The Houston Rockets rode a crushing fourth quarter to a 115-107 victory over the Golden State Warriors on Friday to set up a Game 7 showdown in their NBA Western Conference playoff series.
The Rockets would be trying to become just the 14th team to rally from 3-1 down to win an NBA playoff series when they host Game 7 today.
Fred VanVleet scored 29 points and Alperen Sengun added 21 points and 14 rebounds for the Rockets, who led most of the game and silenced an 18,000-strong crowd at the Warriors’ Chase Center arena with an explosive fourth quarter — putting together a 12-0 scoring run in the final frame to push their lead to as many as 17.
Photo: AP
Amen Thompson added 14 points for Houston and veteran New Zealand big man Steven Adams added 17 points off the bench, connecting on four of four from the floor while providing a formidable defensive presence.
Adams had three of Houston’s five blocked shots as the Rockets kept the Warriors’ potent offense led by Stephen Curry in check.
Curry scored 29 points, but he connected on just nine of 23 shots from the field and coughed up five turnovers.
Jimmy Butler added 27 points, but no other Warriors starter scored in double figures.
“Just make everything tough,” VanVleet said of the Rockets’ mindset as they took a two-point lead into the fourth quarter. “Obviously we know what they bring to the table.”
“You want to make everything tough, contest everything ... I just think our youth and our athleticism can wear on them over the course of the game, and we’re able to have some success lately,” he added.
Overwhelmed early in Game 5 on Friday, the Warriors got off to a marginally better start, but in a nip-and-tuck first quarter that featured 10 lead changes they never led by more than two and Houston were up 25-21 at the end of the first period.
A Curry three-pointer tied it at 46-46 with one minute and 59 seconds left in the first half, but again the Rockets pulled away to lead 53-48 after a first half in which the Warriors made 11 of their 17 turnovers.
Houston led 86-84 going into the fourth, but VanVleet drilled a three-pointer in the opening seconds, drawing a foul and making the free throw in a sign of what was to come.
“I thought the key play was a four-point play to start the [fourth] quarter,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said. “We didn’t guard VanVleet, they threw it up the floor and he knocks it down and gets the free throw, and it felt like a game-changing play.”
Kerr also singled out Adams, whose 31 minutes on the floor were his season-high.
“Adams was fantastic tonight,” Kerr said. “They controlled the game while he was out there.”
The Warriors resorted to fouling Adams, a low percentage free throw shooter, but he made nine of 16 foul shots and the Rockets managed to grab the rebounds of a couple of his misses to score anyway.
The winners of the series would take on the Minnesota Timberwolves, who ousted the Los Angeles Lakers in five games.
Inter’s defense of their Italian Serie A title was hit with a setback on Sunday as they lost 1-0 at home to AS Roma, while Scott McTominay netted a brace as SSC Napoli beat Torino 2-0 to go top of the table. No fixtures were played on Friday or Saturday because of the funeral of Pope Francis in Rome, meaning the full round of Serie A matches took place on Sunday and yesterday. Matias Soule’s first-half strike for Roma knocked Inter off top spot earlier in the day before new Napoli opened up a three-point buffer with victory in Sunday’s
FOCUS: ‘We came out here with a goal in mind ... to keep our foot on their throat and on their neck, and continue to play 48 minutes of basketball,’ Donovan Mitchell said The Cleveland Cavaliers on Monday thrashed the Miami Heat to cruise into the next round of the NBA playoffs as the Golden State Warriors battled past the Houston Rockets 109-106 to move to the brink of a series victory. After pounding Miami 124-87 in game three on Saturday, No.1 Eastern Conference seeds Cleveland once again piled on the misery for their outclassed opponents with a crushing 138-83 victory to complete a 4-0 series win. The 55-point drubbing was the largest series-clinching victory in NBA playoff history and sets up a series against either the Indiana Pacers or Milwaukee Bucks in
Freddie Freeman homered and drove in four runs, Shohei Ohtani also went deep and Roki Sasaki earned his first major league win as the Los Angeles Dodgers beat the Atlanta Braves 10-3 on Saturday night for their seventh straight victory. The Dodgers have won the first two games of the series to improve to 5-0 against Atlanta this year. Los Angeles’ three-game sweep at home early in the season left the Braves 0-7. Sasaki allowed three runs and six hits over five innings. The 23-year-old right-hander gave up a home run to Ozzie Albies, but received plenty of offensive support in his
Shuttler Lin Chun-yi yesterday kept Taiwan on the board as they faced their first major challenge of the group stage after marching into the last eight at the Sudirman Cup Finals in Xiamen, China. Taiwan were losing 3-1 to South Korea as of press time last night, with only the men’s doubles match remaining. Taiwan and four-time champions South Korea have already progressed to the quarter-finals, after Taiwan on Monday blanked the Czech Republic 5-0 without giving up a single game. Before last night’s tie, Taiwan were undefeated in Group B, with a 9-1 match record, ahead of South Korea, who, although also
RSS