion. We can beat the Warriors playing like this. We can win 4 games out of 7. We might need hot shooting in a couple of them. But if we play like this, even when we don't shoot well, we can earn 2 more.
Clint has been out playing the so called defensive player of the year on defense. Outside of harden now becoming a playoffs superstar Clint’s development is the best thing to come out of game 3 and the playoffs thus far.
Yea 2nd half rockets were kinda just going through the motions especially in the 4th. I think they were shooting almost 40% in the first half
In three games, Harden has 30 assists and only 6 turnovers. 5:1 ast:to ratio. Overall, Rockets with only 29 turnovers in 3 games...averaging less than 10 per game. Defensive adjustments to Utah slipping picks was stellar. The goal was to take away Mitchell's passing options. Rather than having Ariza fight over screens (per Kobe's Detail vid) that Donovan picked apart on Game 2, early in Game 3 we switched Capela on Donovan while Ariza stayed glued to Gobert. And Harden deserves a lot of props for his defense on Ingles.
This was all about effort and focus, nothing else. Game 2 was probably the most aggravated I have ever been as a fan. We simply didn't play with any effort to start, and we spotted them a 19 point lead. We shot poorly on top of that, and the game was still winnable. We don't even have to shoot the 3 ball all that well to beat this team, we just have to play a focused game. So far through 3 games, this series reminds me of the 09 series with the Lakers. After Yao went down, the Lakers were clearly a far superior team. Yet that series managed to go 7 because we had a team with nothing to lose that played hard, and the Lakers assumed victory was a given. Hopefully our boys bring it from here on out and get this crap over in 5.
I know what you are trying to say and I hear ya but the best thing about Game 3 was Hakeem traveling all the way to Salt Lake city to troll Stockton, lil' Stockton, Sloan, and all the Jazz fans while the Rockets destroyed them in their own building. The rest are minor details. The only way it would have been even better was if Hakeem ran down the stands, onto the court, and swatted away that shot that lil Stockton took. Ahhhh..... For those that like visual aids...
Best thing about game 3 is that I don't have to listen to all the doubters, whiners, and crybabies on Clutchfans until at least Sunday night. It's gonna be a great weekend and I'm just gonna enjoy this beatdown!
Although, I would love to see our guys throw a couple of haymakers in Game 4 on the Jazz, defense first and defense last is the only way we can win. There is absolutely no room for complacency. Go Houston Rockets!
Is there a specific reason Harden hasn't been turning the ball over this postseason? CP3's actually been way more careless with the ball for some reason.
Skins beat the Blouses. The order of life has been re-established and the stars are aligned perfectly. Rockets could even play road Ryan late and not worry about the opposing team making a big enough run.
Presence of CP3 means Harden doesn't need to force every play. He can take plays off or go for some backdoor cuts (which he had a few of this game that converted to easy points). Basically, if Harden was running the show alone he would be more inclined to get easy points off high risk plays, since it's simply extremely tiring to be the sole offensive generator. With Chris Paul around Harden can afford to spend a little more energy making low risk plays.
Unlike previous playoffs I think this game has shown that repeatedly in games when we give the defensive effort early it gets us hot on offense. We can win with our D and we need to use the rest of this series to have us ready for the next series. The only test in this playoffs are the first two games at home against GSW.
