3rd-quarter surge: Comeback sets up 4th meeting vs. Cavs
HOUSTON — With his team trailing by 11 at halftime Monday night, Warriors head coach Steve Kerr reminded his players that they needed only about two minutes of well-executed basketball to erase their double-digit deficit.
Though Golden State took longer than 120 seconds to tie the game, Kerr’s point was made. To exorcise the memory of another ugly first half, the Warriors outscored the Rockets 33-15 in a patented third-quarter comeback, escaping Toyota Center with a 101-92 win in Game 7 of the Western Conference finals.
For the fourth straight year, Golden State will host the Cleveland Cavaliers in Game 1 of the NBA Finals, which begin Thursday night at Oracle Arena. In the meantime, the Warriors will try to remedy the lackluster starts that plagued them in both elimination games of the conference finals. Their signature thirdquarter blitzes may not have been enough had Houston had a healthy Chris Paul.
“Our talent took over,” Kerr said of Golden State’s second-half dominance Monday. “It’s as simple as
that. We’ve got three of the best shot-makers in the league. They all got hot at different points of the second half and made great plays.”
Stephen Curry poured in 12 of his 27 points in the third quarter to help the Warriors turn a 54-43 deficit into a 76-69 lead. With Kevin Durant scoring 11 of his game-high 34 points in the fourth, Golden State held off Houston to join the 1976 Suns (who beat the Warriors) and 2002 Lakers as the only teams in NBA history to win a West finals Game 7 on the road.
It helped that the Rockets could hardly make a threepointer, even wide-open ones. Houston — a team that pushes long-range exploits to the extreme — finished the night 7-for-44 from three-point range, including a streak of 27 missed three-point tries. The Rockets made only one of their final 30 three-point attempts.
“We did everything well, except they outshot us,” Houston head coach Mike D’Antoni said. “When they make their little runs, we have to be able to hit threes to keep them at bay, and we couldn’t do that.”
Less than two hours before tip-off, D’Antoni announced that Paul would miss his second straight game with a strained right hamstring. It wasn’t enough to prevent another discombobulated first quarter from Golden State. Two nights after digging a 17-point first-quarter hole in Game 6, the Warriors committed four fouls within the first minute-plus of Game 7.
Instead of being in constant motion, Golden State often stood still, watching helplessly as the Rockets turned steals into easy points. Midway through the second quarter, James Harden picked off a Draymond Green pass and drove upcourt for a one-handed dunk to put Houston up 48-33.
When the Warriors entered halftime down 11, they were facing troubling questions: Why were they not matching Houston’s intensity? After cruising through much of the season, would Golden State finally be undone by its focus issues?
“I think that moment, it could have splintered, to be honest,” Curry said. “It could have been a moment where guys went their separate ways.”
The Warriors uncorked a 21-7 run to open the third quarter. By the time Curry drained a threepointer with 3:58 left in the period, Golden State had its first lead since the opening moments. Curry needed less than two minutes to single-handedly outscore the Rockets 11-2 and turn a three-point deficit into a nine-point cushion.
In the third quarter, Curry’s 14 points were only one fewer than Houston mustered. The Rockets missed all 14 of their three-point attempts as Golden State spread the floor, hit the open man and shot 54.5 percent from the field.
The 11-point halftime deficit the Warriors overcame Monday was the largest by a road team to win Game 7 in postseason history. For the first time in NBA history, a team has won multiple elimination games in the same series when trailing by 10 or more at halftime.
The hope now for the Warriors is that they won’t need another reminder of their deficit-erasing potential during halftime of Game 1 of the NBA Finals. Though Cleveland has plenty of flaws, it boasts a player in LeBron James who’s capable of punishing the Warriors for a poor first two quarters.
“I’m proud of our guys for the way they held together after almost coming completely unglued in the first half,” Kerr said. “But that second half, that was something.”