HOUSTON — The Golden State Warriors led for nearly the entirety of a bruising, impressive 95-85 Game 1 road win in Houston late Sunday night. But coach Steve Kerr had several demonstrative fits of anger toward his team throughout that spoke to the level of focus and belief from the No. 7 seed that Las Vegas labeled the pre-series favorite.
The first came midway through the second quarter. The Warriors had made a few mistakes to gift the Rockets a mini-surge and, during it, an upset Draymond Green interacted with the bench about a defensive breakdown while simultaneously readying to inbound it. Steph Curry, grappling with some Dillon Brooks pressure, looked scattered. It led to a miscommunication and an inbound pass that went directly out of bounds.
As a frustrated Green and Curry tried to assess blame for the unforced turnover, Kerr erupted at them from the sideline.
“Poise!” Kerr repeatedly yelled at two veterans he’s coached for over a decade. “Poise! Poise! Poise!”
Kerr was at his most exasperated in the second half after one of either two sequences. Late in the third quarter, after chasing down a loose ball, Buddy Hield pushed a three-on-two situation into the frontcourt and opted for an ill-advised lob to Jimmy Butler over the top that was whacked away for a fast break the other direction.
“Buddy,” Kerr threw up his hands. “No!”
Minutes before, when the Warriors lead — 66-43, a 23-point cushion with 18 minutes left — and momentum was at its highest, Green stalled out an Alperen Şengün post-up and forced a pass to the corner for a rushed Fred VanVleet air ball, continuing a long string of defensive stops.
But instead of pushing the ball and protecting the lead with a level of caution, Green tried to force the action and lob it over two Rockets defenders to spark a fast break. Tari Eason intercepted it and made a layup within a second.
“Oh, come on!” Kerr yelled while pulling at his hair.
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There’s a firm level of confidence emanating from every layer of the Warriors’ organization about their chances in this series. It isn’t just a gut feeling or blind belief in Curry and Butler. They think the math is on their side, assuming they keep the game relatively clean.
Why? The Rockets were the 21st-ranked half-court offense in the NBA this season. If the game isn’t frantic and they’re forced to score against a set defense, they haven’t been all that efficient.
The Warriors aren’t an average NBA defense. Since the Butler trade, they’ve been the NBA’s best defense, putting up a league-best 109.0 rating in the 31 games after the deadline. They were 23-8 with Butler, mostly on the back of a stingy defensive unit and a whole lot of Curry.
“Our defense is excellent,” Kerr said. “We just held a helluva team to 85 points on their home floor. Our defense is big-time. We’re going to count on that.”
But …
“But we’ve got to recognize that we don’t need to take chances in this series,” Kerr said. “We need to be clean with our execution in transition. We don’t need to dribble through traffic. We don’t need to throw lob passes to try to get a dunk. We’ve gotta be rock solid. If we’re rock solid, smart and tough, I think we’ll be in good shape.”
That’s why Kerr is blowing a gasket every time Golden State makes the type of simple but debilitating mistake he believes will breathe life into a fast and physical Rockets team that, the Warriors believe, can’t stay with them in a more condensed, traditional setting.
“If it’s a half-court game, I really think our defense can get the job done in this series,” Kerr said. “So we can’t be turning it over. We can’t give up a million offensive boards.”
The Rockets missed 53 of their 87 shots in Game 1 but rebounded 22 of them for 22 second-chance points, keeping them within striking distance despite going 6 of 29 on 3s and missing nine free throws.
“It felt like 1997 out there to me,” Kerr said. “Completely different NBA game than what we’re used to, and we got to be ready for that. This is what this series is going to be.”
It’s part of Houston’s identity. They were the best offensive rebounding team in the league and were particularly destructive (above 50 percent offensive rebound rate) with Şengün and Steven Adams on the floor together this season. Those two and Amen Thompson combined to get Houston 13 extra possessions.
“I think we can play a lot better,” Green said. “That’s the encouraging part about it. I don’t think we played very well at all.”
This was the 27th time this season that a team has grabbed 22 or more offensive rebounds in a game. In the previous 26 games, that team scored at least 100 points. The Rockets were held to 85.
Şengün scored 26 points. He had an emphatic dunk in the opening sequence and punished Green for straying too far off him at times. But Şengün’s 11-of-18 night didn’t scare the Warriors into sending much extra attention his direction. They mostly played him straight up, let Green freelance and roam like usual because they believe that Houston’s backcourt can’t beat them consistently enough in isolation settings.
Jalen Green shot 3 of 15. VanVleet went 4 of 19. That’s 7 of 34 combined for Houston’s starting guards. Neither can be expected to shoot that poorly again. But Kerr felt comfortable enough to let Curry sit on an island early in the game with Green, and nothing about Sunday’s results will force them to alter strategy.
Here are two first-half possessions. Green struggles to get past Curry in the first clip and settles for a mid-range miss. He targets Curry on a switch on the second one and misses a stepback contested 3.
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The Warriors didn’t get an explosive night offensively, but they didn’t need much more than their two stars delivering above their averages. Curry scored 31 points, living at the rim to loosen up the Houston defense before three difficult 3s in clutch moments. Butler scored 25, including a jumper and dunk late to seal it.
Butler, like Kerr, squirms any time the Warriors commit a bad turnover, but he’s also coming to understand (as Kerr once did) that the recklessness is part of the Curry experience.
“(Kerr) hates (the turnovers) as much as I hate it,” Butler said. “But sometimes good things come out of the organized chaos that one player in particular loves and thrives in. I love the organized chaos, I’m not going to lie. Because nobody knows what to expect. Not even myself. Not even Coach. The only person who knows what’s coming out of the organized chaos is the one creating it.”
(Photo of Jimmy Butler: Troy Taormina / Imagn Images)
