Both Conference Finals go the full distance! The Golden State Warriors made a comeback victory against the Houston Rockets in their sixth game. At 115:86 (BOXSCORE) the Splash Brothers Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson dominate the second half and turn a high-class game into a blowout at the end.
Neither team could fall back on its full squad – with the Rockets Chris Paul was missing and was represented as announced by Eric Gordon as starter, with the Warriors Andre Iguodala had to pause again, but for the first time in these playoffs Patrick McCaw, badly injured in the Regular Season, was part of the active squad. However, the starters remained the same as in game 5, so Kevon Looney started in the centre position.
However, the start belonged to the guests. The Warriors overrevved at first and barely finished an attack cleanly, while Gordon was particularly hot for the Rockets, scoring 8 points in the first 4’27”. Stephen Curry answered with the next 7 points and equalized the match briefly, but now Trevor Ariza and James Harden took over, who finally scored again from outside. The lead quickly grew to 8 points, after Gerald Green and P.J. Tucker were 14 and the Rockets could not miss at all in the first quarter. With 39:22 (!) it went into the quarter break.
Led by Klay Thompson, the Dubs opened the second quarter with a 12-4 run and Houston lost the ball unnecessarily several times. Now that Kevin Durant also came into play better and better, the Warriors were all of a sudden on 5 points again, before Harden interspersed an And-1 and the Rockets could break away again slightly. 61:51 Houston on break.
As so often, the Warriors started their biggest punch immediately after the break. In fact, it only took Golden State 95 seconds to reach 2 points after two Thompson-threes and a dunk of Durant. Mike D’Antoni took a time-out, but Golden State made two more stops – so the Dubs took the lead after a curry threesome. Houston recovered thanks to Harden, who scored the next 8 Rockets points in a row, now both teams rocked each other at a great level.
Thompson and Curry scored back-to-back threesomes 2’31” from the last quarter, followed by another loss by Harden and another time-out for Golden State at 79’74”. But Curry and the Dubs were now unstoppable. Altogether they won the quarter with 33:16 – and therefore took an 84:77 lead into the last quarter.
After a few minutes in the last run the residue became uncatchable. Harden was frustrated at the front that he didn’t get any calls, but with the Warriors almost everything fell in the front. About four minutes before the end the coaches took their top performers off the field when the Dubs were already leading with well over 20 points.
Topscorer of the Warriors, who dominated the second half with 64:25 (!), was Thompson with 35 points (9/14 threesome), Curry set 29 points and Durant 23. Harden finished the game with 32 points, 7 rebounds, 9 assists and 9 ball losses. Gordon got up to 19 points.
Game 7 of the series takes place in the night from Monday to Tuesday in Houston.
Golden State Warriors v Houston Rockets 115:86, series 3:3 (BOXSCORE)
Game 6 with its back to the wall seems to suit the Shooting Guard somehow. His performance in this game reminded of Game 6 against the Thunder in 2016 – Thompson was almost automatic from the triple line and played incredibly good defense against Harden over long distances, often over the whole field. That was impressive.
The Swiss rebounded well (16 boards), but otherwise he could not really shape the game and over the whole game the Rockets looked better if they had small lineups on the court. Even before the game turned into a blowout, Capela had by far the worst plus/minus rating of his team.
Paul’s retirement forced Rockets coach D’Antoni to adjust his rotation – staggering with alternating hall-of-fame-guards was no longer an option. Harden played through the entire first quarter and got almost no break at all afterwards, just like Ariza. The bank only used Green and the reactivated Mbah a Moute, so it played a 7-rotation. Golden State partially countered this with a press to wear Harden down even more. This paid off in the second half.