The Warriors and Rockets kicked off the 2018 season with a 122-121 Houston win in Oakland. Ever since, it seemed fate would have these teams squaring off in the Western Conference Finals.
They claimed the two top records in the Western Conference before cruising to 8-2 playoffs records prior to this point. Now that we are here, the matchup the NBA world has long awaited, let’s analyze five of the series’ most important aspects that will likely decide this matchup.
SMALL-BALL GALORE
Rockets head coach Mike D’Antoni is the modern-day pioneer of small-ball. Steve Kerr has revolutionized that trend with Golden State’s ‘Death Lineup,’ featuring five capable ball-handlers playing position-less basketball, devoid of a true big man.
Kerr summoned the Death Lineup throughout the Western Conference Semifinals. For the first time ever, Kerr started the quintet Game 4, and again in Game 5. It worked like a charm. The Death Lineup was plus-26 in a 26-point Game 4 win, then plus-23 in a nine-point Game 5 win. With this lineup, the Warriors shot out to a 25-4 run to start the second half in Game 5 to extend the game beyond repairability.
Kerr is using this lineup more than ever. He will no doubt continue to use it in a matchup that features small-ball galore.
Houston has a death lineup of its own, which D’Antoni has deployed more than three times any other unit throughout these playoffs: James Harden, Chris Paul, P.J. Tucker, Trevor Ariza, and Clint Capela. The Rockets’ most lethal lineup throughout the playoffs features sharpshooter Eric Gordon in place of Tucker, which has produced a 35.4-point advantage on a 100-possession basis.
Houston and Golden State are easily combustible, typically at different times.
The Rockets outscored opponents by a league-leading 4.4 points in the first quarter. The Warriors comfortably led the league in third-quarter disparity, with a plus-4.7 points average. The next highest: the Rockets, at plus-2.2.
How will the Warriors start games? How will the Rockets start second halves?
In the course of a 48-minute game, these may not seem like pressing questions, but we have seen Golden State launch monstrous runs in five, six-minute spans that have effectively decided playoff games.
WILL HOUSTON’S SIDEKICKS PRODUCE?
Five 2018 NBA All-Stars (would’ve been six if Paul had been healthy) are featured in this series. Four of them are Warriors.
Houston has placed incredible responsibility on Harden and Paul to produce all season long, and this series will not be different. But the Rockets will have to find consistent production from other sources.
The Spurs did not find scoring outside of Aldridge. Davis and Holiday were the only consistent playmakers on New Orleans. The Warriors disposed each team in five games.
For the Rockets to advance, they will need steady complementary scoring, especially from Tucker and Capela.
Tucker is shooting more threes than he ever has, and nearly as accurately as ever. He averaged 3.8 three-point tries per game, connecting on 37.1 percent, during the regular season.
During the playoffs, Tucker has attempted six three-pointers per game and drilled nearly 46 percent of them, big bumps from his regular season outputs. The veteran guard has morphed from a defensive-minded agitator to a defensive-minded agitator with a corner three in his pocket.
However, in a lineup boasting Harden, Paul, Ariza, Tucker, and potentially Ryan Anderson, who has not played much this postseason, Tucker is the weak link. He doesn’t create offense on his own. The Warriors will dare him to make threes in high-pressure situations.
Meanwhile, whenever Houston and Golden State clash with small-ball, Capela will be the only player on the floor incapable of making a three-point shot. He presents some issues that Golden State has not seen in the opening two rounds, despite matching up with two of the game’s best scoring big men: Aldridge and Davis.
Capela isn’t the dump-it-to-me-and-clear-out kind of player Aldridge and Davis are. The Rockets center lives off lobs, put-backs from offensive rebounds, and rolling off high ball screens. Capela’s 3.3 offensive rebounds per regular season game tied for fourth most in the league. He has been the playoffs’ most prolific offensive rebounder, corralling 4.1 per game.
Golden State held him in check during three regular season matchups. Capela only averaged 1.3 offensive rebounds against the Warriors, his lowest against any team.
Green and Looney will have the most responsibility of bodying Capela and holding him off the boards, a matchup that will be highlighted with the excess of Houston shooters dragging Warriors to the perimeter.
Tucker and Capela’s tremendous offensive seasons will be tested against the top defensive playoff team.
HOW WILL THESE TEAMS MATCH UP?
Each of Golden State’s two Game 1 starts have come with personnel surprises. In the opening round, Steve Kerr started center Javale McGee, to provide length against Aldridge, and Iguodala. In the Western Conference Semifinals, Kerr started Nick Young for more shooting. Iguodala was slotted into the starting lineup for both Game 4 and Game 5, both of which resulted in wins.
Kerr has been unafraid to cycle through different starting lineups and personnel groupings. Zaza Pachulia and Damian Jones are the only Warriors players who have not logged meaningful minutes in these playoffs.
How the Warriors and Rockets matchup with each other is one of the most intriguing, readily changing aspects of this series.
One thing is clear: the Rockets will almost certainly exploit Curry’s defense. They did so in earlier matchups, dragging the player whom Curry guarded to screen Harden or Paul, so Curry would switch to the ballhandler. This is where we will see how truly healthy Curry is. It is likely Paul will guard Tucker, Houston’s ‘weak link.’ Whether Curry will be able to contain Harden and Paul, and whether the Warriors will elect not to switch ball-screens, are important dynamics to watch.
The same can be said for Harden, Houston’s clear defensive liability. How will the Warriors run sets that expose his defense?
Like his starting rotations, Kerr has steadily changed defensive looks against opposing teams’ best players to disrupt them. In the opening series, the Warriors started out doubling Aldridge, forcing the ball out of his hands. Kerr frequently deployed Iguodala as a power forward, allowing Golden State to switch everything, to which Manu Ginobili admitted surprise.
Last series, the Warriors occasionally doubled Davis. They cycled Green and Kevon Looney as primary defenders, both of who present different looks. Kerr assigned Durant to guard Jrue Holiday in Game 1, and he shot 4-14 from the floor.
The Warriors have the tremendous luxury of cycling their slew of versatile defenders at various Rockets. The defensive matchups in Game 1 will very likely be different from those in Game 3.
THIS SERIES IS THE ULTIMATE TEST FOR HOUSTON’S IMPROVED DEFENSE
Rockets general manager Daryl Morey acquired Paul, Tucker and Luc Mbah a Moute this offseason, largely to improve its defense.
It worked. Houston posted a 103.8 defensive rating this year, the sixth-best in the NBA, after finishing 18th and 21st in each of the previous two seasons.
Meanwhile, the Houston offense has improved with defensive mainstays playing well on the other end. The Rockets posted a 111.1 offensive rating, accounting for the number of points per 100 possessions, which ranked first in the league. The Rockets averaged 15.3 makes and 42.3 attempts from the three-point line — both of which are NBA records.
The Rockets have always been prolific offensively. Their defense simply wasn’t good enough to advance past the second round last year. It was this year.
But will it be stingy enough to advance to the NBA Finals?
WILL HOUSTON RISE TO THE OCCASION?
It is no secret that this Rockets team was built to beat the Warriors. Rather than combat Golden State’s small-ball, Houston has sought to replicate the same idea, while executing it differently.
The Rockets have waited all year for this point. Their lineup is filled with players looking for redemption from playoff failures, namely their two stars: Harden and Paul.
Harden became infamous after disappearing in the 2012 NBA Finals with the Oklahoma City Thunder. He shot 37.5 percent, 31.8 percent from three-point range, and averaged 12.4 points per game.
Fast forward to last year, and Harden laid an egg that haunts players for careers. In a deciding Game 6 of the Western Conference Semifinals against the Spurs, Harden scored 10 points on 2-11 shooting with six turnovers. He also fouled out. It was the worst possible way to cap an unbelievably productive offense season, in which he would have likely won the MVP award had former teammate Russell Westbrook not averaged a triple-double.
Will those demons revisit Harden?
Then you have his backcourt mate, Paul, one of the best point guards of this generation. But this is the first time he has ever made a conference finals appearance. In each of his final five seasons with the Clippers— he only played six— they lost a series after leading it, the most of any team in history. The most egregious collapse came in 2015, when the Clippers led the Rockets by 19 points in a closeout Game 5, then lost the game, then lost the next two games.
For all of the deserved praise surrounding Harden and Paul’s Hall-of-Fame-caliber careers, the one stigma points to their playoff collapses.
Everything is now in place. Houston has home court advantage, the first time Golden State has not in the past three seasons.
Paul is coming off a career-defining, playoff career-high 41-point performance to close out the Utah Jazz in Game 5, and he looks as aggressive as ever. Since the onset of the offseason, they have targeted this series, against this team, to invalidate all of the knocks and criticisms that have littered Harden and Paul’s careers.
If they win, they will slay the ultimate Goliath, who has constructed the blueprint they have followed. They will subsequently match up against an Eastern Conference team, either the Boston Celtics or Cleveland Cavaliers, that likely tilts in their favor.
Will they do it?