The Houston Rockets have been highly competitive with the Golden State Warriors in their first-round series. However, Golden State’s experience is turning vital, as the Warriors squeaked out another win on Monday evening to take a commanding 3-1 series lead.
The Rockets have shown that they have more than enough physicality to beat Golden State, but their inexperience has led to costly miscues, and that proved to be their undoing in Monday’s 109-106 loss.
Rockets head coach Ime Udoka knows that his team will have to clean things up for there to be a chance at a comeback in the series.
“Guys are down, but they understand that the game we played well — the one game out of four [Game 2] – we had a blowout win and other games, it’s been a one-possession game, or we’ve had a fourth quarter lead and not played well,” Udoka said after the game according to ESPN.
“Consistency wins in this series, and we’ve talked about that from Day 1. We have to be more consistent across the board.”
Rockets guard Free VanVleet knows how close his team has been to gutting out a victory in each of the last two games.
“These [last two] games suck,” he said. “We had two [games] that could have went our way. This is the playoffs. The margin of error is so slim they can go either way. And you learn that it comes down to possessions. Possessions are so important.”
If the Rockets can put together complete games moving forward, there’s no reason they can’t play in a Game 7 back in Houston.
