After a thrilling seven game series, the Warriors emerged victorious in their faceoff with the Houston Rockets earlier this week. This was their most hard fought victory yet and acted as a warning sign to the rest of the teams in the playoffs. If one thing is for sure, it’s that the Warriors are hungry for a shot at another ring.
Their drive has come back in full force after receiving Jimmy Butler from a massive 5-team trade back in February. He has built up their young players, supported their old greats, and become an extremely valuable asset to the team. They jumped from the seventh seed in the West to the third best team in the entire league. It goes without saying that their transformation has been nothing short of incredible.
The Warriors have put on a hell of a show in just the first round of the playoffs alone with Steph Curry swishing threes from deep, Draymond Green sinking three pointers left and right, Jimmy Butler playing hard in the paint and scoring his team plenty of points, and Buddy Hield lighting on fire in the final game of the series with an impressive 33 points. The Rockets put a flame under the bottom of the Warriors and were not prepared for the result.
This isn’t to say that the Rockets weren’t giving the Warriors a run for their money. They had the Warriors stumped on offense with their extremely effective zone defense. Steven Adams alone was proving a tough matchup for most of the Warriors’ roster and consistently blocked or rebounded many of their shot attempts. Both Amen Thompson and Fred VanVleet were consistently outperforming the defense of the Warriors, each dropping upwards of 25 points every winning game. Even I was beginning to doubt that the Warriors were going to win the series after seeing how well the Rockets played in game 6.
They were drawing fouls the entire game and the Warriors continued to fall into their hands, giving up more than 25 points in free throws. It was hard to watch. Draymond Green turned the court into Mortal Kombat and pulled Jalen Green to the ground by his head only three minutes into the game, earning himself a flagrant foul.
The luck of the Warriors turned around in their final game of the series however, ending in an impressive 14 point lead. 103-89 was the final standing. The skill they displayed on the court was unparalleled and it felt like we were right back in 2015. Their complete dominance of the Rockets was astounding. It showed everyone in the NBA that they were not going down without a fight.
That was a message they needed to send to the remaining teams in the playoffs. The Semifinals will see the Warriors against the Minnesota Timberwolves. The Warriors have already won the first game of the series, but only time will tell how this all plays out. With Steph Curry out for a hamstring strain, the Warriors are praying he will be okay for the next game. They are also praying that they haven’t awoken the sleeping giant that is the star of the Timberwolves: the man being called baby LeBron, Anthony Edwards.
