2025 NBA PLAYOFFS West First Round: #2 Houston Rockets vs #7 Golden State Warriors (Series tied 1-1)

[Doranku]

If you polled all the teams and said you can have one, Steph or Jimmy, I'm pretty sure Steph would win that in a landslide.

And I say that as someone who love's Jimmy's game and has been singing his praises since he joined the Warriors.

Jimmy is an Andre Iguodala replacement for the Warriors. We love Iggy. Iggy was the 2015 NBA Finals MVP. But he was not better than or more central to the Warriors than Stephen Curry.

Stephen Curry is probably the most underrated player in NBA history - it's amazing to still see the disrespect he gets.

Jimmy put up 38/7/6 in the play-in game and 25/7/6 in game 1. Iggy was a 9 ppg bench player for the Warriors in the playoffs. These players are not comparable. Jimmy is closer to a KD replacement than an Andre Iguodala replacement.

[Tracymcgoaty]

If you polled all the teams and said you can have one, Steph or Jimmy, I'm pretty sure Steph would win that in a landslide.

And I say that as someone who love's Jimmy's game and has been singing his praises since he joined the Warriors.

Jimmy is an Andre Iguodala replacement for the Warriors. We love Iggy. Iggy was the 2015 NBA Finals MVP. But he was not better than or more central to the Warriors than Stephen Curry.

Stephen Curry is probably the most underrated player in NBA history - it's amazing to still see the disrespect he gets.

Jimmy put up 38/7/6 in the play-in game and 25/7/6 in game 1. Iggy was a 9 ppg bench player for the Warriors in the playoffs. These players are not comparable. Jimmy is closer to a KD replacement than an Andre Iguodala replacement.

Ironic ain't it. Saying Steph is underrated whilst downplaying every star he's played with

Same thing with Durant.

[facothomas22]

A must win for the Rockets if they want to keep this series competitive. A lot of their players had poor nights scoring wise for game 1, which is understandable seeing for a lot of the team, this is their 1st time playing playoff basketball. However they have shake that nervousness off and find a way to generate a solid offense. Would need to do a better at containing Stephen Curry and Jimmy Butler compared to game 1.They're not going to stop them,but the hope should can make both Curry and Butler work a lot to score and force them into being inefficient. Also not allowing role players have explosive scoring nights will also be key. If they can do that, they have a good chance of winning this game and make things interesting. However if things just end up looking to easy for Stephen Curry and Jimmy Butler and the Warriors role player have great scoring night, they will very likely be a Warriors win and there's a good chance that the Rockets will get swept.

[Twinkie defense]

If you polled all the teams and said you can have one, Steph or Jimmy, I'm pretty sure Steph would win that in a landslide.

And I say that as someone who love's Jimmy's game and has been singing his praises since he joined the Warriors.

Jimmy is an Andre Iguodala replacement for the Warriors. We love Iggy. Iggy was the 2015 NBA Finals MVP. But he was not better than or more central to the Warriors than Stephen Curry.

Stephen Curry is probably the most underrated player in NBA history - it's amazing to still see the disrespect he gets.

Jimmy put up 38/7/6 in the play-in game and 25/7/6 in game 1. Iggy was a 9 ppg bench player for the Warriors in the playoffs. These players are not comparable. Jimmy is closer to a KD replacement than an Andre Iguodala replacement.

You just don't appreciate how important Iggy was to the Warriors, which is understandable from a Lakers fan.

You call Iggy a "bench player" but he was part of the Death Lineup, which closed games, and is what made the Warriors dominant. Warriors won without KD and without Jimmy so maybe KD and Jimmy are comparable in that regard - but neither of those guys won without Steph.

Draymond also doesn't score a lot of points but that doesn't mean he's not a very important part of the Warriors' success.

[Impuniti]

Curry has had a better career but Butler has been pretty clearly better than curry the last couple of years but Steph is an NBA legend and this is his team and Butler joined mid season. Like do you guys really, really think he's going to ruin all the good vibes and call himself the best guy on the team? He might speak his mind sometimes, but he's not insane from a PR perspective. The warriors were trending toward missing the play in tourney before Butler joined and then went 20-2. Why y'all think it's crazy to think Butler might be better is a little weird.

Define last couple? Curry has a championship as recently as 2022. Hes placed higher in MVP voting and has lead the Warriors in gauntlet that is the West vs the East. They were struggling the second half the year. Guess what, so were the Heat being led by Jimmy. Obviously we got better with Jimmy joining and he’s a beast. He’s exactly what the team needed. That doesn’t make him better than Curry.

You’re creating a narrative for Jimmy when he’s never been shy about stating what he thinks/feels. Maybe you should simply listen to Jimmy.

jimmy's answer is the equivalent of "no, that dress doesn't make you look fat." i don't know why y'all are hammering this. there is literally no other answer he would give and you know it.

steph won in 2022, but butler was clearly better in the playoffs, unless we're still just going with the "ringz" argument here in 2025. he made the ECF with a 29.9 PER, 0.291 WS48, 11.8 BPM, all of which led the playoffs for anyone who went beyond 1 round and are elite all-time type numbers for a playoff run. i can't think of any year someone led the playoffs in all of those and wasn't the best player in the playoffs. it shouldn't be difficult to say butler was better.

he then had an elite 2023 regular season and got an 8th seed to the finals, and his first round against milwaukee was probably a top 5 series of the last 25 years, while steph wasn't as good in the regular season, had a solid first round and a pretty underwhelming 2nd round. again, the argument should be pretty clearly for butler here.

and 2024, i would say they were fairly close, with neither exactly lighting it up in the regular season and neither playing in the playoffs, but butler slightly wins box score numbers while steph had the first negative on/off of his career so it certainly wouldn't get any better than a tie for steph.

and this year, butler again has better numbers and completely turned around a warriors team that was 10-20 in the last 30 games WITH steph before butler showed up. let's just say if the warriors were 10-20 when steph returned from an injury and then went 20-2, i don't think anyone would be arguing it was actually draymond that was batman.

What an comically dumb statement. Butler played amazing against non-contenders doesn't make his playoff run better. Steph completely dominated Boston and couldn't let them play their defensive gameplan, which is why they switched up their defensive strategy in game 5 and got torn apart by the entire team.

It's honestly impressive how terrible the takes are when it comes to Steph. But someone who writes this nonsense is probably another that has 5-6 different best players in the world in the last 4 years without putting the 4x champion that has 2x MVPs.

[scrabbarista]

Soon the Warriors will get crushed. Let's all watch!

[Doranku]

Crazy that I come onto a basketball forum and someone tries to debate me Andre Iguodala vs Jimmy Buckets lmao enjoy the game tonight fellas.

[Twinkie defense]

Crazy that I come onto a basketball forum and someone tries to debate me Andre Iguodala vs Jimmy Buckets lmao enjoy the game tonight fellas.

Crazy that I come onto a basketball forum and someone tries to debate me Stephen Curry vs Jimmy Butler lmao enjoy the game tonight fellas.

[cpower]

lets go...I think Rockets will win tonight but lets see if we can put up a fight

[durden_tyler]

With hesitation, picking the Rockets here and predicting an easy cover of the -3.0 spread,


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[jehosafats]

No, Draymond. No.

[CLosP]

Draymond gets away with so much…

[Finchination33]

Moving screens starting early here..

[Chuck Everett]

So they're just going to moving screen Amen all game huh?

[Jazz9]

Draymond being Draymond...

[scrabbarista]

Bro, Green should be ejected by now. Incredible.

[Jazz9]

Quick 2 fouls on Amen...

[f4p]

So they're just not going to let amen play this whole series I guess.

[PhilBlackson]

Those are some bs calls on Amen.

[scrabbarista]

Thompson being thoroughly neutralized by free shots from the Warriors all over his body on one end and ticky tack fouls on the other end.

Gotta get this dude off Steph one way or another, I guess.