ClutchFans Game Thread: Warriors @ Rockets 4/20/2025 (Playoffs Round 1, Game 1)

Rockets offense is very difficult to watch. With Amen, Adams and Sengun on the floor together, the Warriors just had to pack the paint and we can’t do ****. The most deflating part of the loss is that I didn’t even think the Warriors played their best.

 

When you have a player with one of the worst on/offs in the league (-7.1 points per 100 possessions) and you play him 30+ minutes... Well, you deserve to lose. Ime needs to find a way to reduce Jalen's minutes to 12-15 mpg. And also find a way to play Adams closer to 30 minutes. It's really that simple.

 

Jalen played pure weak and looked scared.

 

Alright, so finished watching the game a half an hour ago and it was pretty clear we were going to struggle with spacing and adjusting in that second quarter. The only hope I had was that the game was over 2 hours, but that was due to having the stadium cam and all time-outs part of it. Overall, I think that the things we knew and feared about our team are very obvious now and it’s likely not going to be fixed this series. I will address these in my observations (pointing out the obvious) / breakdown:

1. We are a horrendous, terrible and just awful shooting team. Under 40% as a team, only 6 threes, and 11-20 on FTs then that’s just not going to win you any games. At this point I’d let Adams shoot threes. Actually that’s not true, which leads to my 2nd point.

2. Our offense is not maximizing our talent and it’s largely on FVV, Green and Ime. Ime clearly has not been instructing our guards to look for certain players, to get players in certain spots and to run a lot of sets that gets certain guys open at a spot where they can be successful. Overall it’s pretty much freewheeling it and our guards can just dictate what will happen and who will take the shot.

This has lead to plenty of games where FVV and or Green just took most shots even when they were off. Given how FVV in particular plays 40-44 minutes regularly, that’s a lot of possessions where we either go through Sengun or FVV makes a move and takes the shot or the ball finds him and he lets it fly. It doesn’t help that FVV gets carte blanche and his minutes nor decision making affects his minutes so as a player you feel you can no wrong.

This game was no different. Now two caveats to FVV’s horrible shooting night, 1. is Green wasn’t doing much so he was forced by design to do more and 2. nobody else was really doing much in terms of shooting and he likely feels more responsibility as a veteran to take initiative. That being said, Jabari in particular should’ve been involved more and this has also been a year long observation that has yet to reach Ime.

Jabari more often than not makes his corner threes so that needs to be fixed. I don’t know if he couldn’t get open or was a bit rusty compared to the rest, but I didn’t see anything in particular to justify him not getting more shots. In general though, a lot of the guys were tight, rushed shots and not much was in rhythm. Credit the Warriors defense for that as well.

3. The Warriors adjusted and took Sengun out of the game, though I feel Sengun also allows himself to be taken out of the game due to his hesitance and quite soft way of protecting the ball. He gets frustrated easily too, though luckily not too many hand flailing, even if he allowed the physicality and non-calls affect him too much to my liking. This is not about Sengun though, but it was never more evident than with him and the lack of shots in the 2nd half.

They packed it in, forced our perimeter players to make something happen and since nobody can really break them down nor did we hit our threes to force them to guard us out there, making room for Sengun in particular, we struggled. We were not playing like ourselves, but that’s what the play-offs and great teams do, make sure you are not comfortable and cannot get into your sets, open shots etc. Supposedly a FVV had wide open shots on most of his threes and when Tari, Brooks and Green are not bringing it from outside and Jabari is ignored then you are going to struggle.

We attacked more and got some FTs, but this a game where I had hoped Brooks or Amen could bring some spark. Brooks due to his competitiveness can sometimes really get those midrange shots going, Amen should be able to get past anyone with that foot speed and he can be money as well. Tari earlier in the season was money from midrange with some of those fadeaway shots, but he seems all out of wack due to his father passing. Cannot shoot anymore and apparently back to last year where he couldn’t hit his lay-ups.

I am not a basketball savant, but if the adjustment is bringing out a line-up of Amen, Tari, Jabari, Sengun & Adams in a game where we lack shooting then I don’t know what Ime was thinking. There’s simply one proven outside shooter here and that’s Jabari. How was this line-up supposed to score? At least put Jeff Green in the game who more often than not can provide a few minutes of veteran presence and outside shooting. In a game where the Warriors played 10 guys and we played 8 barely, then that’s already an L in my view.

I just do not subscribe to this rigid way of having a set 8-man rotation, especially when you are still young, inexperienced and we can take advantage of having fresh bodies and legs to throw at Butler and Curry as well maybe providing some shooting. Hell, Aaron even should’ve seen the court today. If Jeff & Aaron cannot see the floor on a night like this, how are they ever in this series?

4. On a more positive note, there wasn’t much that we need to do differently on defense. We kept them under a 100 and for a large portion of the game made it very tough for them. I do find that we were still too weak on close-outs, bad at recognizing who to sag off of and not rotating fast enough. And for a game where referees allowed a ton of stuff go and a typical play-off whistle, we did not take advantage of that. There was one instance where Tari and Amen “trapped” Curry and he still walked right through them for a lay-up. At least body him up. We let up a few too many times like that, so the effort was definitely not all there. Guess the comeback took a lot out of them and at the same time getting down big got to us as well since that particular instance was in the 1st half.

Now let me address to this point of defense and physicality that yes Green got away with some fouls and then got called for weaker stuff, Sengun got called for some BS as well, we also got away with a ton. The whistle was quite good at letting physical play go, but we knew this coming in. Green gets more leeway so you either force them to call something by going at him hard or just play around him. Sengun did not do a good job at that, but it might be simply too much to ask for since Green is still a very solid defender. But going at him weak and then cry about a call is just not going to do much 9/10. Only once Green got a weak call against Sengun, in the 2nd half, his 4th foul where maybe the shouting helped.

In general though, we should expect this to be the way going forward and got our first taste so let’s hope they adjust and do not waste energy on getting calls. But Sengun got away with an obvious travel, Adams was pushing down on guys, we clearly fouled Curry and Butler on some drives and that also wasn’t called so hope this weak ass blaming the referees can stop. This was hardly a game to complain about the whistle. The only one that was dumb and also Ime dumb for not challenging was Sengun’s 2nd. He barely touched Butler to warrant him “falling” out of bounds and that would’ve been overturned.

5. Another positive was our rebounding though I definitely didn’t see much of a commitment to all go for the ball all the time, at least not as much as before from some of our guys and that was by design I feel. A fear maybe for fast breaks and realizing we don’t need to crash the boards all the time. I liked that adjustment if it was by design, since they also saw Adams could handle 2-3 guys. It’s then a shame that they still got 16 points on the fast break and we only got 4.

 

6. Our execution of fast breaks was once again proven to be extremely poor and just plain stupid. Sengun at one point lead from the backcourt and there were 3 guys in front of him, Tari asked for the ball so they could advance it quicker and Sengun insisted on bringing the ball up himself. Cannot remember if it lead to a charge or just a bad offensive possession, but it was pretty bad. Another issue is when they do run, not recognizing you cannot just barrel into guys. If you are not athletic, quick or have good enough handles, then just do not lead a fast break. Period.

Speaking of handles and quickness, what happened to finishing lay-ups? The few times we actually got to the rim we just did not finish well. That has to improve. Handles wise, it showed a thing we already knew, we have too many players who have poor handles or just not good enough to handle it in a way that allows for breaking down defensed, forcing them to collapse and then to kick it out for the 3. Green needs too much space and a running start a lot to get him past his man. The rest of the guys I do not even care to address since they just cannot get past their man at all, at least not last night. Amen really needs to get better at that.

7. What our bigs also need to get better at is keeping the ball high after a rebound or in the post. If there’s no dribble hand-off situation or anything like that, then stop putting the ball out there and bring it low. Got at least a few turnovers or jump balls because of it.

8. We started off great, which is a good sign and Sengun seems to be ready at least. I have no doubt Jabari will continue to play. Adams was our MVP last night since without him there’s a blowout waiting to happen. Since this game was treading that way, I applaud our guys for not giving up and giving ourselves a chance to win in a game where a lot went wrong and we had little going for ourselves. There was nobody who deserved extra attention so we made it easy for the Warriors defense and still clawed our way back from a 23-point deficit. That is encouraging.

9. I do need Green, Amen and Tari to show growth in this series and particularly the latter to show he’s worthy of playing time. Granted he had his moments with the 2 steals, the dunk, but on defense he lost his man a couple of times and on offense really is not the smartest guy and saw some confusion of where he needed to go or what he needed to do a couple of times.

10. Ime needs to show he can adjust, willing to play more guys and FVV to be more of a factor or sit more if he doesn’t. Brooks also needs to do more, didn’t see that usual fire as much as I’d like to see.


Overall this was far from a game where we need to hang our heads, for a game where we were really terrible on offense, we still were within 10 against a very solid Warriors team. Let’s go for game 2.

 

Young guys sucks because this is the first Playoff game but for FVV it's not excuse

If FVV just made two of wide open three,the game is another result

By the way I am more calm than regular season to watch because some growing pain you must paid and our core is so young that I can wait

 

Ime says youth or age is not an excuse but yeah you do have to adjust and learn. I hope they learned from game 1 and it shows in game 2.

 

Because he’s overrated. Once again, read all my pre-playoff posts where I said Eason would not be good. He missed a wide open bunny and multiple threes. Not a good pressure player (let’s the moment get to him).

 

Also, quit blaming Ime or Jalen for this playoff futility….blame Stone, who gave us zippo at the trade deadline. I was screaming from the mountain tops that we need to acquire a star to compete and win in the playoffs and got banned for not drinking the Kool-Aid. It’s ironic that the GM who took a risk to grab Butler was favored to win the series over the number 2 seed. Vegas and everyone else knew the right move to make, but not our stupid GM who sat on his hands hoping the FVV, Dillon, and Jalen would win us a Championship. We deserve to lose for doing zippo when we had the chance to get the final piece at a reasonable price. Enjoy playoff Butler and good for GS who deserve to be where they are with his addition.

 

Warriors are confident they’ve solved the Rockets — if they can limit mistakes

There’s a firm level of confidence emanating from every layer of the Warriors’ organization about their chances in this series. It isn’t just a gut feeling or blind belief in Curry and Butler. They think the math is on their side, assuming they keep the game relatively clean.

Why? The Rockets were the 21st-ranked half-court offense in the NBA this season. If the game isn’t frantic and they’re forced to score against a set defense, they haven’t been all that efficient.

The Warriors aren’t an average NBA defense. Since the Butler trade, they’ve been the NBA’s best defense, putting up a league-best 109.0 rating in the 31 games after the deadline. They were 23-8 with Butler, mostly on the back of a stingy defensive unit and a whole lot of Curry.

“Our defense is excellent,” Kerr said. “We just held a helluva team to 85 points on their home floor. Our defense is big-time. We’re going to count on that.”

But …

“But we’ve got to recognize that we don’t need to take chances in this series,” Kerr said. “We need to be clean with our execution in transition. We don’t need to dribble through traffic. We don’t need to throw lob passes to try to get a dunk. We’ve gotta be rock solid. If we’re rock solid, smart and tough, I think we’ll be in good shape.”

That’s why Kerr is blowing a gasket every time Golden State makes the type of simple but debilitating mistake he believes will breathe life into a fast and physical Rockets team that, the Warriors believe, can’t stay with them in a more condensed, traditional setting.

“If it’s a half-court game, I really think our defense can get the job done in this series,” Kerr said. “So we can’t be turning it over. We can’t give up a million offensive boards.”

“It felt like 1997 out there to me,” Kerr said. “Completely different NBA game than what we’re used to, and we got to be ready for that. This is what this series is going to be.”

It’s part of Houston’s identity. They were the best offensive rebounding team in the league and were particularly destructive (above 50 percent offensive rebound rate) with Şengün and Steven Adams on the floor together this season. Those two and Amen Thompson combined to get Houston 13 extra possessions.

“I think we can play a lot better,” Green said. “That’s the encouraging part about it. I don’t think we played very well at all.”

This was the 27th time this season that a team has grabbed 22 or more offensive rebounds in a game. In the previous 26 games, that team scored at least 100 points. The Rockets were held to 85.

Şengün scored 26 points. He had an emphatic dunk in the opening sequence and punished Green for straying too far off him at times. But Şengün’s 11-of-18 night didn’t scare the Warriors into sending much extra attention his direction. They mostly played him straight up, let Green freelance and roam like usual because they believe that Houston’s backcourt can’t beat them consistently enough in isolation settings.

Jalen Green shot 3 of 15. VanVleet went 4 of 19. That’s 7 of 34 combined for Houston’s starting guards. Neither can be expected to shoot that poorly again. But Kerr felt comfortable enough to let Curry sit on an island early in the game with Green, and nothing about Sunday’s results will force them to alter strategy.

 

Game 2 turns into Game 7 now. Must win game.

 

Finished Number 2 after a great season, matched against an aging and struggling Warriors team, and somehow Curry still played like they’re going to be champions. This will hurt worse than losing to them when they were the NBA’s juggernaut.

 

We have 4 threads trashing Jalen tells you all you need to know... Ime first and foremost was our worst offender this game. The double big lineup WITH Amen in the 2nd absolutely was horrific. All season I've been critical of our offensive design where we use Sengun as a "score-first" option and it was clear as day that the Warriors WANTED Sengun to have to beat us. They forced him to catch the ball at the top of the key and it grinded our offense to an absolute halt.

Playing Fred 40 minutes in a game where he was absolutely sandbagging the entire team is awful. Jalen was equally bad but you only limited him to 30 minutes. Playing only 8 players when we have one of the best and deepest rotations in the playoffs is another baffling decision. We saw it down the stretch and I prayed it wouldn't be the same. FFS Kerr is playing Gui Santos spot minutes and you can't tell me there's not 5-10 minutes Cam, Holiday, or even Jeff Green couldn't help put a shift in?

Furthermore, I was terrified of playing the Warriors because they are a terrible matchup for us AND we saw what the refs can do. We had tons of momentum before the missed Podziemski that led to the Moody bucket.. then the out of bounds that lead to the back breaking sky ****ing WHEN WILL THIS GUY STOP KILLING US steph curry 3....

And by the way Jalen will most likely contine to struggle against the Warriors. He has hardly has ever played good against them and you can believe their game plan of forcing him to drive into Draymond Green (who is a great rim defender in his own unique way) was purposeful and masterful.

You need to play Jabari more. You need to play more guys. You need to have a gameplan where the ball is moving consistently and not reliant on a PnR Sengun post-up. We got over 15 more OFFENSIVE REBOUNDS AND STILL LOST BY 10.... but there is still hope. I won't knee-jerk and say we should trade everyone but this will definitely impact our off-season plans, most notably what to do with Fred.

Oh and Amen had one of the worst games I've ever seen him play.

 

Really hate the eight man rotation. We have vets on the bench who can shoot the ball and know how to play. Our depth is one of our greatest assets.

 

This. We should just lengthen the rotation and run hard to tire the Warriors

 

Now hold on, Jalen has macular degeneration. He can't see the 4 guys standing in the paint because it's fuzzy where he looks.

Can't blame a guy for medical condition. He's the #1 scorer in the nba among legally blind players.

 

Freddy missing wide open 3s give me Ryan Anderson vibes so much.

Next thing you going to hear is Freddy put up 3s after game 1 was over.

 

From media to internet, nobody thinks Rockets will beat the Warriors now.

 

Why? They talked to the refs...

 

Fred has many 2/12 games this season.

I will not be surprised that our starting guards shooting like trash again in G2.