The Rockets are really feeling themselves after Saturday night, when the team hosted Golden State in Houston and took down the defending champions, 116-108. In the aftermath of the win, Rockets forward P.J. Tucker praised his team, saying that he believes Houston has the “perfect team” to prevent the Warriors from making the NBA Finals for the fourth year in a row.
But in the eyes of Clint Capela, Tucker’s viewpoint of “being able to beat the Warriors” might be a bit off. That is because Houston’s center believes the Rockets are the favorite, and Golden State is the only team that has the horses to knock them off of their perch.
The Rockets are a perfect 17-0 when Capela, Chris Paul and James Harden are all in the lineup together, which has the young Houston center very confident in their ability to not only compete with but beat the Warriors in the postseason. Capela spoke to Marc J. Spears of The Undefeated after Saturday night’s win, and made it clear that he believes the Rockets are the superior team out West.
Via The Undefeated:
“This is the only team that has the weapons to beat us,” Capela said of the Warriors. “If we do what we’re supposed to do against them, we’re better than them.”
Capela’s star teammate James Harden is likewise feeling very good about the Rockets’ chances of making a title run, telling Spears this is the most confident he’s ever been in a team in his entire career.
“We’re for real, for real. We are for real as it can get,” Harden told The Undefeated. “I have never been this confident playing in my entire career, not only by adding Chris [Paul] but the rest of our team. We have a team with depth that at any moment can impact the game. We just got to stay locked in the rest of the season.”
The Rockets are still 3.5 games back of the Warriors in the Western Conference, so even if they got the win on Saturday, they still have some work to do before they can say with 100 percent certainty that they’re better than Golden State. Plus beating the Warriors one time and beating them four times in seven games are two completely different animals.
Still, Saturday was a great start, and with James Harden returning from a hamstring injury, there are plenty of reasons for optimism in Houston.
