The Golden State Warriors are nearly unbeatable with reigning MVP Stephen Curry on the court but they are still a great team even without him. It was an eventual 114-81 drubbing that finished off a woefully overmatched Rockets team, but this sequence of events did bring Oracle Arena to a neck-tingling frenzy perhaps not felt since last June’s NBA Finals.
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“That’s the biggest takeaway I got from watching the tape. It was nice to kind of channel Steph out there”.
The NBA’s leading scorer is sidelined for at least two weeks with a sprained MCL that happened when he slipped awkwardly on the final play of the first half of Sunday’s Game 4 and his legs split apart. Also, the Warriors will be cautious with Curry, much like they were when he hurt his ankle early in their series against the Rockets.
Courtney Lee sank a game-winning three-pointer with just under 30 seconds left. Harden may have put up 35 points (on 12 of 23 shooting), but Thompson put up 27 points while fitting in with a team offense and knocking down 7 of 11 behind the arc. Dwight Howard managed to both sulk and smile at the same time in the fourth quarter. Meanwhile, as the series shifts to the Bay Area and the Warriors head home, Ayesha Curry did what you’d expect a blogger, cookbook author and soon-to-be host of a Food Network show to do: She got busy making comfort food.
It was an embarrassing performance by the Rockets, and one that should make the organization question its overall direction - if it has one.
Meanwhile, Livingston came through for the Warriors starting in place of Curry.
Next question: Where is Golden State headed now?
Draymond Green also was brilliant in Curry’s absence, which is notable considering how some still doubt his quality, attributing his rising stardom to Curry’s influence.
Green’s line: 15 points (5-of-9 shooting, 2-of-5 from deep), team-high nine rebounds, team-high eight assists and two blocks.
“It was a game with a lot of joy, ” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said.
“We are really lucky”, Kerr said.
You can’t necessarily blow it all up, because Harden, who was runner-up for the 2015 MVP award, isn’t going anywhere. “He had a terrific series”. At the same time, they can fully rest Steph Curry for the expected showdown with either the San Antonio Spurs or the Oklahoma City Thunder.
If nothing else, the failures of the 2015-16 Rockets should bring about the end of the first iteration of Moreyball in Houston. Thompson scored 27 points on seven three-pointers as the Warriors won the series, 4-1.
These last six quarters of basketball should have come rated M for mature audiences alone.
The Warriors next face the victor of the Clippers-Trail Blazers series, in which Portland holds a 3-2 edge with Game 6 scheduled for Friday night in Oregon. Most likely not, as the Rockets center has said he plans to decline the player option in his contract in order to become a free agent.
“We’re not going to be satisfied just with this series”, he said. Ariza is a pest, but his help was late, their switches were a mess, and he was no match for the many ways the Warriors could get Thompson shots.
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Asked if he felt an opportunity got away with Curry out, Harden said, “Yeah, for sure”.
