The Houston Rockets escaped with a win in Game 3 against the Golden State Warriors.
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And, still, with the help of the profoundly defective Rockets, the Warriors fought back to take a pair of late leads before losing when James Harden nailed a step-back jumper with 2.7 seconds to play.
The NBA also reported its basketball operations department is reviewing the contact Warriors forward Draymond Green made with Michael Beasley on an inbound with one second left.
Though that trio delivered the most encouraging performances, the Warriors clearly missed Curry, who is expected to return for Game 4 on Sunday.
“We were on attack”, Harden said. The Warriors led the regular season series 3-0 and lead the playoff series 2-0.
The Rockets sought early energy, and already leading 21-15, closed the first period with a 10-3 run. Patrick Beverley added 10 points for Houston.
However, after Harden’s jumper, the Warriors did have a chance at winning Game 3 when they had the ball coming out of a timeout. The check was presented during Game 3 on Thursday night.
It wasn’t until James Harden hit a fade-away from just outside the free-throw line with just over two seconds left that Houston put the game on ice. Game 4 is tomorrow (Monday morning, Singapore time) at Toyota Centre, where the Warriors are hopeful that Curry will start.
“I was pretty confident I could have gone, but talking to Coach (Steve Kerr) and Bob and the athletic training staff and the doctors, there was still some healing that needed to be done, and it was their call”, Curry said.
After a plea from Coach J.B. Bickerstaff that his team be “nastier”, the Rockets were much more aggressive and scrappy than they had been in the first two games and led by as many as 17 points in the first half.
Eh, sure, you can hate the Ladainian Tomlinson-esque stiff arm, but if you’re going to fixate on that, then we have to talk about Andrew Bogut’s armbar on Dwight Howard, too. Two of their last five games are against the San Antonio Spurs, one of which is on the road.
Warriors update: Curry is still listed as questionable for Thursday’s game and won’t play unless he is deemed to be 100 percent. Reserve forward Marreese Speights paced the Warriors with 22 points.
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Nonetheless, the Rockets’ bench was oddly subdued for the moment. Livingston, starting in place of Curry, had 16 points on a night when Klay Thompson missed all seven 3-point attempts and finished with 17 points. “We gotta knock down some more shots”.
