2025 NBA PLAYOFFS West First Round: #2 Houston Rockets vs #7 Golden State Warriors (Series tied 3-3, Game 7 Sunday!)

[MoreyWins]

Can we give Ime Udoka props for the defensive schemes he's cooked up.

[Raps in 4]

Can we all agree that FVV is Steph's father?

no, more like Udoka is Kerr's father. Imagine FVV is face guarded and Curry shoots 15 wide open threes.

The league is lucky the Celtics fired him. Imagine the Celtics roster with an even better coach.

[Himothy Duncan]

Will people **** on Curry after he blows a 3-1 lead like they did LeBron after losing to the T-Wolves or nah?

[Optms]

Can we give Ime Udoka props for the defensive schemes he's cooked up.

Maybe the best coach in the league.

Even with a scrub like Jalen Green and an overrated Sengun, Brooks, he has a young Rockets out there competitive against everyone.

They also beat OKC in the regular season. They aren't gonna go down easy vs anyone. All Udoka.

[MoreyWins]

Read on Twitter

This guy had a few clips on his page showing off Houston's zone.

[davidv2001]

Still too much for his level of play and consistency. But like I said, if Houston had a better lead guard instead of Green, Fred would look better night to night IMO.

That's not what's going on at all. I understand it's hard to understand the details without keeping track of a team all season which is not fair on other teams' fans.

The Rockets have Amen and Green on the wing - both capable of running a large chunk of offense along with Sengun. Amen and Green only excel in fast pace. They attack backtracking defenders, they attack in transition together, they wear the other team out, they get to the basket from the perimeter a lot more often this way. That's when these two have their big games.

They clearly aren't. Contrarily, this series has shown neither is capable of such in a playoff type environment where nerves can run high and teams can prepare for you.

I'm sure Green/Amen/Sengun can competently run an offense on a Thursday night in January, but they can barely dribble the ball or make basic passes in April. So respectfully, what they've done all regular season isn't relevant to the Rockets ultimate chances of success.

They couldn’t competently run an offense during the 10-15 game stretch when VanVleet was out with an ankle injury this season. The Rockets lost to a bunch of bad lottery teams in that time, and there was one game in Brooklyn where they had a horrible collapse with under a minute left.

[NO-KG-AI]

Read on Twitter

I love how the cycle has started to trend back to teams playing big C’s again, and the huge impact two huge, dinosaur centers have had on the playoffs already. Gobert and Adams are punishing people for going small by just doing big man things.

[picc]

Can we give Ime Udoka props for the defensive schemes he's cooked up.

He's a defensive genius. Except for the whole drop coverage against Curry in the finals thing, but aside from that he's shown that his teams are disciplined and organized on defense. I'm super impressed.

What I'm not impressed by is his offense. The Rockets have no real sets and their offense looks like someone shook an etch-a-sketch any time FVV doesn't have the ball. And its not all because of the players inexperience or lack of talent.

For instance, how often is Sengun at the 3 point line while guys run around like a headless chicken, and he ends up holding the ball until 5 secs left on the clock and bumbling into a low % shot against a great defense? How often do the Rockets switch hunt and try to get the primary defender off the guy with the ball? Sometimes I see them switch INTO the worse matchup! They constantly have too many guys on the strong side destroying spacing. How long did it take him to play Adams and Sengun together when it was obvious from game 1 the Warriors had big problems with their size? Or even to play Adams more at all instead of benching him?

Etc. Etc.

All that is Ime's shortcomings as an offensive coach.

Ime is a defensive genius but I think he'd benefit greatly from an offensive assistant coach who could take the reigns on that end and provide some kind of organization.

[reamily]

Udoka still not an elite ogfensive coach lot of times they can be creative in offense, its correct that he is the same coach that made jaylen brown a non threat in some of the playoff games

[HMFFL]

Udoka still not an elite ogfensive coach lot of times they can be creative in offense, its correct that he is the same coach that made jaylen brown a non threat in some of the playoff games

Interesting take considering the key players on Houston have 1 to 3 years of experience.

Sent from my SM-S928U1 using RealGM Forums mobile app

[reamily]

In playoff games its really effort points from conditioning and athleticism matters amen and jalen still score double digits on effort points alone..
Thats why houston is analytically unbeatable if jalen score 30 and amen got his triple double..as van vleet will score buches by just hitting open threes and sengun just finishing the drop passes..potential for the team is high..

[Charlesareed]

Kerr needs to loosen up the rotation and run guys like TJD and JK in there to inject athleticism.

Nobody thinks the Warriors can win but I think they can pull it out. C'mon Playoff Jimmy


Rockets young guys are great so if they win it's well deserved!

Steve Kerr wasted good games from Steph & jimmy by not playing tjd or jk who are both young athletic who can play 5 minutes a game at least Kerr is stubborn also gsw are too small and that’s what hurts most Just like lakers vs t wolves to small & no defense

[whocurrz]

Imagine all the Raptors fans losing their minds if FVV brings these Rockets back from the 3-1 brink. All we heard from them was how horrible he was, and how they didn't need him, and how he was a black hole on offense. Dude has been ballin and hitting clutch 3s these past few games.

We saw this FVV in 2019 so this is nothing new for Raptors fans...he was big in the Bucks and Warriors series. Rockets fans also turned on FVV just like Raptors fans have, he can be frustrating at times....but when he's hitting his 3s he's great.....6-9 from 3 today, yeah he's going to look good shooting like that.

As a Warriors fan, even tho Kawhi had some big games in that series FVV was the guy who I remember being a possible MVP. He seemed to consistently hit the big demoralizing shots in the 2019 Finals to disrupt big momentum swings while
Also playing good defense.

I still have PTSD from him and once he started catching fire in game 4 he gave me anxiety until the buzzer (and that shot looked dangerous from the camera angle). Now Rockets have momentum and his timely 3s have made a huge difference in the Rockets scoring. Even in a loss the shooting and belief carried over to give the Rox a formidable offense and a good shot to win the series.

[The High Cyde]

Draymond 1-4 from 3
Butler 1-6
Hield 0-4
Payton 1-4

That’s rough

[vxmike]

Warriors getting burnt not having one legit Center on the roster. Same problem the Lakers had. They’re getting crushed on the glass.

Houston is big and athletic while the Warriors are just too small.

[XTC]

Imagine all the Raptors fans losing their minds if FVV brings these Rockets back from the 3-1 brink. All we heard from them was how horrible he was, and how they didn't need him, and how he was a black hole on offense. Dude has been ballin and hitting clutch 3s these past few games.

We saw this FVV in 2019 so this is nothing new for Raptors fans...he was big in the Bucks and Warriors series. Rockets fans also turned on FVV just like Raptors fans have, he can be frustrating at times....but when he's hitting his 3s he's great.....6-9 from 3 today, yeah he's going to look good shooting like that.

As a Warriors fan, even tho Kawhi had some big games in that series FVV was the guy who I remember being a possible MVP. He seemed to consistently hit the big demoralizing shots in the 2019 Finals to disrupt big momentum swings while
Also playing good defense.

I still have PTSD from him and once he started catching fire in game 4 he gave me anxiety until the buzzer (and that shot looked dangerous from the camera angle). Now Rockets have momentum and his timely 3s have made a huge difference in the Rockets scoring. Even in a loss the shooting and belief carried over to give the Rox a formidable offense and a good shot to win the series.

FVV is one of those players who can be quiet all game, but he's always going to play hard, and hit big shots at the most crucial times. Like you said it's demoralizing going up against a guy like that all series long. Then on the other end he's great at ending runs from the opposing team.

There's a reason he was called Steady Freddy in Toronto. Dude even was getting Finals MVP talk in 2019.

[Lakers In 5]

Warriors getting burnt not having one legit Center on the roster. Same problem the Lakers had. They’re getting crushed on the glass.

Houston is big and athletic while the Warriors are just too small.

It's funny you should say that, I heard Butler say the same thing. Somehow, the Warriors ended up with more offensive boards tonight than Houston, and were only -4 on total rebounds in this game. Granted, the Warriors started to Hack-A-Adams, losing Houston some live possessions that maybe could have resorted in offensive rebounds, but overall, I think the Warriors did a much better job than the Lakers in that regard.

It's the scoring (read: lack of) that is the catch to me. 41% FG as a team over these two games. Their supposed shooters Podz, Post and Hield been bricking open shots all over the place. In the 4th they went 5-19 on FG and 1-12 on 3PT attempts before garbage time. You need to play a lot of great defense to compensate for that. The Warriors aren't capable of that either.

[XTC]

Imagine all the Raptors fans losing their minds if FVV brings these Rockets back from the 3-1 brink. All we heard from them was how horrible he was, and how they didn't need him, and how he was a black hole on offense. Dude has been ballin and hitting clutch 3s these past few games.

Get a load of this guy

FVV had some haters (a minority), but FVV is a Raptors legend, the second best point guard in franchise history, and we don't win in 2019 without him. He gets nothing but praise by our fans, and there's a reason he's cheered whenever he comes back.

[Mk0]

Garbage broadcast team. Just shameful.

[Chuck Everett]

Garbage broadcast team. Just shameful.

Could only take 15 seconds before I stopped it.