By RJ Saunders
Oakland, CA — By the way the game started, you would’ve believed that the Golden State Warriors were going to make easy work of the Houston Rockets. The Warriors punched the Rockets in the mouth early by starting the game off on a 12-0 run on 5-of-8 shooting. In addition, Houston didn’t score their first basket until the 6:43 mark in the first quarter.
Chris Paul in that first quarter was held scoreless. Furthermore, as a team the Rockets shot a rather cold 31 percent from the field in the first while the Warriors came out guns blazing and shot a red-hot 55 percent from the field.
However, the Rockets would weather that first quarter surge by the Warriors and take the lead going into the half. Paul and James Harden would begin to find their touch and finish the quarter combining for 38 points (Harden having 24 of those). Yet, the Rockets would score 12 points off of the 10 Warriors turnovers in the half. By that time, you knew that it was going to be a fight.
That is, until Stephen Curry started turning it on.
Curry would once again catch fire just like he did in Game Three. Curry began to do his shimmy as he scored 17 of his 28 points in the third quarter. He was on fire and Oracle was electric as they witnessed their Warriors put up 34 points in the third quarter on 13-of-22 shooting, scoring 18 second-chance points and finishing the quarter on a 25-5 run.
However, the Rockets would once again stay the course. One of the main reasons why the Rockets stayed in and won this game is because they were aggressive, got to the line and converted on their free throw opportunities.
The Rockets went to the line 27 times in this game and made 23 of their free throws. Also, they would lock in defensively in the fourth quarter, making the Warriors work for every single shot.
The last play for the Warriors was a rather interesting one, as it didn’t seem as if they knew who would get the ball at the end. They did have a timeout left and decided not to call it. Klay Thompson put up a very bad shot under heavy pressure against Trevor Ariza. That is probably a shot that the Warriors wish that they had back, as they were only down two with the shot clock off at home and an opportunity to go up 3-1.
But, you have to credit the Houston Rockets tonight. Hope seemed lost for them when the game started. Still though, they took the Mike Tyson-esque punch and ended up winning this heavyweight bout by decision.
Now they go back to Houston with an opportunity to take this series back. This is the match-up that everyone was waiting for since last October. In addition, we have not been disappointed one bit by the play we’re seeing from both teams. And we expect to have an exciting finish to this series, beginning with Game 5 on Thursday.
