Golden State Warriors: The villain the NBA doesn’t need

Led by a quartet of future hall-of-famers, the Golden State Warriors are back in the NBA Finals again and if you are happy about this, then you obviously are not to be trusted

At the end of the first half of Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals I had two thoughts.

First was, “Wow the Rockets look like they could actually win this thing. Defense looks strong, mistakes are being minimized, supporting cast is doing their job.”

The second, more realistic one was, “This is the most unsafe 10-point lead in NBA history.”

Of course, the latter of these two came true. Steph started hitting shots, KD took advantage of the fact that he’s the first 7-foot guard in the history of the world, Klay stopped fouling, Scott Foster swallowed his whistle and the Rockets went full Ray Charles from three. The Warriors came out victorious 101-92.

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While pundits have been making the excuses that the Warriors have faced injury riddled teams in their four-year dynasty, (The absence of CP3 over those last two games was obviously huge) the truth is, the Rockets completely beat themselves yesterday. They were victims of their own success in a way. Their whole offense is based on the principle of isolation and either getting three’s or dunks. In the first half, Clint Capela and James Harden were cooking. No one could stop the pick and roll.

Capela and PJ Tucker were having their way with the thin frontcourt the Warriors routinely have on the floor. This led to some thunderous oops, strong offensive rebounding and all the momentum in the world. The three stopped falling after the first quarter but we all thought this would turn around like it had all season. No way could the second-best shooting team in the league keep missing open shots, right?

Yeah that’s exactly what happened, sadly. You will never win a game bricking 27 straight 3’s. The fact that they only lost this game by nine, shooting 16 percent from 3 is astonishing. If they go even 19 percent, they have a great chance of winning.

What really annoyed me about this loss however is the fact that the Rockets started panicking and went away from what worked in the first half. The second half featured rushed contested threes, unnecessary dribbling, bad cross court passes, far less interior passing, far less trapping on defense, bad switches and a dependency on deep shots that were not falling. Give the Warriors credit for adjusting and limiting Capela’s way to the basket but the Rockets going away from the pick and roll in the second half made about as much sense as wet socks. It was working to a tee and taking advantage of the Warriors complete lack of interior defense was smart. This could be a symptom of a bigger problem moving forward but for now, it was just plain annoying to watch.

So here we are. I’m not one for advanced statistics or over analyzing a game. If you watched Monday night you saw an experienced team play an inexperienced, banged up team. You saw a second half played perfectly by a team that has been there before but you also saw a team completely fold. Plain and simple. It’s incredibly aggravating to see that the Rockets had every opportunity to win that game, at home no less, and couldn’t execute.

Being happy for this Warriors team making a fourth straight final is like being happy for Anton Chigurh at the end of No Country For Old Men. Rooting for a maniacal serial killer who’s only intent is to vaporize everything in his way, done mostly in a cheap shot way by flipping a coin or stopping random people on the street, is sick. Seeing this team play lackadaisical basketball for about 85 percent of the season, sit players for rest multiple times, have their fans take an underdog mentality and still have three of the top 20 players in the league with another all-star in tow is ridiculous.

The fact that this team sleep-walked through the regular season only to make another final has got to be a thorn in the side of the mass NBA fandom public.

Come Thursday it will be round four of the Cavs and the Warriors. It’s funny because to me, this one will be reminiscent of the first round in 2015. The Cavs are the clear underdog with injuries and just plain incompetence from everyone not named Lebron James. The Warriors have four future hall-of-famers, home court advantage, a better coach and momentum from beating the team with the best record in the NBA.

All signs point to a massacre and another slaying of the king for the team from Oakland. Once again, Lebron will be the best player in the series. Once again, it will not matter. I’m hoping that I’m very wrong with this prediction, but I doubt it.

This Rockets loss was not only painful for everyone involved with the organization and the city of Houston, which has endured way too much pain over the last year, it was painful for every fan of the NBA not living in Silicon Valley. The Rockets had a chance to switch a narrative and make the 2018 NBA Finals potentially a lot more exciting than what it could be. The Rockets-Cavs match-up had the makings of an intense and competitive series with two run and gun teams and fairly even match-ups.

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Now we must endure J.R. Smith getting switched onto KD and Steph making George Hill look like he’s 47 years old. The Warriors are the villain that no one should root for and if you do, look yourself in the mirror, because you are a part of the problem.