Kevin Durant on Clint Capela saying Houston is a better team than the Warriors: “You hear that from guys like Capela, who’s usually catching the ball or laying it up from CP or Harden. His job is not as hard. I mean when your job is that hard you don’t say shit like that.” pic.twitter.com/lbiJ1Doxf9
— Logan Murdock (@loganmmurdock) January 22, 2018
After the Houston Rockets took down the Golden State Warriors for the second time this season on Saturday, Rockets’ center Clint Capela had strong words for the reigning NBA champs.
“We’re better than them,” Capela told ESPN.
The Warriors still hold an edge over the Rockets in the Western Conference, but with a lineup led by Chris Paul and James Harden that can knock down big shots and keep pace from beyond the arc, Houston appears destined to be Golden State’s top challenger in the playoffs.
With a 2-1 advantage in the season series, Houston has plenty of reason to be confident that it can give Golden State a serious run for its money in a seven-game playoff set. On Monday after practice, Warriors’ forward Kevin Durant told reporters the Rockets should be confident, but said it’s on Golden State to make sure the team doesn’t offer opponents a bigger window of opportunity.
“It’s all a part of the game, you understand that they beat us twice, they should feel confident,” Durant explained. “Obviously we’re confident and we feel as though we’re the best team in the league and we can beat anybody as well. But we can be beat, we can be beat on any given night if we come to play. If we turn it over 20 times and don’t guard the three-point line well then we can be beat. So we know, we don’t want to give those teams that type of confidence. But we let it happen, we have to move on.”
Following the Rockets’ 116-108 victory over the Warriors in Houston, Capela said that if his team is “doing what we’re supposed to do, we’re going to beat them,” in reference to a potential playoff series against Golden State. While the comments sounded relatively brash given the Warriors’ string of recent success, Durant said he kept them in perspective because they came from a player who doesn’t have as challenging of a role to fill.
“You hear that from the guys like Capela, usually he’s catching the ball and laying it up from CP (Paul) or James Harden so his job is not as hard,” Durant said. “When your job is hard you know you can’t just come out there and keep saying shit like that, you know what I’m saying? So I don’t expect that from CP and James and Ariza and the rest of the guys because they know how hard it is to come out there and do that every night. Capela, I mean he catch and dunks every night so it’s pretty easy.”