In 2016, Draymond Green kicked Steven Adams in the family jewels. Twice.
“I wouldn’t say we’re mates,” Adams has said.
Ahead of a big game last season, Rockets forward Tari Eason wore a “Warriors come out to play” shirt in a video ahead of tipoff. The Warriors won, and the young Eason exited the arena shirtless, donning only a vest and leather chain.
“I don’t like the Warriors,” Eason said.
During the Warriors’ 2022 title run, Houston wing Dillon Brooks — then with the Grizzlies — undercut Gary Payton II on a fast break, resulting in an ejection and fractured elbow.
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Most recently, Green got into it with Alperen Sengun, and Rockets coach Ime Udoka exchanged words with Steph Curry, later essentially calling Curry a cry baby.
The Warriors’ first-round series with the Houston Rockets projects to be a back-alley brawl. Tensions have been bubbling for years, and a best-of-seven series tends to boil bad blood. If the series goes to seven, the teams will have played each other 12 times this season, and familiarity breeds clashes.
“Poise and composure is going to play a huge role,” head coach Steve Kerr said.
The Warriors are heading to the H, but the series will be decided by a D: Discipline.
Make the Rockets play in the half court
The Rockets ranked 22nd in points per play in the halfcourt this season, per Cleaning The Glass. And that’s including their No. 1 offensive rebounding unit that creates second chances for them.
When the game slows down, as it often does in the postseason, the Rockets are likely going to struggle to generate good shots.
The Rockets are at their most dangerous when they’re forcing turnovers and playing in space. Amen Thompson is a freight train on the break. Tari Eason has go-go gadget arms. Jalen Green is explosive in transition, too.
In Golden State’s two losses to Houston this season, they committed at least 20 turnovers. In each of their three wins, they coughed it up fewer than 15 times.
Talking to Warriors players, the theme that comes up over and over again is turnovers. Limiting them is the best way to prevent Houston from getting into the open court. Committing them is the fastest way to give them rhythm.
While the Rockets have a stout defense and the type of athletic, rangy on-ball defenders that give any team trouble, many of the Warriors’ turnovers tend to be self-inflicted. The highlight-reel attempts. The wide-eyed hit-ahead passes. The dribbling into traffic.
It’ll take a concerted, playoff-level focus to cut down on live-ball turnovers.
“Turnovers and defensive rebounding,” Brandin Podziemski said. “They’re a team that wins games by missing shots. What it comes down to is if we keep them out of transition, make them play in the half court, it becomes tough on them.”
In the last two minutes
The Rockets went 26-18 in clutch games this year, matching the Cavaliers for the most wins in such situations.
But they did so while having a negative net rating in the clutch, suggesting there was some luck involved (the Warriors, likewise, had a negative clutch net rating while going 25-20).
Which team is more organized — and more purposeful — with what it wants to do in late-and-close circumstances tends to win playoff series.
After the All-Star break, the Warriors surprisingly had some hiccups in clutch situations. Even with Butler and Curry, two go-to scorers, they posted a -6.5 net rating in the clutch. They still went 8-3, but Kerr had to toggle through a variety of lineup combinations depending on the game to close out teams. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it’s a luxury to know who your best five are, and the Warriors have only four of five set in stone.
Houston, meanwhile, posted a league-best +34.4 net rating in 10 clutch games after the All-Star break.
Executing in big moments takes poise.
The mental battles
In a testy matchup like this, keeping emotions in check might be almost as hard as keeping Curry in check.
The difference in close games could be the points awarded via technical foul. Or, worse, the cost of an ejection.
Brooks is known to try to get in the other team’s head by being a pest. Green plays mind games, too. Each team is capable of instigating.
Even the officiating requires some mental fortitude. Kerr has already begun lobbying the refs with public comments about how Curry gets roughed up off the ball, anticipating the Rockets playing a “they-can’t-call-it-every-time” game.
No matter how tightly or loosely the refs call games, the Warriors can’t let them become a distraction.
When it comes to the Warriors, much of that falls on Green. After a tumultuous season last year that included multiple suspensions, Green has stayed out of the league office’s ire. But toward the end of the season, Green showed some more frequent flashes of frustration. Kerr said the four days off the Warriors earned by beating the Grizzlies could have a trickle-down effect on the center’s psyche.
“The emotion and the energy Draymond has to put forth is incredibly draining,” Kerr said. “When he’s tired, when he’s fatigued, that’s when he’s most vulnerable, frankly. He knows that, he and I have talked about it. The rest and preparation that’s going into this, I think will help all of us be composed and poised, because that’s what it takes in the playoffs.”