[NY Times] That Warriors-Rockets Epic May Well Be Over

sweet jeesus, even the NYTimes is in the Team Doubter column. definite media conspiracy

https://nyti.ms/2GktKAF

That Warriors-Rockets Epic May Well Be Over

Klay Thompson of Golden State had a big night Monday against Houston, scoring 28 points, including six 3-pointers, as the Warriors took a big step toward a fourth straight N.B.A. finals.CreditTroy Taormina/USA Today Sports, via Reuters
By Michael Powell

May 15, 2018
Just like that, a single game into what’s been cast as The Real N.B.A. Finals, the Houston Rockets find themselves occupying a precarious ledge.

This Western Conference championship series is a collision of basketball tectonic plates, the 65-win Rockets with their twin dagger guards versus the reigning, talent-laden-to-the-point-of-absurdity N.B.A. champion Golden State Warriors.

In the end, the Warriors road show pulls in with so many ways of causing pain to opponents, so much talent in artful coordination. In Game 1, they vaporized the Rockets’ home-court advantage with a 119-106 win.

The Rockets play again in Houston on Wednesday night, which looms as their best and perhaps only chance to crawl back into this series. Me, I’m tempted to line up Bay Area hotel and restaurant reservations for the N.B.A. finals.

“We’re hungry,” he said the other day. “This is the perfect opportunity that we’ve been preachin’ about all year.”

Harden came out Monday with his fork and knife, tossing down a herk-jerk, now-you-see-it-now-you-don’t crossover, shredding his defender. He ended up at the 3-point line with enough time to contemplate the meaning of it all. Then he hit the first of many shots on his way to scoring 41 points.

A few seconds later, Clint Capela, the Swiss-born center, blocked and/or inhaled a Curry driving layup, and the joint in Texas rocked. It was beautiful and daunting and it kept going. And in the end it did not really matter.

“We can go a little faster,” Houston Coach Mike D’Antoni said afterward. “We can do a few things to speed ourselves up.”


Houston Rockets guard James Harden spent plenty of time up against Stephen Curry on Monday, but he may have slowed down a lethal offense along the way.CreditTroy Taormina/USA Today Sports, via Reuters

This is not to eviscerate the Rockets, who after all recorded 65 wins, approximately 64 more than my hometown Knicks.

But to return to the question of isolation: By seeking to go one-on-one and prey on Curry — Harden looked like a shark who smelled blood whenever this happened — the Rockets stopped passing and moving and slowed the pace of their offense to a crawl.

So you thought, perhaps that’s the point.

It’s a measure of my impoverished imagination that nearly every time I see the Warriors in the postseason my mind formulates the image of a fine jazz band. They draw attention for shooting many 3-point shots, but that just scratches the shiny surface of their innovation. Their genius, which is at least as much a product of the collective intelligence of the players as of Coach Steve Kerr, is to play three or four styles at once, even as they heed the underlying beat.

So it fell to Klay Thompson last night to shoot and shoot again from 3-point land, launching 15 in all and hitting six. (“He stole like 10 of my threes,” Curry faux-complained. “I want them back.”)

No less important was Kevin Durant, the 7-footer with the moves of a point guard and the wingspan of a Boeing 737. He hit jumpers, floaters, balletic spinners from all directions, never once forcing a shot and rarely venturing out to the 3- point line, where he is in fact deadly.

One move in particular was hallucinatory. Durant faked right and drove left past the basket and seemingly headed for a landing in the third row. He reached back, Elongated Man style, and deposited a soft spinner in the hoop.

Later, Draymond Green played reviewer and gave five stars. “I think that was my favorite moment,” he said.

Defending Durant is a math equation with no solution. You do everything right and yet ...

The Warriors are quite the show. They arrive on court like it’s a West Coast film shoot. They’ve got their Hamptons Five starting lineup, their all-stars-turned-Yoda role players, and endless helpers. They’ve got coaches and hoop mechanics, who work on every aspect of the game. There is the floater consultant and another to work hook shots and the fake up-and-under specialist.

Curry did his usual warm-up routine on Monday, ending in a hot potato game of catch with a Warriors security man. Here, catch the basketball. No, you. No, you. It concludes with a final flip of the ball to Curry, who as an afterthought falls away and tosses the ball back 23 feet toward the hoop. It hits naught but net.

Everyone ends up a bit player in this show. I found myself standing courtside, watching Curry and chatting with a father and son from Shanghai. The father peered at me carefully.

Could my son take a photo of you?

I looked surprised and he added: “I love your work. Love it.”

This gave me pause. Did my recent musings on the deplorable state of the Knicks prove a must-read at the breakfast table in Shanghai? You know, I ask him, that I’m just a reporter?

Son whispers to father and they start laughing.

“Oh no! My father thought you were Steve Kerr.”

After the game, the Warriors invoked the finest pickle-cured clichés. It’s one game, a long series. It can turn in a heartbeat. As if. Here’s the underlying truth: In their last 28 playoff games, the Warriors are 25-3. They’ve won road games in 18 straight playoff series.

Curry could not help but speak a little of his own truth and admit a win in Game 2 would be devilish fun.

“We want to continue to be greedy,” he said.

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