NBAP West Finals Gm 2: Rockets Crimped By Warriors 99-98

2 of 2

May 21, 2015; Oakland, CA, USA; Houston Rockets guard James Harden (13) moves to the basket against the defense of Golden State Warriors center Andrew Bogut (12) during the first half in game two of the Western Conference Finals of the NBA Playoffs. at Oracle Arena. Mandatory Credit: Kelley L Cox-USA TODAY Sports

As for the 3rd quarter, the Rockets maintained their leadership eventually going on a 33-10 run that went back to that pivotal 7:43 mark in the 2nd, keeping the Rox up 65-59 with 8:13 left.

The Warriors put together a 7-0 run of their own to take a 66-65 lead but Josh Smith was able to stop it with a quite difficult, contested, turnaround jumper from the left side of the key putting the Rox back on top.

We were then treated with a duel between two of the league’s greatest offensive talents in Harden and Curry as they each kept trying to one-up each on each possession.

This continued throughout the 4th quarter as well but we’ll get to that later.

At the end of the 3rd, after the dust settled, the Rockets found themselves trailing by only two points after a hard-fought 3rd quarter.

We did get treated by seeing rookie Nick Johnson check-in for a couple minutes at the 2:57 mark as McHale was doing some experimenting to see how effective his defense would be and give Jason Terry a bit of a extended break.

It’s quite understandable — he knew what he was going get with Pablo Prigioni so why not try Johnson for awhile?

He didn’t do quite bad as the Jet checked back in with six seconds left but that wide-open three he had was less than desired.

Harden had 27 points to Curry’s 26 points thus far through three quarters.

The 4th quarter through the first few minutes was cringing to watch — the Rockets would either make a boneheaded defensive switch or turn the ball over as the Warriors would capitalize.

Whenever the Rockets would try to get a little closer, the Warriors were right there, playing hard-nosed defense ready to pounce on any mistakes they’d make to push them back.

In fact, the last time the Rockets led was in the 3rd quarter when they were up 67-66 with 6:21 left.

And did they ever…

The Harden Vs. Curry battle continued to ensue as each amazing play was followed up by another as the quarter transitioned.

But the most notable mention of the 4th quarter was the last 1:20.

The Rockets were down 99-92 with one last shot to get over the hump.

Harden was the man for the job as he was the catalyst to the Rockets strong surge toward the finish line.

He was every bit of a part of those eventual six straight points that the Rockets would score to pull within one with 33 seconds left.

Harden had a quick, uncontested dunk, two free throws off a Green foul and gave his greatest assist of the game with a lob to D12!

More from House of Houston

And it was a play that was ran with ultimate precision as Terrence Jones came up top with a back-screen on Thompson, allowing Harden go around a pick up an extra defender in Green leaving Howard wide-open for the alley-oop!

It all happened so fast, Bogut, his defender had little time to recover so he let him go by.

Rockets down by one!

Andre Iguodala missed a well-defended lay-up by Howard, McHale decided against taking a timeout and had the Rockets push the ball up the court quickly with about nine seconds left.

The ball was right where you’d want it to be — in the Beard’s hands.

Harden was at the top of the key with seven seconds left, dribbling…dribbling, he gave a brief toss to Howard who was the trailer back on offense.

But once D12 passed it back, the Beard was unable to get a shot off as the Splash Brothers played suffocating defense as time expired.

Noooooo!

I just wished the Rockets would’ve been able to take a timeout to regroup and setup something!

But McHale trusted his guys to do the right thing and although they came up short, I’m still proud of the effort these guys put out tonight.

Resilience. Heart. Hustle. — all these attributes rung true tonight. Although we didn’t see it all four quarters, the Rockets turned it up when needed.

Harden led the Rockets with 38 points, 10 rebounds and nine dimes and D12 had 19/17 in 40 minutes of action.

NBAP West Finals Game 2: Houston Rockets Crimped By Warriors 99-98

By Brian K. Patterson | May 22, 2015

More from House of Houston