HOUSTON ROCKETS VS GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS
1.75
TOTAL POINTS (INCL OVERTIME) - UNDER 205.5
The experienced Warriors are up in the series against the Rockets which lacks playoff experience. The pressure is on the shoulders of the young Houston side led by Alperun Sengun and Jalen Green. Golden State were carried by Steph Curry and Jimmy Butler in the first game of the series. If these do it again The Warriors could find themselves up two to nothing in the series.
Golden State won game one in a classic playoff manner. In the trenches, to be perfectly honest, it was ugly. The Warriors won the game thanks to the fact that they had the two best players on the floor. Curry and Butler. Both of them in their mid thirties outshined everybody else on the court in Houston. Where Butler comes from. Jimmy played for 42 minutes and Steph for 39. Golden State won the game by 95-85. The defensive intensity was huge and the level of physicality as well. The same is expected for the second game of the series. Butler spoke to nba.com after game one: “They are an incredible team, a physical team. But we won't back down from any challenge”.
Butler had 25 points, he made 10 out of his 19 shots. Jimmy had seven boards and three of them were on the offensive end of the floor. He had six dimes and five steals in a very impactful game. Steph Curry scored 31 points and he made five out of his nine shots from behind the arc. The point guard hit 12 of his 19 shots in total. Curry had six boards and three assists. Curry was guarded well by Amen Thompson in the Regular season. Thomson, a second year player, could not do anything to hold Curry back in game one. Brandon Podziemski had a solid game for the Warriors with 14 points, eight boards, five dimes and two steals to only one turnover.
The Houston Rockets did not come out ready for game one. Their lack of playoff experience was obvious in the first game of the series. The veteran Fred VanVleet who won the title with the Toronto Raptors a couple of years ago had a plain right awful game. He is supposed to lead this young team. Fred took 13 shots from behind the arc. He only made two of them and scored ten points on 19 shots. That is far from being good enough. Jalen Green also had a bad night with seven points. He only made three out of his 15 shot attempts. You can not win a game in the play off when your starting backcourt gives you 17 points totally.
Draymond Green and Sengun were wrestling all game long. The Turkish big man was the only highlight for The Rockets in game one. Alperun scored 26 points and he hit eleven out of his 18 shots. Sengun grabbed nine boards, three steals, one dime and he also had five turnovers. The Head Coach Ime Udoka played the two big men line up in game one will get back to it today. Steven Adams had 12 rebounds in game one. Five of them were on the offensive end. The Rockets outrebounded the Warriors in game one 52-36 and still lost the game by ten points. Udoka addressed the bad shooting in game one. “We had wide open naked looks and missed them”. The Rockets can not afford that tonight in the second game of the series.
