[Iko]Squandered chances, Kevin Durant’s injury and can the Rockets still save their season

Good article from Kelly Iko

OAKLAND — Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, you know the rest.

Nearly 365 days later, amid changes in roster makeup and location, the same situation reared its ugly head for the Houston Rockets in a playoff series against the Golden State Warriors. Another emotional Game 5, only this time the Rockets didn’t come out on top.

It wasn’t a potential elimination game like Games 6 and 7 of last year’s Western Conference Finals, but Houston had squandered yet another golden opportunity. The realization of the gravity of such an event didn’t hit them at once, however. It came in waves.

With 39 seconds left, and Kevin Durant long gone, the victim of a right calf strain, Chris Paul raised his head to look at the jumbotron in the middle of Oracle Arena. The Rockets were only down four, but it felt worse than that. He shook his head in disappointment as he walked towards the bench, mired in the worst playoff outing of his esteemed career.

With 4.1 seconds remaining, James Harden crossed halfcourt unable to hide his frustration. “****!” he yelled, clapping his hands together. He spoke briefly with Jarron Collins, an assistant coach on Golden State’s staff, who did his best to calm him down.

Needing a stop, Harden and Paul seemingly had Klay Thompson trapped near the sideline. An errant pass from Thompson landed in the hands of Eric Gordon, but only for a split second. Bodies crashed and twisted, all vying for the ball, which eventually wound up in Thompson’s hands for a game-clinching layup that put Golden State up for good on the night and up 3-2 in the series.



The Rockets typically aren’t in the mood to say much after losses — an expected reaction especially given the stakes — but this was incredibly somber. You could hear a pin drop.

Mike D’Antoni did an expedited version of a postgame press conference, offering up his typical D’Antoni optimism.

Doc Rivers was waiting for him outside and the two caught up. He understood uniquely how D’Antoni felt, his Clippers having lost to the Warriors in the first round of these playoffs.

As for the locker room, coaches John Lucas and Matt Brase huddled in one corner by the food spread, truly in shock and confusion as to what the hell just happened. Head trainer Jason Biles sat motionless against a locker near the exit hallway, lost in his thoughts. A misty-eyed P.J. Tucker, the heart and soul of the team, tried to work through the game with Keith Jones, who had popped a squat next to Tucker’s belongings. Paul came in later, having done some strengthening exercises following the final buzzer. He sat down and changed before heading to the showers, silent.

“Tough loss,” he said some 30 minutes later. “We had opportunities. Let me see. Rebounding, we actually were right there in the rebounds, you know what I mean. But we got to be better, you know what I mean, offensively, defensively, especially myself. Turnovers. We didn’t get stops when we needed to. Tough loss.”

One can only guess what was going through Harden’s mind as he sat with his feet doused in an ice bath. It was one of the more bizarre endings to a game, given the what-ifs. Durant had exited late in the third quarter, potentially lost for the series. Heading into the final frame, the score was tied at 72.

The Rockets had successfully erased what was once a 20-point deficit to the defending champs. With 1:23 to go, Harden finished a floater in the lane. He wouldn’t score another field goal again until there were 18 seconds left in the game.

Apart from a missed three two minutes later and a technical free throw with 3:39 left, the reigning MVP didn’t attempt another shot. He finished with 31 points, eight assists, four rebounds, and four steals — on 10-of-16 shooting. Sure, in the fourth quarter the Warriors were game planning to stop him, sending double teams, calling for pre-switches and actively trying to get the ball out of his hands, but there was blood in the water. How can that happen?

“I mean, I don’t know,” Harden said after leaving the locker room. “I have to go back and look at the game. Whether it’s other guys were getting shots, open looks, trying to make the right plays at certain points in the game. I’m not sure.”


No one had answers as to why he only took one shot in the final seven minutes.

As Harden’s mother sat outside the visitor’s locker room waiting for him, she and Eric Gordon’s mom chatted about how their sons perhaps needed to leave everyone alone, including their significant others, and focus on the task still ahead. When she eventually did see Harden, she gave him a hug before he headed off to a session with the media. They didn’t exchange words, the consoling hug of a mother had already spoken volumes.

If there was ever a time to seize control of a series, it was then and there. Survive Game 5 on the road, with the opportunity to come back to Toyota Center up 3-2, with a chance to close out a series and take your long-lasting rival down. Instead, Durant’s injury woke up Steph Curry, who responded by hitting five of his last seven shots.

It’s the oldest cliche in sports, a team rallying together after its best player goes down, but they’re called cliches for a reason. “Any time we lose, we feel like we missed an opportunity,” D’Antoni said. “They hit bigger shots probably than we did. They did their part. Again, few loose balls, few rebounds. We just didn’t come up with them, which we have been. We got to come up with them.”

The table was set for an upset, but everything went wrong for Houston. Clint Capela didn’t have a great game by any means, missing seven of his 10 shots around the rim and looking second-best on boxing out, finishing through contact and protecting the rim. For large stretches, he was counterintuitive to what the Rockets want to do, a second consecutive game with under 30 minutes only highlighted this realization.

D’Antoni screamed at Capela after he gave up a late Thompson three, the center not closing out fast enough. Kevon Looney once again outplayed the $80-million dollar big man.

Meanwhile, Paul had the worst playoff shooting performance of his Hall of Fame career, missing 11 of his 14 shots, including going 0-6 from three. And he got whistled for a costly charging foul on Draymond Green in the closing moments.

Houston generated good looks from deep but had another cold shooting night, going less than 30 percent as a team from distance. Gordon, arguably Houston’s best player during the postseason, took too long to get going.

This isn’t the first time the Warriors have won in this dramatic, emotional, rallying fashion. They’ve had their proverbial backs to the wall multiple times during the course of this insane run, and have responded accordingly. It’s usually accompanied by a Thompson showing, which the Rockets got front-row seats and 45 minutes of, beginning with his three-point barrage in the first quarter.

It’s not to say this series is over. Houston is more than capable of winning Game 6, and coming back to Oakland to win Game 7, with Durant’s status for the future still up in the air pending an MRI. They’ll need to get back to controlling the little things — timely rebounds and turnovers are a good start.

“Again, if we’re good enough, we can beat them,” D’Antoni added. “If we’re not good enough, they’ll beat us. It’s a competition. We have our home court. It’s go take care of business there, then the series starts when you come back up here. Whoever wins that one will obviously be the winner.

“It is a do or die, but I feel good about it. I feel like we played good enough to win a couple games up here, just didn’t get it done. Keep the feeling, take care of business at home, come back up and try to get it.”

https://theathletic.com/969687/2019...ff-golden-state-warriors-kevin-durant-injury/