OAKLAND Brandon Manning Jersey , Calif. — Two veteran coaches had a similar message for their teams on the eve of Game 4 of the Western Conference finals between the Houston Rockets and Golden State Warriors on Tuesday night.
“It starts 0-0,” Warriors coach Steve Kerr said of Game 4. “It doesn’t matter if we won (the previous game) by one or 41.”
In fact, the Warriors did win Game 3 on Sunday by 41 points, 126-85, to take a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven.
The margin of victory not only was the largest in Warriors postseason history, but the margin of defeat also was the biggest ever for a team that won 65 or more games in the regular season.
Stephen Curry, who had missed 17 of his 20 3-point attempts in the first 10 quarters of the series, sent the Warriors’ home crowd into a frenzy by making 4 of 5 in the second half Sunday en route to 35 points.
It was a performance that brought back memories to Kerr of the Boston Celtics’ Danny Ainge.
“I don’t remember what I had for breakfast, but I remember what Danny Ainge said 30 years ago,” Kerr warned. “They won a playoff game by 40 Wayne Simmonds Jersey , and he said, ‘This is not the Tour de France. You don’t start with a big lead because it’s not based on time or how much you won by.’
“It’s the NBA, so it’s 2-1 (in the series). So doesn’t matter what happened (Sunday). We have to be ready for a great team that’s going to come out like they did in Game 2, attacking, hair on fire and taking the force to us, and we have to be ready for that.”
The Rockets’ margin of defeat Sunday was almost identical to the number of fewer points scored by Eric Gordon, P.J. Tucker and Trevor Ariza in Game 3 than in Game 2.
Key members of the James Harden/Chris Paul supporting cast — Gordon, Tucker and Ariza — combined for 23-of-33 shooting and contributed 68 points to a 127-105 series-evening home win in Game 2.
On Sunday, they went a combined 8 of 24 and 23 points in the blowout loss.
Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni wasn’t singling out anyone when he assessed the Game 3 performance.
“We didn’t bring our best game,” he observed. “But I’m hoping for the best (in Game 4). I hope we play great and them bad. Never know.”
The loss was the Rockets’ fourth of the postseason. They rebounded with wins after each of the first three Authentic Oliver Bjorkstrand Jersey , romping by an average of 20.7 points.
This time, they’ll be up against a Warriors team that has won an NBA-record 16 straight playoff games at home.
D’Antoni went as far as to say the pressure is on the Warriors, who would hand the home-court advantage back to Houston with a loss in Game 4.
“I hope so,” Kerr reacted to his rival’s statement. “We’re much better when the pressure’s on. He’s right. We’re at home, so if they win, they have home-court advantage. So, yeah, pressure’s on us. It’s kind of on them, too.”
Boston Celtics boss Danny Ainge was puzzled by all the talk about how Texas A&M forward Robert Williams didn’t work hard enough to make it in the NBA.”It’s hard to have a `low motor’ and be the defensive player of the year two years in a row in a tough conference,” Ainge said Friday after the news conference to introduce Williams.
Williams was named the Southeastern Conference’s co-defensive player of the year in 2018 after winning the award outright in 2017.
”That’s pretty hard to do if you don’t have the motor Justin Abdelkader Jersey ,” Ainge said. ”But if the motor can get better, that’s an even bigger upside.”
A 6-foot-10, 237-pound native of Oil City, Louisiana, Williams had been considered a lottery pick after his freshman year but he returned to play another season in college. He was projected as an early first-rounder in this year’s draft, but he fell to the Celtics at No. 27 overall.
Williams said his mother believed he needed another year to mature in college. Asked if he regretted not coming out after his freshman year, Williams broke into a wide smile and shook his head to show he wasn’t second-guessing that decision.
”I mean, I’m standing right here,” said Williams, who was assigned the No. 44 that was worn by Ainge during his Celtics playing career. ”I feel like I landed in a great place. It’s only up from here.”
Williams arrived in Boston earlier in the week and already has spent a couple of days working out at the team’s new training facility Womens Marian Hossa Jersey , the Auerbach Center. One of those workouts was at 6:30 a.m. on Friday before the news conference.
Incumbent power forward Al Horford was there to greet him on Wednesday.
”He just gave me the keys to success,” Williams said. ”Boston is a place that loves hard work. They love players that give it their all.”
Speaking on the eve of the league’s free agency period, Ainge declined to comment on specific players who might be available but did say it was ”unlikely” the team would land a superstar. LeBron James, Chris Paul and Paul George are expected to be free agents, and Kawhi Leonard has asked the Spurs to trade him.
”We explore every trade of certain magnitude or superstar first-ballot Hall of Fame-type player,” Ainge said. ”We’re going to take a look and kick the tires and see if there’s something there, but that’s all. I think those things are unlikely.”
A year after a complete offseason overhaul – trading Isaiah Thomas for Kyrie Irving and returning just four players from the team that earned the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference in 2016-17 – Ainge said he doesn’t expect to make a major move.
”We don’t have the need,” Ainge said. ”We have really good players and we want to surround them with role players.”
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