May 28, 2018; Houston, TX, USA; Golden State Warriors forward Draymond Green (23) and guard Stephen Curry (30) celebrate after defeating the Houston Rockets in game seven of the Western conference finals of the 2018 NBA Playoffs at Toyota Center. Mandatory Credit: Troy Taormina-USA TODAY Sports
NBABy Jay Rigdon on

Hey, so first of all, let’s talk about how much it sucks that Chris Paul was hurt for the final two games of this series. It really sucks.

The Rockets with Paul were clearly a superior team, which makes sense, because Chris Paul is both awesome and capable of playing with anyone, in any system, but specifically excelled with James Harden, in Houston’s system. But his hamstring let go, and with it went Houston’s advantages.

They still tried, though, of course, and for the entire first half tonight it looked like they had a real chance. Steve Kerr called the first quarter the worst he’d seen the Warriors play, and he clearly meant it.

The second quarter wasn’t much better, and the Rockets went into halftime on a surge thanks to this electrifying coast-to-coast play from Eric Gordon:

But then, the third quarter happened. Golden State’s trademark third quarter success normally stems from playing their best lineup, the so-called Hamptons 5 (sigh) of Steph, KD, Draymond, Klay, and Iguodala. With Iguodala out, they’ve had to improvise, but those third quarters have still been amazing. That’s how they put Houston away in Game 6, overcoming a big deficit to win even bigger in unprecedented fashion:

And it happened again tonight, via the Warriors entering that zone where they basically stop missing shots and do a bunch of fun cool things.

Oh, and also, the Rockets missed just about every shot they took. Like, literally. They missed 23 straight threes at one point. It was horrendous.

https://twitter.com/billbarnwell/status/1001293701170237440

That’s very bad! They finished the night 7-44 from deep, though to their credit (or not, depending on how you look at it), they kept at it.

In the end, they played two good quarters, one okay quarter (the fourth), and were just boatraced in the third (they were outscored 33-15), and that was it.

We now have LeBron and the Cavs against the Warriors again, except this time it’s somehow going to be even less competitive.

About Jay Rigdon

Jay is a columnist at Awful Announcing. He is not a strong swimmer. He is probably talking to a dog in a silly voice at this very moment.

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