The Houston Rockets' Trevor Ariza and Chris Paul celebrate a Game 4 win Tuesday. May 22, 2018; Oakland, CA, USA; Houston Rockets forward Trevor Ariza (1) and guard Chris Paul (3) celebrate after defeating the Golden State Warriors in game four of the Western conference finals of the 2018 NBA Playoffs at Oracle Arena. Mandatory Credit: Kyle Terada-USA TODAY Sports

The Houston Rockets looked to be in trouble Tuesday against the Golden State Warriors, as they were down 2-1 in the series and trailed 28-19 after the first quarter and 80-70 after three quarters. But they battled back in the fourth quarter, outscoring Golden State 25-12 to emerge from Oracle Arena with a 95-92 win that evened the series. And what was maybe most remarkable about this game was how it was the first in either NBA conference final to be in question down the stretch:

This feels like one that the Warriors could have won with just a few more breaks. They were up 82-70 early in the fourth quarter, but the Rockets stormed back with a 19-4 run to take an 89-86 lead. And from there, there was a lot of sloppy basketball down the stretch on both sides, but Golden State just couldn’t convert on their opportunities. Such as this one on what looked like their final possession, where they forced James Harden into a long three that missed and got the ball back down 94-92 with 13 seconds left, but could only generate a heavily-defended Klay Thompson two-point shot for the tie that missed:

Somehow, Golden State still wasn’t done after that, though. A foul was called on the rebound that sent Houston’s Chris Paul to the line, where he made one of two shots. And as Warriors’ coach Steve Kerr had smartly conserved a timeout, that let Golden State advance the ball past midcourt and set up for a potentially game-tying three to send this one to overtime. They even got Steph Curry a pretty good look, but his shot hit the rim:

And that meant the Rockets came out of Oracle with a 95-92 win, and tied the series up at 2-2. They did so thanks to a team performance, with Harden and Paul contributing 30 and 27 points respectively and P.J. Tucker and Clint Capela adding 16 and 13 rebounds respectively. But they were also helped by some of the late-game struggles from Golden State. We’ll see if the Warriors can recover from that when the series resumes Thursday in Houston.

[NBA.com]

About Andrew Bucholtz

Andrew Bucholtz has been covering sports media for Awful Announcing since 2012. He is also a staff writer for The Comeback. His previous work includes time at Yahoo! Sports Canada and Black Press.

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