Houston’s Nene suffers season-ending thigh injury

That was the first game of the entire round decided by single digits – even the overtime game between Boston and Washington in Game 2 of their series ended with a 10-point victory for the Celtics.

The Spurs bounced back fine after getting clobbered in the opener and will try to do so again following Houston’s 125-104 victory on Sunday.

Coach Gregg Popovich announced the switch in his pre-game media session without giving a firm reason for it. How his ankle responds to the injury the next day or two will be crucial in just how healthy he is for Game 6. Both are natural power forwards, so the Rockets will have to do something creative to keep the Spurs out of the paint. “When they play their big lineups, we can get stops and run them, confuse them in pick and rolls, get their bigs in the pick and rolls regardless if Aldridge is guarding Trevor or who the bigs are guarding, we need to get them mixed up into hard situations, so transition is really important, but running and getting into those pick and roll opportunities is important too”.

Spurs: Rookie Dejounte Murray had eight points in his second game in the starting lineup since Tony Parker suffered a season-ending leg injury in Game 3. And it worked for them in the regular season. No, it’s not as bad as losing say, James Harden or Eric Gordon, but it hurts the Rockets more than you’d expect. He will miss the rest of the playoffs and the team still has yet to determine the best way to treat his injury.

Unfortunately, all Ginobili did in Game 5 was delay the inevitable.

Keeping Game 5 below the over/under of 214.5 would be advantageous for the Spurs, who like to play at one of the slowest paces in the league. Harden was 0-2 with 3 turnovers in the extra session. “They cut the deficit down. but no matter, what we just stayed with it”.

To read this article in one of Houston’s most-spoken languages, click on the button below. With both Kawhi and Harden sitting, the benches for both team were in and the Spurs needed to take advantage. He kicked the fourth quarter off with a huge three and scored the finals points of regulation with a knifing lurch into the lane.

The Rockets pushed ahead in the first part of the third, leading by as much as nine points, 72-63, with seven minutes left. Finally, LaMarcus Aldridge scored on a putback of a Manu miss to cut the lead to one. San Antonio isn’t likely to get lit up two straight games, especially returning home. You do not need to be as a statistician to understand that hardly anyone can keep up with such volume.

“We will play big and we will play small as we have in all our games”, Popovich said. Houston then was 11-for-34 shooting three-pointers (32.4%) in Game 2.

“Our bible begins with transition defense, and if it’s not there, then we’re just not ready to go”, he said.

Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni opted to play forward Ryan Anderson as the team’s backup center behind Clint Capela after Nene’s departure on Sunday.