The last time the Golden State Warriors hoisted the Larry O’Brien championship trophy was in 2022, with an NBA Finals win over the Boston Celtics. The Celtics’ head coach at the time was Ime Udoka. Udoka now coaches the Rockets, who have been in a “rebuild” for the last two years. The no. 2 seed Rockets are now one of the best teams in the NBA, and that’s who the no. 7 seed Warriors will need to take down to advance through round one of the Western Conference Playoffs.
The Warriors are 3-2 against the Rockets this season. The two teams have split the last two matchups since the Warriors acquired Jimmy Butler. The Rockets won the most recent matchup 106-96, one of the most perplexing losses for the Warriors since the Butler trade.
A great thing about the postseason is that your wins and losses no longer matter. If you win four games before your opponent does, you advance.
The Warriors will need to increase their physicality on both ends of the court in order to compete with Houston. The Rockets are one of, if not the most, physical basketball teams in the NBA. On the defensive end of the court, they will punch you in the face. The Rockets’ quality perimeter defenders in Amen Thompson and Dillon Brooks lead Houston’s charge on the defensive end.
In their last matchup, the Warriors struggled offensively. A big part of that was due to superstar Stephen Curry’s subpar performance of three points on 1-for-10 shooting from the field. Udoka’s game plan of shielding/doubling Curry when he was moving without the ball is consistent with the “beat you up” mentality Houston has been playing with this year.
When Curry did have the ball, Thompson guarded him for the majority of the game. Thompson’s performance on the defensive end this season will likely warrant him NBA All-Defensive Team honors.
It’s unlikely that Thompson or the rest of the Rockets will contain Curry for a seven-game series, but head coach Steve Kerr will have to find ways to take advantage of the Warriors’ 4-on-3 opportunities. If the Warriors can do that, they might be able to rip the Rockets’ defensive armor.
The Warriors will need to limit second-chance opportunities. The Rockets’ offense relies on second-chance points and getting to the free-throw line. Because the Rockets are tenacious on the defensive end, they want to control the game’s flow on the offensive end.
The biggest disadvantage for the Warriors is a Rockets lineup consisting of Steven Adams and Alperen Şengün together. When these two are on the floor, the Rockets lead the league in offensive rebound percentage, snagging rebounds at 50.3%.
In correlation, the Rockets lead the NBA in second-chance points this season, scoring 18.1 second-chance points per game. However, the Warriors have struggled to limit second-chance points recently. Since the All-Star break, they have given up the third-most second-chance points, 12.6 ppg.
Draymond Green, having his best season since the late 2010s, will need to do his best to box out Sengun or Adams when the time comes. This would force Houston’s wing defenders to crash the boards, allowing the Warriors to pick up the tempo on the offensive end.
It will disrupt Houston’s offensive game plan if the Warriors can limit the best offensive rebounding team.
If there is anything that will prevail for the Warriors to win, their experience in these moments separates them from Houston. The team’s biggest advantage is the Warriors’ core of coach Kerr, Curry, Green and Butler.
For a Houston team whose stars are young and lack playoff experience, whether or not they can live up to “playoff basketball” is something we’ll learn early on in the series. Players like Jalen Green and Sengun lead the Rockets in scoring this season, but have yet to play in a playoff game in their careers.
In addition to experience, the Warriors employ Curry and Butler, who are by far the best players in the series. Statistics aside, playoff basketball usually depends on star players performing at the highest level.
Before Butler arrived in the Bay, he willfully carried the Miami Heat to the finals, not once, but twice. Butler’s performance on those Heat teams gifted him the nickname “Playoff Jimmy.”
Since Curry entered the league, the Warriors and Rockets have matched up four times in the postseason. The Warriors won all four matchups, the most recent being in 2019. Despite both teams being dramatically different since their last postseason matchup, it’s known that this core group of the Warriors doesn’t lose to the Rockets.
