SAN FRANCISCO — The Houston Rockets were up two points when the fourth quarter of Game 6 started. They were up six points six seconds later. The error that tripled the gap was the single possession that seemed to tick off key members of the Golden State Warriors most late Friday night.
Exiting the between-quarter timeout, the Warriors mixed up their defensive assignments. Gary Payton II, who had been elevated into the starting lineup in part to slow down the scorching Fred VanVleet, was instead up the court on Jalen Green, who was Moses Moody’s assignment.
By the time he realized it, Houston was already in position to exploit it. Here is the screenshot that viewers received when the broadcast finally switched back to the action. VanVleet is wide open on the left wing. Payton is 20 feet away and scrambling as a few teammates helplessly point his direction.
Payton compounded the issue with a scrambling whack of VanVleet’s arm as he drained the jumper, giving him a fourth point on the possession and, as Draymond Green tells it, draining the life out of the Warriors.
“Fred VanVleet has 17 3s in three games and he’s wide open coming out of a timeout?” Green said. “That’s crazy.”
“That’s on us as a staff to make sure we’re matched up,” Kerr said. “That felt like a game-changing play.”
A game-changing play in what could become a season-altering (and potentially franchise-shifting) loss. This series had mostly gone to script for the Warriors. They stole one of the first two in Houston, took care of business at home in three and four and had the chance to close out the Rockets in San Francisco on Friday night.
They were instead smoked in a catastrophic fourth quarter, losing 115-107 and sending this first round series back to Houston for a deciding Game 7 fewer than 48 hours later.
It started with that Payton error and it snowballed from there. The Warriors missed 14 of their first 15 fourth quarter shots, watching a two-point deficit become a 17-point canyon. Draymond Green made a floater at the 10:12 mark and no other Warrior made a shot until Steph Curry hit a 3 with 3:35 left.
This extended drought, as with most of the Warriors’ dry spells in this series, came against Houston’s tricky zone with Steven Adams on the floor. The Warriors are scoring fewer than a point per possession in this series when the Rockets go zone and Houston is a plus-53 in the series when Adams is on the floor, often next to Alperen Şengün in double-big lineups that have bludgeoned the Warriors.
“There’s a reason they’re playing zone for a whole half pretty much,” Curry said. “They’re trying to force a certain type of shot. I took probably four heavily contested deep 3s just to try to will us.”
The Rockets want all of Curry’s looks to be contested and forced. He went 9 of 23 shooting in Game 6 with the degree of difficulty high on nearly all of them. Houston also wants Jimmy Butler to play in a crowd against a zone where he can’t mismatch hunt, seeing a roaming big behind their wave of wings.
To deploy this defense, they’re more than comfortable allowing the rest of the Warriors to get semi-open jumpers and floaters, believing that a late contest from their long wings will be enough to plummet percentages. In Game 6, that strategy worked. Buddy Hield, starting for a third straight game, missed all four of his shots. Payton went 2 of 5. Green went 3 of 8. The non-Curry starters were 3 of 18 on 3s, looking hesitant to fire at various times.
“If they’re going to do this and they’re going to play zone and make certain guys shoot it, then it’s the same way we talk about all season,” Curry said. “Everybody’s in this league for a reason. If you have a shot, take it. I don’t need to say anything. Coach doesn’t need to say anything. You’re out there, be aggressive. Look for your shot. We’ll live with it. That’s the name of the game. The shots that we’re creating or the shots that are open, keep taking ’em.”
Quinten Post has been one of the Warriors’ most effective floor-spacers the last two months, but the rookie center is getting increasingly exploited as this series moves deeper. He had five fouls in 17 minutes of Game 6, was a minus-6 and wore a target on his back on the defensive end.
When Kerr tried to get Green a quick breather in the middle of that fourth quarter collapse, he went to Post and the Rockets immediately lured him into space against Amen Thompson, leading to this easy layup.
As the Warriors reconvene over the next 30 hours and gameplan for Game 7, Post’s rotation role is one of the various personnel choices that’ll be in question.
As a way to protect the interior more and better match up against Adams and Şengün, Kerr could elevate Kevon Looney’s playing time. He only received two minutes in Game 6. That won’t necessarily solve the spacing issues on the offensive end, but Looney is often Kerr’s counter in rugged environments and could help shore up the defensive issues that are becoming more troubling.
Butler and Green both said postgame that the team’s biggest issue was its inability to get loose balls and win in the effort categories. That would become easier if those two aren’t having to fight off two centers and instead have Looney down there to help with the dirty work. Butler got the biggest rebound in the series — clinching Game 4 — because Looney was down there fighting off Adams.
“I think they probably had 20 points off of broken plays and getting loose balls and kicking out for 3s,” Green said. “Get loose balls and we’ll defend them way better. In order to beat this team, you got to make second and third efforts. Last two games we have not done that.”
There’s also a case for Jonathan Kuminga’s entering the mix again. The Warriors’ third-leading scorer this season has been put on ice in this series, but brings a level of rim pressure and offensive force that has been lacking the last two games.
“One hundred percent he’s on the table (as a rotation option),” Kerr said.
Kerr’s first big rotation choice will be answered at tip. He has juggled his starting lineup four times in this series, landing on a group that included Hield and Payton instead of Moody and Podziemski on Friday night.
Much of the strategy has been in relation to Şengün’s defensive assignment. The Rockets have been trying to keep him out of the Curry action and the Warriors have been trying to reconfigure the matchups to force him into the action. But the zone has done a job of protecting Şengün regardless of who is on the floor and the Warriors rotation is now all jumbled up.
In the locker room postgame, Butler called over Green to discuss strategy and adjustments. After a brief conversation, the two exited the main area and called over Curry to loop him in on the conversation. It’s clear that Kerr and the veterans have issues to solve prior to Sunday or a playoff run that appeared promising a few days ago will be over before the weekend is up.
“We good,” Butler said. “We smiling. We listening to our music, celebrating life. We’re ready to compete. We were ready to compete tonight. Things didn’t go our way. We’re going to be ready to compete on Sunday. We’re going to make the game go our way.”
Butler told Hield before he left the locker room: “The real always rise.”
(Photo of Steph Curry: Ezra Shaw/Getty Images)