After 34 months of towering expectations, the loss of Kevin Durant sends the Warriors tumbling back into a place they’d outgrown. The team assembled to rule the NBA now faces long odds to get out of the second round of the playoffs.
The Warriors can get comfortable with this because each of their leaders – Stephen Curry, Draymond Green and Klay Thompson – was drafted under a cloud of doubt. Well, that doubt has returned and suddenly they’re in the role that motivates them most.
“He's been the best player in the NBA, in the playoffs,” coach Steve Kerr said Thursday, referring to Durant. “He's been phenomenal, so it's obviously a huge loss.
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“But our team has a lot of confidence. They trust each other. They've won championships together.”
While the Warriors are eager to see how far their belief can take them, what’s no less intriguing is how the Rockets respond to being shifted into the role that has eaten them into pieces.
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They’re healthy. They’re playing excellent defense, particularly at the 3-point line. James Harden, a strong candidate to repeat as MVP, is posting impressive numbers. Eric Gordon is getting buckets. PJ Tucker has been a bully. They’re down 3-2 in the series, but Durant is done and Game 6 is at Toyota Center on Friday, where Houston is undefeated this postseason.
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The Rockets are supposed to win because they’re positioned to take down the team they’ve been obsessed with for the past couple seasons. As one of the locals here put it Thursday: “If they can’t beat the Warriors now, when can they? They might as well blow it up.”
Can you imagine the Houston locker room if they lose Game 6?
The Rockets historically come apart in the face of pressure. They were up 3-2 last May and lost Games 6 and 7 to the Warriors, watching them waltz out of town on the way to the NBA Finals.
The Rockets in Game 6 built a quick 17-point lead but crumbled after halftime, being outscored 64-25 in the second half to lose by 29. Curry and Thompson combined for 64 points, draining 14-of-28 from deep, Harden scored 32 points on 10-of-24 shooting and committed nine turnovers.
Back in Houston for Game 7, the Warriors fell behind by 13 in the third quarter before going on a 31-9 run over a 10-minute span to claim a 101-92 victory. The Rockets were 7-of-44 from beyond the arc – including the much ridiculed 27 consecutive misses from deep.
This was in line with the derisive nickname applied to Houston’s NBA Rockets and NFL Oilers in the early-90s: Choke City. The Rockets shed the insult with back-to-back titles behind Hakeem Olajuwon in 1994 and 1995.
Yet each time they’ve seen the Warriors in the postseason, the Rockets have failed. It was Warriors in five in the 2015 Western Conference finals, Warriors in five in the first round in 2016 and Warriors in seven last May.
The Rockets thought they were onto something in 2017, cruising past the Thunder in five in the first round before trouncing the Spurs 126-99 in Game 1 of the conference semifinals. San Antonio won in six, the closeout game a 114-75 rout of the Rockets at Toyota Center – with Harden fouling out after a 2-of-11 shooting performance.
Insofar as they have lost every elimination game they have played since 2015, Harden and the Rockets have an abundance of heavy history to overcome. And they know it.
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The pressure slid off the Warriors when they lost KD. They’re now trying to win without two starters, DeMarcus Cousins and Durant. They have Curry, Green, Thompson, Andre Iguodala and Shaun Livingston, but they also have no choice but to rely on players on the far end of the bench.
“Just got to go out there and focus and enjoy it,” Kerr said. “You know, it's the playoffs. It's the ultimate test, and we're in a great spot. We're up 3-2 and we've got championship rings on our fingers and a lot of experience and a lot of confidence that comes from that, so let's go out there and let it rip.”
The pressure is on the Rockets to close it out on Friday and the Warriors like it that way. These underdogs would like nothing more than to order a movie they’ve seen before