Draymond Green says that winning felt great no matter how many times they've been here. He also says Steph was sensational in the fourth. (1:21) HOUSTON -- It wasn't a championship celebration. But it was close. As each player made his way into the Golden State Warriors' locker room after their Game 6 118-113 elimination win over the Houston Rockets in the Western Conference semifinals Friday, there were waves of yells, applause and backslapping. Eleven of them had played and nine of them had scored. Each had a moment to be appreciated. "Great rebound." "Awesome getting that loose ball." "Huge putback." As each man entered the room, he turned and waited for the next, creating a huddle at the end of a tunnel of coaches, staff members and support personnel. The so-called "core four" came last, like a wedding party entering a rocking reception. First Andre Iguodala and then Draymond Green, grabbing each other and hugging tightly. Then Klay Thompson, who barked with joy in rare form from the stoic star. Finally, Stephen Curry, his left hand throbbing from the reaggravation of a left finger injury, a 4-year-old pair of shoes on his feet, and a wide smile spread across his face after one of the most bizarre and wonderful nights of his career. "This was one of the best wins we've had in my nine years as owner," said Warriors owner Joe Lacob, who has raised three championship trophies. Klay Thompson kept the Warriors afloat in the first half, and then Stephen Curry took Golden State home with another series win in Houston. EPA/LARRY W. SMITH To understand this feeling requires some nuance. The Warriors were basking in this victory because they'd beaten their rival on the rival's home floor, sending the Rockets into a miserable offseason for a second year in a row and fourth time in five years. And because the Warriors had done it without Kevin Durant, who was back in the Bay Area receiving treatment on a calf injury that was supposed to have been a game-changing moment in this series. It turned out to be -- just not in the way it first seemed. It was Winston Churchill who advised never to let a good crisis go to waste. From the huddle the Warriors' players formed Wednesday night when Durant limped up the tunnel, that's exactly what they did. Instead of pouting or crumbling, the Warriors these past few days created a complex moment composed of nostalgia, vindication and appreciation. It was not sinister. Durant was there both spiritually and virtually. His uniform hung at his traditional locker in the Toyota Center. People were texting him, sending him photos and FaceTiming him. But without Durant actually playing, the accomplishment magnified. The Warriors hadn't won a series without Durant in three years. They haven't won a title without him since 2015, the version of shoes that Curry took out of storage in a move that was part motivation and part symbolism. "I wanted to lean into it," Curry said of the shoe choice, a nod to the widespread expectation for him to return to a pre-Durant version of himself. Those within the locker room will tell you this has been the hardest season of Golden State's five-year run at the top. The combination of mental fatigue, uncertainty and tension drained the fun out of this journey. Maybe some of the players will write about it in their memoirs or, in the modern-day spirit, talk about it in the documentaries their personal media companies produce. Naturally, the Warriors have allowed themselves to think of a world without Durant next season after he hits free agency. After the pleasantries and talk of families are exhausted, Durant's future has been a leading item of gossip in every corner of the NBA for months now. And it will be into the future. The Warriors know he's a vital piece of their championship makeup and they badly want him to stay. But, of course, they believe -- especially those core four -- that they can still hunt without him. They all have egos. They've all learned to suppress them for the good of the whole. But that 2015 title ring remains the most special. You never forget your first. For this win to come the way it did: Iguodala crushed Houston's defensive strategy by nailing five 3-pointers. Green approached another triple-double. Thompson exploded for a huge 21-point first half. Curry had one of the finest 10-minute stretches in his career with 23 fourth-quarter points to close it out. It all rekindled that old "strength in numbers" flame. Combined with the Game 5 win when the Warriors overcame Durant's injury thanks to late-game Curry heroics, well, let's just say coach Steve Kerr's postgame moniker of "f---ing giants" was heard throughout the locker room. As was Chris Paul's name, surrounded by curse words. The Warriors dearly loved this win and they always love beating Paul. "I'm damn proud of our team, for sure," Curry said. "It's huge." The coming together despite being depleted -- it's easy to forget Golden State is also down center DeMarcus Cousins, who was expected to be a factor in this series when he joined the team -- only amplified the wound it inflicted on the Rockets. It wasn't that the Rockets played poorly in losing this series 4-2 -- James Harden scored a game-high 35 points despite missing 10 of his first 15 shots, and Paul had his best game of the series with 27 points and six assists. Rather, it was that given an opportunity, the Rockets couldn't play great as a team. There's a chance that shortcoming will gnaw at them for a long time. Combined with last season's miss, it's got the potential to be damaging long term. When presented the same opportunity, the Warriors did play great, especially in that charmed final quarter in which Curry drilled three 3-pointers and their defense held Houston scoreless for a stretch of nearly four minutes. "This one is going to leave a mark," Rockets coach Mike D'Antoni said. Fittingly, that's exactly what the Warriors were trying to do.<doc-sep>The Warriors are one win away from the Western Conference Finals after earning a five-point win over the Rockets in Game 5 to take a 3-2 series lead. After Kevin Durant suffered a strained right calf in the third quarter, Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson stepped up in a big way to hold off a furious Rockets rally. If you missed any of the action, check below for updates from throughout Game 5… Final: Warriors 104, Rockets 99 (Golden State leads 3-2) Despite Kevin Durant leaving the game with a strained right calf, Golden State holds off a furious second-half rally from Houston to take a 3-2 series lead. After Durant exited the game, Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson stepped up to the challenge to finish with 25 points and 27 points, respectively. Draymond Green finished the game with eight points, 12 rebounds and 11 assists before fouling out and Andre Iguodala added 11 points, five assists and four rebounds. Houston was led by 31 points, eight assists, four rebounds and four steals from James Harden and Eric Gordon's 19 points. PJ Tucker added 13 points while both Chris Paul and Iman Shumpert added 11 points apiece. The series now shifts to Houston where the Warriors have an opportunity to eliminate the Rockets at the Toyota Center for a second straight year. End of third quarter: Warriors 72, Rockets 72 After trailing by as many as 20 points, the Rockets outscore the Warriors 29-15 to tie things up heading into the final frame. James Harden leads the way for Houston with 26 points on the night while PJ Tucker has added 13 points and 10 rebounds. Clint Capela has scored just two points so far but has grabbed 13 rebounds (five offensive) to make his presence felt. Kevin Durant's 22 points pace Golden State, but he has exited the game with a strained right calf and will not return. Klay Thompson has 20 points in the game while Stephen Curry has 13 points despite shooting just 6-for-16 from the field and 1-for-8 from beyond the arc. Halftime: Warriors 57, Rockets 43 It's been a game of runs…mostly made by Golden State. The Warriors used a 17-0 run in the second quarter to get their lead out to 20 points but the Rockets responded with a 6-0 run to close the half with a more manageable deficit. Kevin Durant leads all scorers with 20 points while Klay Thompson has scored 17 points in the first half. KD's 20 PTS & Klay's 17 PTS keep the Warriors 🆙 by 14 after one half in the Bay! 💦#StrengthInNumbers#NBAPlayoffs pic.twitter.com/cQPedXDoe9 — NBA on TNT (@NBAonTNT) May 9, 2019 Draymond Green has scored just three points but now has nine rebounds and nine assists for the game. Stephen Curry has struggled to get going as he is 2-for-8 from the field and has just five points ahead of the break. Houston's offence has been paced by James Harden, who has scored 14 points (on 5-for-7 shooting) while PJ Tucker, Chris Paul and Nenê have each scored six points apiece. The Rockets are shooting just 14-for-38 (36.8%) from the field and 5-for-22 (22.7%) from beyond the arc while the Warriors are 22-for-47 (46.8%) from the field and 7-for-20 (35.0%) from 3-point range. End of first quarter: Warriors 31, Rockets 17 One quarter is in the books and Golden State has built a 14-point lead early on. Led by 12 points from Klay Thompson and eight points from Kevin Durant, the Warriors are shooting 13-for-25 from the field so far. Draymond Green has dished out eight of the team's 11 assists to get things going, meaning 11 of Golden State's 13 buckets have been assisted on. The Rockets have had a rough start, shooting 5-for-17 (29.4) from the field and are led by seven points from James Harden who has yet to miss a shot. Golden State has dominate on the inside and in transition, scoring 16 points in the paint to Houston's four and seven fastbreak points while Houston has scored none. Pregame Houston will roll with a starting lineup of Chris Paul, James Harden, Eric Gordon, PJ Tucker and Clint Capela. Game 5 Starters 🚀 pic.twitter.com/4VydXp55xF — Houston Rockets (@HoustonRockets) May 9, 2019 Golden State again goes with a starting unit of Stephen Curry, Klay Thompson, Kevin Durant, Draymond Green and Andre Iguodala.<doc-sep>All the good, bad, and STEPH BACKs of the Golden State Warriors’ 118-113 victory over the Houston Rockets in Game 6 on Friday to close out their second-round series, 4-2. Winner: The Splash Brothers The Kevin Durant–size void loomed large over Game 6, and for a little more than two quarters, Stephen Curry didn’t do much to fill it. After Durant suffered a calf strain in Game 5 that will keep him out at least a week, there was a belief that we would see the Warriors of old, with Curry leading the charge, peacocking and pulling up from 30 feet and clowning the opponent on his way to a signature win. As if the longing for nostalgia weren’t real enough, Andrew Bogut started at center too. Related The Three Biggest Offseason Questions Facing the Houston Rockets But Curry was cold. And not in that ice-in-his-veins type of cold, but rather in a way that looked like it was going to cost Golden State the game, maybe the series. In the first half, Curry picked up three fouls, played only 12 minutes, took five shots—and missed them all—and scored zero points for the first time in his playoff career. And yet Houston could do nothing but keep the game tied at halftime. That was, in large part, because Klay Thompson was the fire to Curry’s ice. There’s something about Thompson and Game 6s. In the 2016 Western Conference finals against Oklahoma City, he put up 41 points; two years later, against Houston, he had 35. In the first half on Friday, Thompson scored 21 points, made five 3s, and drilled eight of his 15 field goals. In the regular season, there were 23 times when Thompson took 15 shots or fewer in the entire game. Usually when Thompson catches fire, the Warriors look like an unstoppable force, but in this context, he was more of a lifesaver. And yet, just when it looked like the story of the night was going to be that Curry disappeared and Thompson’s valiant efforts were simply not enough to close out Houston, the two forefathers of this Warriors dynasty didn’t let that happen. Curry scored his first bucket with just under 10 minutes in the third quarter. Slowly but surely, he began to warm up, and suddenly he was cooking. The 3s started going in—not just open 3s, but contested and off-balance ones too. Every shot Curry took in the paint in the second half went in, and he missed only four field goal attempts after halftime. In the end, he finished with 33 points—23 in the fourth quarter alone. ☔️ @StephenCurry30 goes off for 33 PTS in the 2nd half, leading the @warriors past Houston and into the Western Conference Finals! #StrengthInNumbers #NBAPlayoffs pic.twitter.com/1A26pJfLEk — NBA (@NBA) May 11, 2019 Thompson wasn’t done, either. The Warriors were up three with 36 seconds left and Curry was trapped on the right side of the court. He bounced the ball to an open Draymond Green, who drove and dished to Andre Iguodala, who slid the ball over to Thompson. Thompson’s 28-footer splashed in and sealed the game. The ball had found its way from one Splash Brother to the other Splash Brother, pinging through the glue guys who helped spur the franchise’s first title in between. The play was old-school Warriors to a tee. When the buzzer sounded, both Thompson and Curry had combined for 60 of the Warriors’ 118 points. The peacocking that we expected ensued. Loser: Chris Paul Let it be said that with the series on the line, during a game in which the Rockets didn’t just need to win, but should have won, Chris Paul showed up. He was his pesky self—looking for contact on nearly every play, and creating it when he needed to—and hit fadeaway midrange jumpers like he was back in his prime. Paul scored 27 points, dished six assists, made three 3s, and grabbed a team-high 11 rebounds. (That the Rockets’ starting point guard had such a high rebounding total is an indictment of their center Clint Capela, but it’s at least a moral victory for the 6-foot Paul.) In the third quarter, Paul carved up the narrative around his postseason by forcing his way through the Golden State defense with deceptive dribbling and then, at the last possible moment, flipping two picture-perfect lobs to Capela for dunks. But the basketball gods wouldn’t let Paul have his night. He made three of his five shots in the fourth quarter, and he grabbed more rebounds and looked like he was trying to will the Rockets to victory. But Houston couldn’t get a stop, and Paul couldn’t do anything in the face of the onslaught from Curry. “They just outplayed us,” Paul told reporters postgame. “They played smarter than us and made the big plays, and we didn’t.” It was a succinct and accurate summary of the night, but it doesn’t necessarily describe Paul’s own performance. Either way, yet another chance to finally break into the NBA Finals had escaped him. Paul is 34 years old; we’ll see if this was his last, best chance to finally change the conversation about his playoff career. Loser: James Harden We have to start here: Harden scored 35 points on 25 shots, hit six 3s, grabbed eight rebounds, added five assists, even swiped four steals. It was, by all accounts, a good Harden game. But he also missed five free throws. And the Rockets, you may have noticed, lost by five points. Harden was an 88 percent free throw shooter during the regular season, and in the playoffs, he didn’t have a game in which he missed more than two free throws. Until Game 6. I don’t subscribe to the notion that a moment can be too big for a professional athlete, or believe in a “clutch gene,” but Harden isn’t helping the argument to prove otherwise.<doc-sep>LeBron James may have lost three times to the Golden State Warriors in the NBA Finals, but he doesn't hold any grudges. After the Warriors pulled off a shocking 118-113 upset over the Houston Rockets in Game 6 -- eliminating the Rockets from the playoffs in the process -- James made sure to compliment and congratulate the defending NBA champions in a tweet immediately after their victory. The Warriors were able to eliminate the Rockets for the second straight year from the postseason -- and fourth time in the past five seasons -- despite the absence of Kevin Durant, who continues to be sidelined due to a right calf strain injury. Making matters even more impressive, other than the fact that they eliminated the Rockets for the second straight postseason at Toyota Center, is that Stephen Curry didn't even score any points in the first half. He went 0-for-5 from the field and 0-of-2 from 3-point range before erupting for 33 points in the second half on 9-of-15 from the field and 4-of-9 from 3-point range. James knows what it's like to face the Warriors -- and be repeatedly eliminated by them -- in the postseason. While James was victorious in 2016 with the Cleveland Cavaliers, he also lost to the Warriors in 2015, 2017 and 2018 before finally bolting the Cavaliers for the Los Angeles Lakers last summer. Considering Durant may be out for a prolonged period of time -- he could be out until Game 4 of the Western Conference Finals -- it was an absolutely positive sign to see the bench contribute in a major way and pick up the slack for the Warriors in Durant's absence. In an absolute throwback to the pre-Durant era, Shaun Livingston scored 11 points off the bench while Andre Iguodala contributed 17 points in a starting role. With the Warriors potentially facing either the Denver Nuggets or the Portland Trail Blazers without Durant for the first several games, they'll absolutely need contributions from their role players in order to defend their title. As LeBron says -- don't underestimate the heart of a champion.<doc-sep>
Friday night’s win over the Rockets capped the Dubs’ 17th postseason series victory since 2015, and judging from the team’s reaction, this one was perhaps more satisfying than any of them not resulting in the team’s hoisting of the Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy. “Like yeah, we’re used to winning, but this one felt amazing,” Draymond Green said during his postgame press conference. “Just the way it all unfolded, just getting contributions from everybody, this one felt really good.” The way it unfolded was Kevin Durant getting injured in the third quarter of Game 5 and not being able to play in Friday’s Game 6. Down a pair of starters – don’t forget about DeMarcus Cousins’ torn left quadriceps suffered in the first round series with the Clippers – the Dubs figured to lean on Stephen Curry for some reliable scoring. Initially, that didn’t work out so hot. Curry once again got into early foul trouble and was held scoreless for the first half, yet the Warriors were even with the Rockets going into the break, thanks in large part to some gritty play from the team’s reserves, who had 20 first half points and wound up out-scoring Houston’s bench 33-17 for the game. The bulk of that scoring came from Kevon Looney (14 points, four offensive rebounding) and Shaun Livingston, whose 11 points were the most he has scored in a game in nearly four months. Quinn Cook, Jordan Bell, Jonas Jerebko and Alfonzo McKinnie also played meaningful and impactful minutes as Curry and Green faced foul trouble. “I’m just incredibly proud of Jordan (Bell) and Jonas (Jerebko)” Head Coach Steve Kerr said. “Kevon (Looney) had a great series and Quinn Cook – to do what he did tonight, coming into the game without really having played the whole series – those guys were amazing and really a huge factor in the win.” Some guy named Curry also factored into the win, scoring all 33 of his points in the second half. He was 9-for-15 from the floor and 4-for-9 on 3-pointers in the third and fourth quarters, his career-best 23 points in the fourth quarter assisted by repeated trips to the free throw line with the Rockets in extend-the-game foul mode in the closing moments. Y’all better stop disrespecting @StephenCurry30 just because he’s a team first guy and is willing to sacrifice in moments doesn’t mean he’s not still a beast. — DWade (@DwyaneWade) May 11, 2019 “Going from zero points at halftime with three fouls and a complete non-factor in the game, and then completely took over the game on a night when everything was going wrong,” Kerr said. “He found a way to turn it around.” That Curry was able to turn it around was somewhat of a repeat of the Dubs’ gritty Game 5 effort in which he had 12 of his 25 points in the fourth quarter, lifting the Dubs to victory in a roller coaster of a game in which Durant went out with injury. The squad got after it to secure Game 5. pic.twitter.com/Hup09rrU2C — Golden State Warriors (@warriors) May 9, 2019 Kerr called his team f***ing giants after that win, a sentiment that carried through Friday. “They’re giants. They’re champions,” Kerr said of his squad. “These guys are a historically good basketball team and you don’t do this and do what these guys have done without an incredible combination of talent and character.” NEVER underestimate the heart of a Champion — LeBron James (@KingJames) May 11, 2019 Golden State showed why they are one of the greatest and most entertaining teams of all time. The splash brothers were splendid and Draymond Green just showed the world again why he is one of the best all-around players in all of basketball. — Earvin Magic Johnson (@MagicJohnson) May 11, 2019 This was certainly a feel-good victory for the Dubs, and the fact that it came against the Rockets is definitely a big part of it as well. During the regular season, Houston beat the Dubs three out of four times. And last season, the Rockets had a 3-2 advantage in the Western Conference Finals before the Dubs responded with their backs against the wall. Rockets General Manager Daryl Morey has made no secret about his obsession to beat the Warriors, and the fact that the Dubs have now ended Houston’s season in four of the last five NBA Playoffs only adds fuel to the competitive rivalry between the clubs.