Fred Van Beat scored 29 points as the Houston Rockets made an astonishing 115-107 victory over the Golden State Warriors.
The Houston Rockets set up a Game Seven showdown in the NBA Western Conference playoff series with a 115-107 victory over the Golden State Warriors on Friday.
The Rockets are about to become the 14th team to score a rally from 3-1 to win the NBA Playoffs Series when they host Game 7 on Sunday.
Fred Vanvriet scored 29 points, while Alperen Sen added 21 points and 14 rebounds to the Rockets. The Rockets led the majority of the game, silenced a powerful crowd of 18,000 at the Warriors’ Chase Center Arena in the explosive fourth quarter.
Amen Thompson added 14 points to Houston and veteran New Zealand bigwig Steven Adams, 17 points from the bench, and provided a scary defensive presence while stitching four of the four out of the floor.
Adams had three of Houston’s five blocking shots as the Rockets suppressed a powerful offense from the Warriors led by Stephen Curry.
Curry scored 29 points, but he connected with just nine shots off the field, coughing five turnovers.
Jimmy Butler added 27 points, but the other Warriors starters didn’t score on double numbers.
“Make everything strong,” Vanvleet took a two-point lead in the fourth quarter on Rockets’ mindset. “Obviously we know what they bring to the table.
“You want to make everything difficult and compete for everything… I think our youth and athleticism can be worn on them in the course of the game, and we have been able to have some success lately.”
Overwhelmed early in Game 5 on Friday, the Warriors got off to a slightly better start, but rose to 25-21 at the end of the first period in the first quarter of Nip and Tuck, featuring 10 lead changes that led more than two leads.
Curry’s three-pointer tied 46-46 with 1:59 left in the first half, but once again the Rockets led 53-48 after the first half, making 11 of their 17 turnovers.
“That’s the key to the whole series: ball security,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said.
Houston led 86-84 to fourth place, but Vanvleet dug up a three-pointer in the opening seconds, pulling a foul and making a free throw a sign of the future.
“I thought the key play was a four-point play to start the (fourth) quarter,” Kerr said. “We didn’t protect Vanvriet, they threw it on the floor and he knocked it down and got a free throw, and it felt like a game-changing play.”
Draymond Green added: “You can’t give up on a four-point play in a two-point game.”
Kerr also picked out 31-year-old Adams.
“Adams was great tonight,” Kerr said. “They controlled the game while he was there.”
The Warriors resorted to fouling from Adams, a low-century free-throw shooter, but he made nine out of 16 foul shots, allowing the Rockets to grab a few rebounds of his mistakes anyway.
The winner of the series will take on the Minnesota Timber Wolves.