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

[Ice Man]

Buddy Hield doesn't either but I think they need his outside shooting threat to keep the spacing for the offense to operate. Kuminga is a space-clogger.

No NBA player makes me want to punch my television more than Buddy Hield. He's a testament to the importance of shooting, because all other aspects of his offensive game are painful.

I don't usually quote myself, but one hour after writing this I watched Jimmy Butler's press conference. His last words, unprompted, were "Hey Buddy, stop trying to dribble the ball. I hate that." You and me both, Jimmy.

[ogmagicfan]

What % chance do yall give the Warriors of getting out of the West?

Steph & Butler are about as good of a 1st & 2nd option that there is, they have the pedigree, they compliment each others game beautiful and dont inhabit the same spaces on the court at all, the x factor is Podz keeping up his strong play to close out the season. He's their Poole for this team.

They desperately need someone to emerge as a consistent bench scorer as well. Should be Kuminga but he's not ready to buy in and Kerr is awful at managing/developing young talent. Moody shouldve been getting consistent PT a couple seasons ago and only now Kerr finally got his head out his ass.

I'm a Warriors fan and I'm only giving them a puncher's chance to upset the Thunder should they make it to the WCF. I think the Warriors are still missing that 3rd piece, and hopefully get him next season.

who could we add? I mean...theres not a lot of assets left for a trade. s&t JK and something maybe?

Warriors screwed up with not trading Kuminga at the Trade deadline.

They need another scorer to beat OKC, of course not playing him might be best because of how he played once Jimmy was added

The gap btwn their 2nd best scorer (Jimmy) & Podz is really vast.

[Grumpy Heat Fan]

Dubs in 5, maybe 6 at most.

[Mamba81p]

I think my favorite part of the game last night was after Houston had been dominating with their offensive rebounding, and the Warriors were like 'o crap we need to get as big as we possibly can right now'. For a brief spell (late 3rd, early 4th) the Warriors had a Curry/Podz/Buter/Looney/Post lineup! Then the Rockets just scoffed like: 'is this as big as you get?' before putting out: Green/Amen/Jabari/Sengun/Adams. Houston won those minutes handily.

It was insane in general how Steven Adams came in in the second half and completely controlled the game for a while. He's the perfect fit on a team that loves to miss shots. He didn't get abused defensively either.

Warriors fans are all over Kerr for not going bigger. WTF? The bigs got played off the floor.

I thought it was just interesting to see a coach go that simple and be like: what's my biggest possible lineup right now? What do Warriors fans want? Put in Trayce at SF? I was a little surprised to see Adams play more than twice as many minutes as Looney. I expected we'd see a minutes match. Is the thinking just that Adams will rebound against anyone, so might as well go full pedal on offense?

I'm not sure how many minutes the Rockets are willing/able to play Adams in this series. It's a fun game of checkers (not chess!) where one team has arguably the best offensive rebounder of all time (but he's a specialist) playing against a team that doesn't really have a starting-calibre center sized player.

not only on offense, but it felt like the Warriors were better defensively with the small lineup. Their best way to stop the Rockets was to generate a turnover
Steve Kerr admitted in the postgame that Rockets are just going to get offensive rebounds, and it is what it is. Post only gets playing time because he can shoot, and if the next games he actually makes them, maybe we will see more of him.

[james vincent]

Rockets gotta play bigger if they’re gonna beat the warriors. Either Fred or Green will have to play less especially if they aren’t scoring/shooting efficiently and their lack of size on defensively.

[mack_435]

Rockets aren’t going to shoot 20% from 3 and 55% from the free throw line. I still like the rockets. They were in the game while shooting like ****. If they can shoot 30% from 3’s and hit 75% of their Ft’s, which should be doable, I think they win the series, Fred is the X factor for me. Doubt he goes 2-13 again

[Dubnation]

at the 'oh my god' statement, and viewing the fans reactions.

Read on Twitter

[Dubnation]

The traditional mugging defense of Steph -- I hope they bought him dinner first. Damn... Oh, and the Refs look right at this, and act like its nothing to see here.

Fishy

Read on Twitter

[Grumpy Heat Fan]

Rockets aren’t going to shoot 20% from 3 and 55% from the free throw line. I still like the rockets. They were in the game while shooting like ****. If they can shoot 30% from 3’s and hit 75% of their Ft’s, which should be doable, I think they win the series, Fred is the X factor for me. Doubt he goes 2-13 again

They are young, inexperienced. Talented but regular season team. They ain't making it out of this round.

[Grumpy Heat Fan]

The traditional mugging defense of Steph -- I hope they bought him dinner first. Damn... Oh, and the Refs look right at this, and act like its nothing to see here.

Fishy

[tweet]191416182296742342tweet]

So, I'm a Heat fan (obvious username), and since the Jimmy trade, I've been following you guys. I want Jimmy to get his first ring, which seems possible this year, I actually like GSW to the Finals.

But.

Why does Steph get treated like this? He's one of the GOAT's faces of the league. I heard it was because he signed with UA instead of Nike, because imagine if they gave Steph a normal whistle like they do with SGA or whatever. Add +5 points to his PPG? Can't have Curry getting GOAT level status while wearing Under Armor.

[Dubnation]

The traditional mugging defense of Steph -- I hope they bought him dinner first. Damn... Oh, and the Refs look right at this, and act like its nothing to see here.

Fishy

[tweet]191416182296742342tweet]

So, I'm a Heat fan (obvious username), and since the Jimmy trade, I've been following you guys. I want Jimmy to get his first ring, which seems possible this year, I actually like GSW to the Finals.

But.

Why does Steph get treated like this? He's one of the GOAT's faces of the league. I heard it was because he signed with UA instead of Nike, because imagine if they gave Steph a normal whistle like they do with SGA or whatever. Add +5 points to his PPG? Can't have Curry getting GOAT level status while wearing Under Armor.

I wish I knew, It's blatant and disgraceful. I'm shocked that the Dubs haven't flooded the league with complaints. Maybe there did, and the league is complicit.

[Grumpy Heat Fan]

The traditional mugging defense of Steph -- I hope they bought him dinner first. Damn... Oh, and the Refs look right at this, and act like its nothing to see here.

Fishy

[tweet]191416182296742342tweet]

So, I'm a Heat fan (obvious username), and since the Jimmy trade, I've been following you guys. I want Jimmy to get his first ring, which seems possible this year, I actually like GSW to the Finals.

But.

Why does Steph get treated like this? He's one of the GOAT's faces of the league. I heard it was because he signed with UA instead of Nike, because imagine if they gave Steph a normal whistle like they do with SGA or whatever. Add +5 points to his PPG? Can't have Curry getting GOAT level status while wearing Under Armor.

I wish I knew, It's blatant and disgraceful. I'm shocked that the Dubs haven't flooded the league with complaints. Maybe there did, and the league is complicit.

What do you think of this video? The NBA took it down and he reuploaded it a week ago.

Watch on YouTube

[Impuniti]

Why do people keep calling Butler, Robin? Does Robin usually have better stats and turn the whole team around?

Maybe because Butler says he is Robin?

Yep and Jimmy Butler calls Curry a hellafied Batman. He's always talking about how Stephen Curry is Batman.

https://youtu.be/VrfDCM8BLMA?si=DL-nmuNO_peEcOAT

Butler is way too good to be Robin though.. They should be Superman/Batman, or at least be Nightwing.

[Dubnation]

So, I'm a Heat fan (obvious username), and since the Jimmy trade, I've been following you guys. I want Jimmy to get his first ring, which seems possible this year, I actually like GSW to the Finals.

But.

Why does Steph get treated like this? He's one of the GOAT's faces of the league. I heard it was because he signed with UA instead of Nike, because imagine if they gave Steph a normal whistle like they do with SGA or whatever. Add +5 points to his PPG? Can't have Curry getting GOAT level status while wearing Under Armor.

I wish I knew, It's blatant and disgraceful. I'm shocked that the Dubs haven't flooded the league with complaints. Maybe there did, and the league is complicit.

What do you think of this video? The NBA took it down and he reuploaded it a week ago.

Watch on YouTube

Thanks for this. This is just more confirmation of what many of us see. The fact that the NBA took it down only adds to this evil.

[art_tatum]

The traditional mugging defense of Steph -- I hope they bought him dinner first. Damn... Oh, and the Refs look right at this, and act like its nothing to see here.

Fishy

[tweet]191416182296742342tweet]

So, I'm a Heat fan (obvious username), and since the Jimmy trade, I've been following you guys. I want Jimmy to get his first ring, which seems possible this year, I actually like GSW to the Finals.

But.

Why does Steph get treated like this? He's one of the GOAT's faces of the league. I heard it was because he signed with UA instead of Nike, because imagine if they gave Steph a normal whistle like they do with SGA or whatever. Add +5 points to his PPG? Can't have Curry getting GOAT level status while wearing Under Armor.

I can’t speak on why steph sometimes gets fewer calls on contact drives, but for sure i know the ręfs call off ball stuff way less.
Especially since it happens almost every possessoon with steph as he runs around so much and other defenders have to hold him to stay in contact sometimes.
Just like the Carry or travel call they just let it happen as long as it’s off ball most the time.

I think that’s quite unfair especially it’s preventing scoring oppertunities just as much as a contact drive.
They shouldn’t punish Stephs or any similar player if their main skill to score is to get looks off ball.

But I understand why the refs don’t call it, they would have to blow the whistle multiple times per possession when they are mostly focused on on ball action.

[Capn'O]

So, I'm a Heat fan (obvious username), and since the Jimmy trade, I've been following you guys. I want Jimmy to get his first ring, which seems possible this year, I actually like GSW to the Finals.

But.

Why does Steph get treated like this? He's one of the GOAT's faces of the league. I heard it was because he signed with UA instead of Nike, because imagine if they gave Steph a normal whistle like they do with SGA or whatever. Add +5 points to his PPG? Can't have Curry getting GOAT level status while wearing Under Armor.

I wish I knew, It's blatant and disgraceful. I'm shocked that the Dubs haven't flooded the league with complaints. Maybe there did, and the league is complicit.

What do you think of this video? The NBA took it down and he reuploaded it a week ago.

Watch on YouTube

At the very least a video like this should shut up all those dorks who think the 90s would be too physical for him.

[Dubnation]

I wish I knew, It's blatant and disgraceful. I'm shocked that the Dubs haven't flooded the league with complaints. Maybe there did, and the league is complicit.

What do you think of this video? The NBA took it down and he reuploaded it a week ago.

Watch on YouTube

At the very least a video like this should shut up all those dorks who think the 90s would be too physical for him.

Say it LOUDER.

[Wolfgang630]

The rockets should feel good. They lost by 10 with their backcourt shooting lone 7-40 lol

[Dubnation]

Read on Twitter

I'd be elite as well if I can play football in a basketball game...

[Capn'O]

What do you think of this video? The NBA took it down and he reuploaded it a week ago.

Watch on YouTube

At the very least a video like this should shut up all those dorks who think the 90s would be too physical for him.

Say it LOUDER.

I mean, there was a Wardell Stephen Curry who played in the 90s and was a perimeter player and nobody killed him.



Regarding the premise of the video...

I'm not buying the Nike thing though. Most fouls happen in the paint and midrange and Steph's distribution is further out. Is that fair? Maybe not. But Lillard, SGA, and the like take over 25% of their shots at the cup whereas Steph is at more like 15%. That's a very substantial difference. Then add that he's not a foul merchant. Whatever you might think about Carmelo Anthony, he used to get absolutely mugged and was never among the FT leaders. Jalen Brunson on the other hand...