After the Golden State Warriors’ Kevin Durant went down with a calf injury in Game Five of the 2019 Western Conference semifinal series against the Houston Rockets, a lot of basketball pundits instantly declared the Houston Rockets favorites to win the series. This was the case even after the Warriors’ Game Five victory in Oakland, giving them a 3-2 series lead. But the Houston Rockets were not the favorites before Durant’s injury, and were not the favorites after Durant’s injury. They lost the series in six games and are getting hammered for it, but the Houston Rockets were never the favorites to eliminate the Golden State Warriors.
We heard about how there was suddenly all this “pressure” on the Rockets to win the series, and how the “legacy” of certain players, specifically James Harden and Chris Paul, would be determined by the results of this series.
As former New York City talk-show host Art Rust, Jr. used to say, “Pressure is not knowing how you’re going to feed your kids.”
As far as legacies go, let’s wait until these players retire before determining how history will view them.
THE WARRIORS WERE SHORTHANDED?
The Warriors are the only team in the NBA who could lose two All-Star players like Kevin Durant and DeMarcus Cousins and still NOT be shorthanded. But that was precisely the adjective used to describe the Warriors heading into Game Six on the road against the Houston Rockets.
Even without those two players — including one (Durant) now in the conversation for the best player on the planet — the Warriors still had four of their top players from the 2015 NBA championship squad, including the top three scorers (Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green) and the 2015 NBA Finals Most Valuable Player (Andre Iguodala). This same group lost to Lebron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers in the 2016 NBA Finals after jumping out to a 3-1 series lead. This came on the heels of a 73-win, nine-loss regular season. BEFORE Kevin Durant’s arrival.
We should all be so shorthanded.
All but Iguodala are still in their prime years, and even he knew exactly what to do in Game Six when called on for extended minutes in Durant’s absence. These guys are battle-tested, and even with a thinner bench relative to previous years it’s difficult to imagine how Houston was considered a lock to not only win Game Six at home, but Game Seven on the road as well.
THE ROCKETS DIDN’T CHOKE, THE WARRIORS ARE SIMPLY BETTER
So now the 2018-19 Rockets’ post-mortem has already included words like “choked”, “embarrassed”, “ruined legacies” and other not-so-flattering terms, but it’s not really that serious. The Rockets have one star player in his prime (James Harden) and another (Chris Paul) who is now 34-years-old. They also lost a lot on the defensive end during last summer’s player movement. The team’s recent reputation for coming up short in the postseason obviously precedes them now based on past performances, including playoff losses to the Warriors in four of the last five seasons.
I’d understand the vitriol a lot better had the Rockets lost in the first round or even in the semis against another opponent, but these are the defending NBA champions who’ve won three of the last four titles with basically the same core group of players.
We can micro-analyze the Game Six performance, the lost opportunity in Game Five and the officiating in Game One, but the 2019 Western Conference semifinal series did not represent the Houston Rockets’s best chance to reach the NBA Finals with this group, That came during 2018 Western Conference Finals with Durant on the court but with Game Seven at home. The three-point shooting which carried the Rockets for the entire season failed them on that Game Seven evening.
I sensed the Rockets were in trouble late in Game Six during one sequence where they had a three-on-one fast break and came away with nothing. And yes, I was nodding my head in agreement as ESPN commentator Jeff Van Gundy lamented the fact that both “lane-fillers” on the break ran away from the basket to set up for the corner three-point shot instead of cutting to the basket for a layup off a pass. But that’s the way the game is played now.
LOOKING AHEAD
The Warriors are not as dominant as they’ve been in recent years and are looking at the prospect of losing even more key elements of their roster this summer. It remains to be seen if they can pull off another title, but they’ll certainly be considered the favorites in the 2019 Western Conference Final against either Portland or Denver. And they’ll face a formidable foe from the Eastern Conference in the finale should they get there. It won’t be easy.
As for Houston, they’re getting destroyed by fans and media, but they’re used to it by now. They’ll still have James Harden, but Chris Paul is now on the downside of his career and will collect approximately $40 million annually for the next three years. This will eventually hamper their efforts to upgrade the talent level around their top two guys, and they are currently without a pick in either round of next month’s NBA Draft.
Western Conference squads like Dallas, Phoenix and Sacramento appear to be on the rise. Without some shrewd front office maneuvering, it may be a while before the Houston Rockets are considered favorites past the first round of the NBA playoffs, regardless of opponent.
And that will be fair.
Yes, James Harden had an incredible scoring run during the 2019 regular-season, but there’s no way the Houston Rockets should have been considered favorites to beat the Golden State Warriors in 2019, even without Kevin Durant.
Photo by Alexander Londoño on Unsplash
