Can you overlook a No. 2 seed in the NBA Playoffs?
It sure seems as if that’s what’s happening with the Houston Rockets ahead of a first-round playoff series with the No. 7 seed Golden State Warriors.
And while it’s true, the Rockets have offensive issues, and they are oh-so young, the Warriors, in contrast, have four-time champion Steph Curry — the greatest shooter of all time — and a man whose nickname is either “Playoff” or “Buckets” in Jimmy Butler (either will do this time of year). I’d advise the Warriors and their backers ahead of this seven-game series to heed Steve Kerr’s once-repetitive call from the team’s heyday:
The Rockets might be underdogs heading into this series, but everyone should have “appropriate fear” for them.
Because in the NBA playoffs, you’re playing an entirely different kind of basketball than you play in the regular season, and that plays directly into the Rockets’ hands.
If you’ve watched Curry over the last few games, you’ve noticed he’s being mauled. The Clippers and Grizzlies lived up to their team names in must-win games. Was it basketball? Barely. The Warriors’ opponents were playing rugby with Curry, who was being grabbed and tossed away from the ball and, apparently, any referee’s gaze. Or perhaps this time of year, the refs don’t care — what else can we infer when we saw Grizzlies guard Scotty Pippen Jr. put a two-handed shove into Curry’s chest as the Warriors star shot a 3-pointer?
But pushing the lines of legality is all part of the playoff experience. If you know no one will pull you over, you’d also drive 95 miles per hour. The Warriors’ last month or so has been a sneak preview of what’s to come now that the playoffs are actually here.
And amid those previews, an extremely pertinent data point: April 6, when the Rockets came to Chase Center and beat the Dubs 106-96.
That was the Rockets at their best — physical and suffocating defense, effective length that showed up on the glass, and just enough shot-making to win.
It was the Warriors at their worst. Curry shot 1-for-10 for a grand total of 3 points. If Buddy Hield and Gary Payton II had not scored a combined 36 points (good luck counting on that in the playoffs), the final score could have looked much nastier for the Dubs.
Was all the shoving, holding and grabbing the Rockets did to Curry strictly legal?
Not even close.
But it wasn’t called then, and it certainly won’t be called starting in Game 1 Sunday in Houston.
At halftime of that game, Rockets coach, former NBA enforcer, and constant provocateur Ime Udoka and Curry found themselves yelling at each other as the teams went to their respective locker rooms:
“When people start complaining about foul calls or crying about physicality, you’ve done your job,” Udoka told The Athletic after that game. “That’s the first step in winning the battle. So I told my team, when this team starts crying about it, up the intensity, up the aggressiveness, and make the refs adjust to you.”
This is the stage for this best-of-seven-game series that looks like it can go the distance.
Udoka will sic his rabid, eager team on No. 30 and dare someone else to beat them.
The Rockets coach also deployed a clever trick in these teams’ last matchup, using his center, Alperen Şengün, to defend Warriors wing Moses Moody, who often hangs in the corner on offense. It allowed the Rockets to switch defenders on every above-the-break action between Curry, Butler, and Draymond Green — weaponizing the Warriors’ small-ball attack against them.
It was playoff-level tactics before the playoffs even started.
Kerr’s counter to that move will go a long way to deciding the series. Does he try Payton (a power forward in a guard’s body), the Brazilian spark plug Gui Santos, or even the benched Jonathan Kuminga instead of Moody?
With two idiosyncratic (a nice way of saying flawed) teams, I can’t wait to see what both coaches come up with for this series.
But no matter what the move is, it will all come down to the one superstar on the floor — Curry. And whether it’s longtime Warriors nemesis and first-team all-annoying selection Dillon Brooks or 22-year-old Oakland native Amen Thompson — who not long ago was a participant in Curry’s basketball camps — the Rockets are going to hound Curry with bigger bodies for 40-plus minutes, using every trick in the book (and a few that are off-book) to agitate, bash and slash the Dubs’ superstar.
And while the Warriors now have a viable second offensive option in Butler, this is still the Curry show. It will take all of the Baby Face Assassin’s experience and guile (as well as some big-time help from Kerr and Curry’s Warriors teammates) to find ways to break free and knock down shots.
If he can do that, the Rockets won’t have much recourse. They stand no chance against one of the all-time greats playing at that level.
But if the battered, injured (pelvis, sprained right thumb), and — let’s be honest — aging Curry can’t find a way to overcome the Rockets’ youth, speed, and tenacity, this series could prove to be a lot shorter than anyone — especially the bookmakers — expects.
Either way, I’m expecting a rock fight of a series that’s as much MMA as NBA, and rekindles the once red-hot Warriors-Rockets rivalry with a new batch of anger, angst and antagonism.
But over the last decade, I’ve learned something important: don’t bet against Curry.
The man was never supposed to be this good. His peak wasn’t supposed to last this long.
And here he is, still at the top of his game to face a new iteration of the Rockets team, who entered a long, half-decade rebuild after he beat them in the 2019 playoffs.
Take a moment to let that sink in: He’s been at this so long his top rival had to put together an entirely new team to beat him, and he’s still here, waiting for them.
I think the Rockets are being overlooked, I don’t think the end of Curry’s reign is nigh.
He is still inevitable. Give me the Dubs in 7.