What the Warriors NEED to change for GAME 7 👀 Rockets vs. Warriors preview 🍿 | SportsCenter

What the Warriors NEED to change for GAME 7 👀 Rockets vs. Warriors preview 🍿 | SportsCenter

favorite two words in the playoffs, Shay. Game seven. That’s what the Rockets and Warriors are going to play after what happened in game six last night. Here we go. There’s Steph looking to close out the series. Rockets looking to force a game seven. Warriors down eight. Dylan Brooks on Steph. And Steph’s like, “Yeah, whatever, bro.” Look at the shot falling down one-handed off glass. Golden State down five cuz Steph made the free throw. He just takes a chill pill on the court. Two minutes to play. Warriors down three. Curry three ties the game. My man had his own personal 110 run. Final seconds of the first half. Jaylen Green to Aman Thompson. Thompson jump shot over Draymond. Down the other way we go. Draymond’s going to find Jimmy Butler. And Jimmy buckets with the answer and the foul. Man, I don’t know what he was thinking, but he needs to think it all the time. That was ridiculous. Warriors down five. going into the half. Let’s go all the way to the fourth quarter. First play of the fourth. Rockets up two. Fred Van Bleet and the foul converts the four-point play. He has been balling of late. More on that in a minute. Later, Al Peron Shenon back at Butler down. Little spin action. Rockets up six. Later, Thompson tough layup. Got it to fall. Rockets up eight. That one over. Quinton Post under 7 minutes to go. Rockets up nine. Sangoon layup. Shangon layup. No. Uh Butler grabs the rebound. He turns it over. Shangon to Van Vle. Give it to Fred cuz that’s what he does. 29 points, eight boards, eight assists. Rockets up 12. Later. Green Butler three. No. On the other end, Changoo is going to get it and find it finding Steven Adams. And Adams is a strong tall man. Rockets dominate in the fourth quarter up 17. They go on to win 115 107 forcing game seven. Steph Curry, what happened? Man, there were times we make a run, we couldn’t just couldn’t get over the hump. And like you understand there was there was pressure to win on your home floor. They’re playing great. Like you got to give them credit. It’s not like we’re just laying an egg and rolling over. We’re fighting. We’re trying to compete. There’s just in the margins some things that we can do better and uh control what we can control and I think we we can do that in game seven. All right, so we head to a decisive game seven where both franchises have had their fair share of success. Shay, the Rockets have seven wins all time in game sevens. That is tied for third most all time behind only the Celtics and the Lakers. Meanwhile, the Warriors are three and one in game sevens under Steve Cerr, including two and 0 on the road. One of those wins was in Houston back in 2018. Oh, look. Fred Vanv. What? Fred Van Vleet. Every time that name gets me. It’s okay. It’s okay. It’s a It’s a thing. Uh I like how you made me repeat it, though. I appreciate you. Fred Van Vleet put on a show last night. 20 points, four five from three through three quarters. The Rockets and the Warriors. Uh early in the fourth quarter, Van Vleet again and the foul. Huge shot. Houston up six after that free throw. And then they just like, you know, let’s put let’s put this team away, shall we? Gives it to Shenon. Missed the layup. Jimmy Butler tries to save it. Shenon says, I I’ll take that back and I’m going to get it out to my man. And that’s my man throwing down. 29 points, six of nine from three for Fred as he gets another one to go. I mean, eight rebounds, eight assists. Rockets win the game. They force game seven in Houston tomorrow. Fred Van Vleet just continuing his hot stretch. Over his last three games, he’s averaging nearly 27 points on 59% shooting and 67% on threes. Van Vleet, the first Rockets player with 25 or more points in consecutive games when facing elimination in the postseason since James Harden back in 2015. Let us say good morning to NBA analyst Quinton Richardson and senior Anscape writer David Dennis Jr. Q, let me start with you. The Warriors essentially waving the white flag in game five to go for the win in game six at home. That did not happen. Explain exactly what did happen down the stretch in Golden State last night. Actually, it was something that we might not have expected from the from the veteran laden warriors, man. It seemed like everything began to go go the Rockets way. 5050 balls, loose balls. Uh like you heard Draymond in the in the press conference say that that the team that wants the ball more usually gets it and you’re not you’re not used to the Warriors not being that team. And last night, everything began to snowball. You see the turnovers, you see the loose balls, you see the 50/50 balls. And then Fred Van Vleet went crazy. And not not only that, he had the two big men down inside outmatching and outworking the Warriors on the inside. So everything kind of went bad for them last night in that fourth quarter. Yeah. And you mentioned you don’t expect that from a veteran laden team. David, you wanted to go uh Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I totally agree there. I mean, that fourth quarter started off on the wrong foot with Gary Peyton the second fouling Van Fleet. 6 seconds into that quarter on a three-point play. What sort of begs a larger question here is if Gary Payton the second is really the guy to beat guarding Fred Van Fleet. We’ve seen him being cooked by this dude. And you know, if you got Gary Payeyton out there, the things you want him to do are to play defense. Uh and he’s not scoring. They’re leaving him wide open and he’s too small to get those rebounds. So, you know, he’s sort of a net negative. The team overall is 7 for 23 in open threes last night and the Rockets are leaving guys wide open which is why for me I think that they should probably go to Moses Moody a little bit more to defend defend Fred Van Fleet. He was there at the beginning of the season when Van Fleet was struggling. Uh he’s got some length. He’s 39% from three and he can crash those boards. I think that that may be an adjustment that can help quell some of that Fred Van Flee stuff. But this dude is on the heater right now. Yeah, they they need to do something to adjust. Now listen to this. Van Vid has three straight 25-point games. For the first time in his playoff career, he’s made 18 three-pointers over that span, which is a franchise postseason record. That is just ridiculous. All right. Uh Q Steph, Draymond, Jimmy Butler combining to play in nine game sevens. That is one fewer than the entire Rockets team. Where you putting your money on Golden State’s experience or Houston’s momentum going into game seven? Listen, this is a tough one for me right here, Joe. I mean, I’ve been rolling with the with the Warriors experience the last couple and right now it it hasn’t it hasn’t yielded me anything. Right now, we all know that when you get to game seven, everything kind of goes out the window. So, I don’t know if we should throw the experience out the window because if go Golden Golden State goes and wins, everybody will say, “Well, the experience is what won it for him.” But, I don’t know, man. I think uh right now I’m on the side of momentum because the way that the Warriors haven’t responded to the way that the Rockets have played against them the last couple games and even though like I just said we can throw all of it out the window for game seven because game seven just comes down to that one singular game who shows up who performs well everything else goes out the window. So right now I don’t know who to pick. I got my hands in the air right now, but I can’t I I I simply can’t go with the with the with the experience and the veteran stuff with the Warriors because it hasn’t shown up these last few games. Well, I kind of don’t know either, but I’m going I’m going to stand on business a little bit and go with the Warriors. I’mma make a pick right now and say the Warriors. And it is Yeah, I’mma do that. It is a little bit based on that experience that we’re talking about. We know what Steph Curry can do. He’s averaged 32.6, seven, and 6.5 in game seven. And we saw what he did in the last game seven he had against the Kings putting up a 50 burger. Uh Jimmy Butler just went into Boston and won a game seven and almost won another one in game seven against Boston. They have that experience, but they got to figure that big man lineup ceue that you mentioned. They got to figure out that zone that kept them missing 15 of their first 16 shots in that fourth quarter. They got to figure out Steven Adams. He is a plus 53 while on the court. All of those things matter. I think the Warriors may need a third score to help, but I am leaning on playoff Jimmy game seven Steph to pull this one out. We will see. We will see. Game seven. Looking forward to it. Q David, always a pleasure. Appreciate y’all. Well, what’s better than one game seven? We got two game sevens now in this first round. And I’m with two gentlemen who know a thing or two about that. Bob Myers, I want to start with you here because you’ve been on the other side of uh being up 3-1 with the Golden State Warriors and having another team come all the way back. Can you just take us inside the locker room right now? The level of intensity, maybe it’s a little bit tense. What happens when you’re forced into a game seven on the road? Well, I don’t think any of the Warriors players expected this outcome. I don’t think any of their coaching staff expected this outcome. Um, so you’re going to have to deal with that pain uh for a little bit and let that sit there because I think game five, the way it played out, I think a lot of the players on the Warriors thought, well, we’ll just go home and we’ll win that game and the series will be over. Problem. You got to get back on a plane now tomorrow, Malikica. And everything’s changed. Right now, Houston feels great. It’s not just about how you feel, though. It’s about what Perk and I were talking about about the strategy. This two big lineup now going into the game. Steven Adams and Alfred Chungu were plus 31 in 54 minutes. I’d like to see what they are now. Um and and it’s it’s that number has gone up. So, what is Steve Kerr going to do to respond to that? uh he tried to start Gary Payeyton uh and that mixed results but I love game sevens uh been on both sides obviously the finals lost uh and then came back on per Perkins Oklahoma City Thunder I was gone played in seven still there in some capacity you have experienced seven game sevens under your belt here perk when you’re the Houston Rocket side of all this I loved what Mike Breen said it’s not necessarily shocking for the Houston Rockets because They’ve had such an excellent season, but being able to be so young, go on the road, snatch this game from Golden State, and now you’re kind of playing with house money. You They are playing with house money, but they stay they stay true to themselves and who they are, right? Make or miss, they defend it at a high level. That’s who this Houston Rockets team is. And they get physical. You talk about those two towers down there and Steven Adams and Shangon. I mean, they was just working out. And I don’t know if Golden State have an answer for that, right? Like I could call out Draymond and say, “Hey, what are you going to do at 65 with those two monsters?” Maybe you go to uh Von Lully, but here’s here’s the guy, Fred Van Vleet, right? Eight rebounds, eight assists. What he had tonight, uh 29 points, championship leader, floor general, kept his guys under control, controlled the pace of the game, did it on both ends of the floor, went in there and got a victory. The one image that I do have in my head though is Steph Curry after the final buzzer sounded with Brandon Pompeki, with Jimmy Butler. I do not know what they were saying, but it looked like they’re still on the sidelines chatting some things over. If anybody knows this moment, it is Steph Curry. Can’t chat up his heart. So, you better bring that on the plane. Game seven. Here we go.

On SportsCenter, Quentin Richardson, Bob Myers and David Dennis Jr. join to discuss the Golden State Warriors losing to the Houston Rockets in Game 6, Fred VanVleet’s impact on the series, and debating if Steph Curry and the Warriors can secure a win on the road in Game 7.

0:00 Rockets vs. Warriors going to Game 7
4:06 Fred VanVleet’s impact on the series
10:05 What the Warriors need to change to succeed Game 7

✔️ Subscribe to ESPN+ http://espnplus.com/youtube
✔️ Get the ESPN App: http://www.espn.com/espn/apps/espn
✔️ Subscribe to ESPN on YouTube: http://es.pn/SUBSCRIBEtoYOUTUBE
✔️ Subscribe to NBA on ESPN on YouTube: http://bit.ly/SUBSCRIBEtoNBAonESPN
✔️ Watch ESPN on YouTube TV: http://es.pn/YouTubeTV

#ESPN