Mike D’Antoni: Rockets are ‘obviously the underdog’ against Warriors

It’s only the Western Conference finals, but many experts believe the matchup between the Houston Rockets and Golden State Warriors will essentially determine the National Basketball Association championship. It’s very likely that most-if not all-of the games in this series play out in a similar fashion, and it could very well come down to who performs better in the clutch.

But if it were up to him, he would have done even more. “I probably should have left him on”. “He can get any shot he wants”.

The long-awaited Western Conference heavyweight bout finally is upon us. In an interesting twist, Nick Young provided two timely 3s in the quarter, including one with 11.2 seconds that tied the game at 56 going into halftime.

Houston used a 9-3 spurt, where James Harden scored five, to cut the lead to 103-96 with less than five minutes to go.

Durant only took three of his 27 shots at the rim, while 18 of his field goal attempts came on non-restricted area 2-pointers.

The Golden State Warriors enter Game One of the NBA Western Conference Finals as the favorites to win a second-straight NBA Championship – and third in the last four years – when they face the Houston Rockets in a matchup that will live stream from Toyota Center in Houston on Monday night.

“We can do a little better job against them mentally”, D’Antoni said. When the Rockets had the ball, they worked hard to funnel Harden into particular matchups.

“It’s nice to have home court”, D’Antoni said. “It’s nice to be at home but we’ve got a lot of guys who have been in this league a long time“. Heading into the Western Conference Finals, his foe Steph Curry is fully aware of the challenge ahead of his squad.

Chris Paul was outshined by Curry once again. “I thought he was extremely good”. While the Point God won’t exactly be looking back at this game as the regret of his lifetime, he could admittedly have gotten way more than the 3 assists that he tallied on the offensive end.

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Kevin Durant was ruthless. Falling into an 0-1 hole would give no assurances of a Game 5 and put the Rockets’ backs against the wall.

The Warriors still led 87-80 after three thanks to a massive third quarter from Kevin Durant. Gordon added 15 points off the bench. There’s simply no incentive to stun the world on every single play of every single game.

Golden State might have earned the No.1 seed if Curry didn’t miss a bulk of the season with injuries.

Game 1 is scheduled for Monday at 9 p.m. ET and will be broadcast nationally on TNT.

The Rockets also match up fairly well with the Warriors as they’ve acquired a strong crop of wing defenders and one of the best point guard defenders in league history in CP3. We expect players, teams, and organizations to abide by some abstract moral code.

Klay Thompson‘s 12 of his 28 points tonight were off four threes of the eight that he made that were extremely wide open.

When the Houston Rockets made a decision to sign Chris Paul in the summer, it was met with some scepticism as there were doubts about whether he could co-exist with James Harden. More often than not, we think about them because we have to, not because we have any inclination to, which in itself breeds resentment.