Takeaways: Rockets At Warriors NBA Playoffs: Game 1

There was an immense amount of anticipation that had built up for the Houston Rockets going into Game 1 of their first-round match up against the Golden State Warriors.

At least for me anyway.

There were a plethora of naysayers that thought that the Rockets didn’t even have a chance to compete in this series and they just may be right in regard to that.

I really thought that the Rockets took the past three days to regroup and try to figure out a way to remain competitive against arguably one of the best teams assembled in NBA history.

But it was unfortunate that we saw more of the same as the game wore on and the Warriors continued to run circles all around us.

The Rockets were competitive for at least for the first few minutes of the first quarter as both teams had to warm up their shooting but once the Warriors got hot, they didn’t relent and it wasn’t pretty to see.

The Rockets actually played decent defense this time around but the problem this time was on offense, where there was a ton of stagnation and the Warriors love to eat that stuff for lunch.

They weren’t tops in defensive efficiency and assist ratio for nothing this past season as there’s nobody in the Association currently that can do it quite like they can.

All throughout the game, you saw two, incredibly-talented teams that were the exact opposites of each other.

One team, a well-oiled, refined-machine and the other, a sputtering, late-model contraption that needed some maintenance work done.

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It’s just amazing to watch the Warriors on how quickly they move the ball around.

In less than just a few seconds, the majority of the team touches the ball, if not all five players.

They’re always constantly trying to find the open man; and, of course, against the Rockets they certainly did so.

They were so fast with their rotations, the Rockets couldn’t keep up and before you know it, the team was staring at a 20+ point deficit.

On top of that, this game was one of the poorly officiated that I had ever seen, with no consistency in their calls and it definitely frustrated the Rockets to no end.

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The Warriors can sometimes get away successfully with being able to move on screens, making it damn near impossible for defenders to stay on the straight-and-narrow.

They get blindsided by bone-crunching, arguably illegal picks set by guys like Andrew Bogut.

I really liked how Patrick Beverley went out and set the tone by throwing a bow in the Stephen Curry‘s face causing them to tussle early in the game.

Curry, as mild-mannered as he can be, is human and Bev is quite good getting in people’s heads.

I was hoping he could bait him into doing something stupid to give us an advantage but things quickly simmered down after that heated exchange.

With Bev nursing a elbow injury late last season, he wasn’t available to help the Rockets in last year’s playoffs.

We were missing that edgy, “junkyard dog” style-type play that he brings right from the streets of Chi-Town.

Although it wasn’t quite enough to get over the hump, Bev let it be known that he won’t be pushed around.

We also saw Corey Brewer get the start for today’s game to which I continued to razz about it on the House of Houston Twitter account.

What did Brew do to deserve the starting spot?

In the last 20 games of the season, he had gone 0-for-19 from behind-the-arc which is a number that would be hard for anybody to comprehend.

I’m sure we were trying to play the match ups but I think we would’ve been better off starting Donatas Motiejunas and take our chances.

Brew did not score a basket until late in the game and was absolutely horrendous on both ends of the floor.

As a result, I’m sure D-Mo will be back in the lineup Monday.

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James Harden was non-factor as the Warriors were gunning for him, taking him out of the equation.

He had just 17 points — four in the first half — and seemed to be more of an afterthought with the beating that they were taking as a team.

Dwight Howard‘s head wasn’t even remotely close to being in the game, making blunder after blunder accompanied with a volleyball spike for the ages.

He had 14 points, 11 boards but we all know there’s more to his performance then to what he put on the box score.

And Micheal Beasley — two points in five minutes of action — wasn’t much of a factor as by the time he got on the floor, the game was well out-of-reach for this team.

And there you have it — 35.7 percent shooting from the field, 27.3 percent from three, 50 percent shooting from the charity stripe coupled with 24 turnovers is the perfect recipe for a loss to the NBA’s defending champs.

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I honestly know our Rockets can compete better than this and we can only hope for a different result come Monday night for Game 2.

But as with what us fans have had to come to grips with the entire season, is that this team is wildly inconsistent and has no identity so it’ll be tough to predict as far as what we’ll see for this next game.

We can only hope for the best — go Rockets.