Warriors, Spurs series filled with familiar story lines

James Harden’s Houston Rockets suffered an embarrassing, season ending, 39-point loss on their home floor in Game 6 last night, despite the fact that the Spurs were playing without their best player, Kawhi Leonard, not to mention starting point guard, Tony Parker. And while San Antonio deserves credit for largely staying faithful to its more traditional 2-big lineups involving LaMarcus Aldridge and Pau Gasol in this series, the team’s ability to go small – even without Parker or Leonard available – essentially delivered the knockout blow in Game 6.

NOTES: Spurs F Kawhi Leonard hopes to return to action Sunday for Game 1 of the Western Conference finals at Golden State.

Jonathon Simmons, who started in place of Leonard, added 18 points and Patty Mills, who started as the point guard, ended with 14 points and seven assists for the Spurs, who dominated from the opening whistle. He is averaging 27.8 points, 7.7 rebounds, 4.7 assists and 1.7 steals in the playoffs.

Leonard’s injury when he landed on Zaza Pachulia’s foot and turned his already tender left ankle severely altered Game 1 and possibly the entire series. I mean, he’s had a historic year, and you can’t just say, ‘OK, one game.’ and all of the sudden, social media goes insane. “Every guy on the team puts in extra time to be ready to play”. In an appearance on SportsCenter, Smith said that he thought Harden looked like he had been drugged prior to Game 6 and called an investigation into the matter. This was the second round of the playoffs which meant the Warriors pulled off an upset over the third seed Denver Nuggets.

In the Spurs’ two regular season wins, they were able to hold the Dubs to less than a 100 points, which is below their season average of 115.9 points per game. “I’m looking for us to go all the way and Lebron, here we come”.

The Warriors (67-15) and Spurs (61-21) finished the regular season with the best records in the National Basketball Association.

Harden finished with 10 points on 2-of-11 shooting with seven assists and six turnovers. We’ll figure that out and get better this summer and then come back and do it again. You know, it’s tough, especially the way we lost at home for Game 6. San Antonio has had a bit of struggle in each of the first two rounds, taking the Grizzlies and Rockets to six games each before disposing them.

Curry and Thompson scored 29 and 23 points, respectively, for the Warriors.

I don’t know what’s wrong with the Houston Rockets, but it’s probably not good.

The Boston Celtics’ All-Star will get his first chance Monday night when Boston hosts the Washington Wizards with a trip to the Eastern Conference finals at stake.

“I don’t think too much about carrying over this, that, or the other”, Popovich said.