The keys for the Golden State Warriors to continue dominating the Houston Rockets

The Houston Rockets lost the first game of their first-round series against the Golden State Warriors on Sunday night. As expected, the Rockets shot very poorly, while the greatest three-point shooter of all time, Stephen Curry, shot very well. Watching Curry's slow start turn into a torrent of improbable threes surely brought painful memories to Rockets fans. Are the Rockets doomed by another master class of precision shooting from Curry? Or is the Rockets' biggest issue something entirely different than shooting?

The simplest solution for the Rockets would undoubtedly be to shoot better. The Rockets won't win games when their starting backcourt goes 2-17 from three. It wasn't like they were heavily contested shots by any means. Fred VanVleet had multiple open looks. He just couldn't convert any of them. That has been the storyline for VanVleet in his second year with the Rockets.

In the 2024-25 regular season, VanVleet only shot 31.5% from 4.0 three-point attempts per game. In 2023-24, he managed a much more respectable 36.4% on 4.8 attempts per game. However, his previous years with the Toronto Raptors hovered around 33%. That suggests last year was likely the outlier.

Despite his flaws, VanVleet remains one of the Rockets' most capable three-point shooters and, perhaps more importantly, one of the most willing. He doesn't shoot threes just for the sake of it but takes them when necessary to open up the rest of his pick-and-roll game. Yet, the Warriors are committed to suffocating him. It's not entirely impossible for VanVleet to shoot 15% in the series, and it's highly unlikely he'll get a percentage that changes Golden State's mind. Still, with a steady diet of open looks, VanVleet will likely heat up at some point.

As is customary for Houston, it's the offensive impact of their other key shooting guard that will likely be a more influential factor in their success. In the first game, Jalen Green shot 3 of 15 from the field. This is quite a familiar statistic in Green's saga against the Warriors. Green seems to have been deceived by the notion that Golden State's small stature means he should be able to force plays at the rim. He needs to continue attacking the interior of the Warriors but turn some of his wild shot attempts into passes. Green is one of the few players who can create an advantage for the Rockets in the half-court. The team just needs him to leverage that ability more effectively.

Alternatively, Green could stick with the strategy he deployed in the first game, if it can be called that. He could earn the referees' sympathy for a game and walk away with a dozen or more free throws. But it won't be long before he exits a four-game series with nothing but bruises and field goal percentages below 40%.

Shooting is not the only problem for the Rockets regarding their shooting guard play. They also have a major deficit in ball-handling. Part of this is because the Rockets spent part of the first game without either of their two starting shooting guards, despite them being the only true shooting guards in Houston's eight-man rotation. The soon-to-be-defensive stalwart Amen Thompson can generously be described as a third. But lineups featuring Thompson as the de facto point guard alongside four frontline players had significant trouble navigating Golden State's suffocating defense. Partly because Thompson looked shaky in his first playoff game. Partly because, as a unit, they could barely dribble the ball.

As expected, those gargantuan lineups gave Houston a significant size advantage. Their lack of ball-handling translated into an inability to get the ball past Golden State's perimeter. That meant the size advantage only generated no better looks than mid-range shots for Thompson and Alperen Sengun. Sengun played extremely well but could do so with an easier shot diet. The team didn't even generate much on their many second chances.

Positives for the Houston Rockets

Houston grabbed 22 offensive rebounds in the game. In contrast, Golden State had only six. Of course, offensive rebounds are easier to come by when your offense can't muster a 40% shooting conversion rate from the field. Houston shot only 39.1% from the field and 20.7% from three. But it's harder to generate good looks when you can't dribble the ball on the opposite side of the court. Houston had 16 turnovers in the game, with many shots that would have been the same were it not for their advantage on the glass.

The Rockets' shooting and ball-handling problems are certainly intertwined. The lack of shooting threats nominally allows Golden State to overload driving lanes and more effectively stifle Houston's dribble penetration. However, that's how Golden State likes to play. They did the same against the Boston Celtics in 2023 under Houston coach Ime Udoka. Admittedly, that was a team with Marcus Smart and Robert Williams rather than last season's three-point-oriented team. Still, Golden State has a general philosophy of attacking early to make up for their lack of traditional rim protection. It's no coincidence that Houston's best ball-handler under pressure, VanVleet, is the only player Golden State continues to give open shots to.

Even teams with good shooting look to generate open looks with pressure on the rim. Houston is not a good shooting team. If they can't dribble or pass the ball effectively enough to create advantages, then shooting prowess doesn't even matter.

There is still plenty of hope for the Rockets in this series. On one hand, their key young players could shake off initial nerves. And more importantly, their overwhelming size may be too much for Golden State over seven games. After all, the biggest player for Houston was the only one with a positive +/-. Backup center Steven Adams had a +4 in just 19.5 minutes. This is despite the lineup with two bigs from Houston with him and Sengun being -5 in 11 minutes. Houston has no choice but to play big. The challenge is how to bring the ball close enough to the rim so that being big works in their favor.

This news is an automatic translation. You can read the original news, Las claves para que los Golden State Warriors sigan dominando a los Houston Rockets