In a game where the Rockets took two times as man free throws as the Clippers (64-32), you’d think people would cry foul at what appears on the surface as a diabolical home-court advantage. But with Hack-a-Dwight and James Harden leading the Rockets, they’d be wrong. Dwight took 21 of those 64 attempts and Beard had 15 more, but unlike Dwight — just 38 percent on 8-of-21 — Harden was perfect from the stripe and scored 16 of his team-high 32 points in the final session for a 115-109 win.
It wasn’t only free throws that did in the Clippers after Blake Griffin led them to a nine-point first-half advantage. Harden hit a pair of three-pointers early in the fourth to give his Rockets a cushion, something they still lacked even after outscoring LA by seven in the third.
Plus, the Toyota Center crowd hasn’t had much opportunity to cheer so far in their first Western Conference Semifinal since Yao, Luis Scola, Shane Battier and Metta World Peace got them into the second round in 2009.
But it was Harden’s ability to finish at the rim that helped them in the games final moments.
First, Austin Rivers forgot the MVP runner-up becomes mostly unstoppable when he spots even a sliver of an opening going to his strong hand:
But Matt Barnes did the same thing with the Clippers down just 109-105 with 1:11 left in the final session. Barnes swiped at the ball after preventing Beard’s first prodding dribble to his left. The swipe meant Matt had to extend his right foot, which again gave James a path to his left.
That was all Harden needed to scoot past him and avoid the rotating Blake to finish:
[protected-iframe id=”b91c9e72f81f72c9187628d35a3d6081-60970621-27345751″ info=”https://gfycat.com/ifr/ImportantElaborateAfricanclawedfrog” width=”650″ height=”335″ frameborder=”0″ scrolling=”no”]
The Rockets still haven’t faced a full Clippers team. Chris Paul sat out another game with a hamstring strain, and Houston continued to flounder even on their home floor. The fact Blake was able to detonate like he did in a second quarter, when Houston was outscored 41-21, portends a difficult time in LA.
Houston will need to be better than they were in Game 1 AND 2 if they’re going to steal a game at Staples to wrestle back home-court in this Western Conference Semifinal.
