Have Hakeem speak to the team about doing the improbable; about what it took to go from 6th seed to win it all when most everyone else doubt you; that this is golden chance to redeem themselves after a miserable regular season, and for once put it all together as a real team for a dozen+ stretch of games.
Haven't read the thread but am I the only one who thinks the key to stopping gsw offensively is to deny draymond green. Really focus on him and shutting him out and denying him from getting the ball? Its similar in how theheat focused on stopping harden instead of wb and Durant that year. I personally think he's their most important player and the engine that makes them run. Deny and pester him with ariza/smoov nonstop. Also have Beverley play 94 feet again, really just pester and get all over him the entire time. When he gets tired have kj pick it up from 94 feet also. Constant pressure just to bother Steph which honestly won't stop him but make him agitated and work for it. But really focus on eliminating draymond from the offense.
We need great play from the PG position. The Rockets planned on making Curry play defense this year by trading for Lawson. That planned failed so someone’s going to have to step up.
This will help.. Until Steve Kerr/Curry sees what we are doing and Curry goes for 55 points We will not win. There are no keys to stopping them (if there were, Popovich would have discovered them already)
you can't have Bev after Curry so much...it's not a one man job, he'll just end up in foul trouble and hardly play..
A 7 game series just tells in the NBA. The Warriors may get cold in one game or the Rockets hit like 20/30 3s or something or Harden goes for 50 or Howard or Beasley just goes crazy or whatever. What separates the stars from the non stars is the same as what separates the champions from the pretenders. Consistency. The Warriors will have consistent great ball movement, defense, and shooting. The Rockets will have sporadic great ball movement, defense, and shooting. The Rockets will win a game maybe two but since they can't consistently keep up the performance needed they will not win the series.
Basically a fully healthy rockets team. They need everyone to grab an ax and chop the wood. Harden can't do it by himself, gotta have that guy no one expected to go for 20 going for 20. BEv one night, Ariza one night, smith, Beasley, whoever.
The Rockets will have to play defense. With Harden they can outscore anyone on any given night but they need to play defense that's the problem.
How do you do this? You mean not trap Curry on the PNR? I'm not sure that is better. We don't have anyone that can guard Draymond defensively right now. Remember when they beat us without Curry when Dray had like 20/15/15 or whatever? I'm afraid to say we just don't have the defensive players to stop GSW right now. If the Spurs (best defense in the NBA by far) can't really do it, we have no shot.
Make 25/30 3's every game Harden to have zero turnovers Dwight to shoot 90% at the free throw line Corey Sewer to play 30s just to hack Bogut and use up his fouls
Rockets roster is much different than in the 3 regular season match ups. Maybe Rockets get lucky and new players can make an impact. If you look at the three games... Lawson, Jones, Thornton were still getting big minutes. Smith - 9 minutes total DMo - 6 minutes total KJ - 4 minutes total Beasley - 0 Terry - 0
This!! I agree with this whole heartedly. Beverly has to play Steph 94 ft and when he gets tired, bring in KJ. Also, D-Mo is not a good matchup with Green, we have to start J-Smoove and bring in Beasley off the bench. Because GS play at such a fast pace, I don't see where playing D-Mo at the power forward position makes sense. I would play him at the center position to maintain a good scoring pace but, he hasn't been shooting well the pass few games, nor is he passing well.
