ORACLE ARENA, OAKLAND, CA — The Houston Rockets were back at #Roaracle for Game 5 of the 2015 Western Conference Finals against the Golden State Warriors, who lead the series 3-1 and can clinch at home for the first time this playoffs.
Stephen Curry wore an elbow sleeve for the first time in his career. Marreese Speights remained out with a calf strain, while Patrick Beverley and Donatas Motiejunas were injured for the Rockets. Dwight Howard, who received a Flagrant One in Game 4, was not upgraded to a Flagrant Two and therefore not suspended for this game due to accrual of technical fouls during the playoffs.
1ST QUARTER: Sluggish
It was a rocky start for the Warriors, as Dwight Howard and Josh Smith blocked or disrupted multiple drives to the hoop by Curry wearing his gold yellow sleeve and Draymond Green.
Howard got a couple of and-ones in the paint, first facilitated by a drive by Jason Terry and a swing pass before that by Josh Smith.
Klay Thompson missed his first two shots badly, the first a rushed one from the corner with the shotclock winding down, the second and up-and-under on James Harden that fell way short.
Curry’s first couple shots were short, but his arms were effective on defense, getting 3 steals early on, the last leading to a full-court take on Terry for a tough layup.
Shortly thereafter, Harden went too short on a left side banker, in which he might have been caught in between a layup and alley-oop attempt to Howard, and Curry got the rebound and found Harrison Barnes for a touchdown dunk.
After that, Harden tried a Euro-Step in the lane, but Curry stayed in front and forced a turnover. Green led the break and found Thompson for a reverse layup, and the Warriors had their first lead at 10-9. But it was short-lived, as Smith came back with long steps into the lane and lobbed an easy alley-oop to Howard.
Andre Iguodala came in for Barnes, and Harden went to work, drawing a foul on a dribble-and-pop three in which his arm got entangled with Iguodala’s.
After Dwight disrupted a cutting Iguodala’s layup, Corey Brewer got a swing pass and went by the Warriors’ shifted defense for a lay-in to make it 18-12, Rockets, approaching two minutes remaining.
Sloppiness and missed shots ensured, as Iguodala sent an entry pass to a cutting Green awry and, on the next sequence, Golden State dodged a bullet as Brewer missed a wide-open right corner trey on a broken play after the Rockets mishandled the ball up top. Curry rolled his ankle a little bit on the play, as well.
Green missed a three-pointer from the top, Shaun Livingston missed from the baseline, and Festus Ezeli missed inside, although the Warriors did get offensive rebounds. The one thing they did was get the Rockets in foul trouble, and Curry went to the line with 1:42 to play after Brewer fouled him on the bounce up top, and Golden State finally scored to make it 20-14 with 1:42 to go.
Harden committed his 5th turnover on the next play and Steph made a side-step move on Brewer for a swish from the right arc to halve the lead to 20-17, approaching one minute.
But after Terrence Jones miss a jumper, Curry came down the court and missed a pull-up early trey in and out from the right elbow, the Rockets lost the ball on a nice dive/tap by Ezeli at halfcourt, but Livingston threw the ball right back to Houston, and out of the mayhem, Steph fouled Harden on the left perimeter with 1.3 ticks left on the shotclock and 4.0 on the game clock.
The Warriors were in the penalty and Harden drained both free throws. Draymond took the ball in and his launch from forty feet missed badly.
Houston took a 22-17 lead into the second stanza.
2ND QUARTER: Chef Klay
Klay finally got cooking in the second quarter, starting with a no-look touchdown pass to Barnes for a dunk after Trevor Ariza made a bad pass. Barnes made a great box-out of a Howard missed lefty scoop, and the Warriors ran a curl play for Thompson and he swished the catch beyond the arc, assisted by Livingston.
https://platform.vine.co/static/scripts/embed.js
https://platform.vine.co/static/scripts/embed.js
https://platform.vine.co/static/scripts/embed.js
That trimmed the Rockets’ lead to 22-21, then after Pablo Prigioni missed a trey attempt, Klay used the lefty dribble to go past Prigioni, found Livingston open at the baseline, drifted out to the corner line, where Livingston found him for a another triple, although replays showed that Klay stepped out out bounds before catching the pass.
https://platform.vine.co/static/scripts/embed.js
Rockets head coach Kevin McHale called a timeout and the Warriors had strung together some baskets, at last, to take a 24-22 lead with 9:29 to go.
It became a 9-0 run after Iguodala stole the ball from Howard inside, attacked the fastbreak, and Barnes slammed home his missed layup with one hand, and Thompson added another swish from downtown from the left side and Steph led the celebration on the bench.
https://platform.vine.co/static/scripts/embed.js
But two three-pointers by Smith brought the Rockets back to a 34-32 deficit with 6:33 remaining, then both teams traded buckets. Smith’s second trey was met with another touchdown pass, this time by Steph to Klay for a one-handed dunk, but Harden went down the lane and dunked it right back on the Warriors right after that.
https://platform.vine.co/static/scripts/embed.js
Curry drove past Terry and got his body into Howard, made the bucket, but there was no foul call, much to Steph’s chagrin. Houston answered back again, with Ariza going down the lane for a layup past Andrew Bogut.
With 5:15 to play, Warriors head coach Steve Kerr called timeout with Golden State leading 38-36.
The Rockets clamped down on Klay, getting him to airball a three out of the timeout, but Steph eventually found Barnes as Curry crossed over on the perimeter and stepped back, then flung the assist to Barnes.
Steph found Harrison again open, but Barnes missed this time and, after some crazy sequences where Curry went inside and drew contact from Dwight, who blocked the shot with no call, Bogut blocked Smith on the other end, and Green found Steph down the left side for a triple splash.
https://platform.vine.co/static/scripts/embed.js
Curry asked the referee about a foul call, and it looked like on the replay his left ankle rolled a little bit as Terry closed out.
https://platform.vine.co/static/scripts/embed.js
McHale called timeout as Golden State took a 44-36 lead with 2:50 to go.
After Ezeli boarded a missed three by Draymond for a putback slam…
https://platform.vine.co/static/scripts/embed.js
…and Terry made a wide-open jumper being left alone from the short right baseline, Kerr went with the Hack-A-Dwight strategy with Leandro Barbosa applying the fouls and Howard made 2 out of 4 attempts from the line.
Ezeli added a jump-stop hook shot on Dwight, fed by Barbosa, the two least likely Warriors weapons, but then Festus turned the ball over and Barbosa fouled Brewer to stop the break.
Curry got fouled on a three-pointer on a designed play to get him the ball on the right side, but he missed one of the three free throws, then Harden committed his 8th turnover as Steph stole a pass and as the halftime buzzer sounded, Curry pulled up from about 28 feet and back-rimmed the trey. Everyone at Oracle thought it was going in.
The Warriors took a 52-46 lead into halftime.
(Photo: @letsgowarriors Instagram account via @victorhmtran)
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
