Steph Curry’s Warriors have Rockets lost in space

SAN FRANCISCO – The Chase Center court in San Francisco is, officially, 4,700 square feet of hardwood.

But in the Warriors’ 104-93 Game 3 victory over the Houston Rockets, the home team turned the playing surface into a universe of possibilities and wide-open shots. 

After two games and a half games of battling Houston’s lumbering, earth-bound giants in what seemed to be a constricting box, Steph Curry and the Warriors finally broke loose. 

Without an injured Jimmy Butler, a hot-shooting Buddy Hield gave Curry the oxygen he needed to breathe — and score 36 points — against the Rockets.

Hield scored 17 points and made five 3-pointers. More importantly, the veteran provided a crucial outlet when the Rockets trapped Curry. 

“We try to keep the game simple and to the point of how they are guarding me, if they are going to send a trap or double-team or blitz a pick-and-roll if I get off it, if we are spaced properly, Buddy is a guy that demands attention,” Curry said.

That spacing manifested itself in the final 30 minutes, which saw the Warriors outscore the Rockets 82-59 over the last half-hour of game time after the Warriors found a way to neutralize their opponent’s most reliable tactic.

Houston’s strength is in blasting through the interior on brute force, a strategy from the sport’s Stone Age. 

The Rockets led the league in rebounds per game and offensive boards per night, and were among the best in many defensive statistics. 

They vexed the Warriors with two- and three-big lineups with Alperen Sengun, Steven Adams and Jabari Smith – all 6–foot-11 and each more than willing to bang inside. Beautiful basketball it was not, but it was effective in forcing Golden State to play in the half court in Game 2, which the Rockets won. 

There was little space for the Warriors to drive, and sets became bogged down in a mess of bodies and short shot clocks. 

Houston’s expansive collection of athletic perimeter defenders such as Amen Thompson also made the Rockets a tough matchup.

The Warriors admitted to struggling to figure out how to align themselves on the floor, even though Curry hitting the short-roller is an action that has defined the team’s dynastic run over the past decade. 

“I thought in the first half, we were bunched up,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said after Saturday night’s win. “We had a few possessions where we had everybody on the left side of the floor, nobody on the right, and so there’s no outlet for Steph.”

That changed in the second quarter.

When Houston would blitz Curry with Sengun and another player, that just added rocket fuel to the Warriors’ attack. 

Gary Payton II, Hield and others began to orbit around their superstar correctly, finding holes in the once-impenetrable Rockets defense. Payton scored 16 points as he slipped screens and either finished in the paint or floated out to the corner for an open 3-pointer. 

“We emphasized space and letting Steph pick who he wants to pick on and just give him space and opportunity to make plays and just be available for him,” Payton noted. 

The race to win in space also contributed to the Warriors keeping the Rockets’ advantage on the boards to a minimum.

Golden State sold out on packing the paint, holding Houston to just 11 second-chance points. The Warriors also held the explosive Rockets backcourt of Jalen Green and Fred VanVleet to 9-of-25 shooting.

If the Warriors can maintain their sublime spacing, while constricting Houston’s, they should be in great shape during Monday’s Game 4 — with or without Butler.

“We just (needed to) kill that space and just make it tough and muggy for them, and you know, try to make them make plays down the stretch,” Payton said. “If we continue that for the rest of the series, I think we’ll be looking good.”