Chris Paul After Warriors: “We Played With the Right Spirit”

The Houston Rockets defeated Golden State Warriors for the third straight time this season, twice in a row in Oakland.

It was 118-112 for the guests from Texas who became the only team in Steve Kerr’s stint with the Warriors who beat him four times in a row when looking season matches.

But what makes this win even bigger is the fact that the Rockets did it without James Harden. The current MVP wasn’t able to play because of his neck injury and also because he had symptoms of a flue.

However, other guys stepped up, and showed that Houston is not a one-man show, but in fact, a true basketball team who can play against any opponent in the league even without their best player.

“I just think that we show what we’re capable of,” CP3 stated at the on-court interview. “You know it’s gonna be wins and losses in this league night in and night out, but if you play with the right spirit, there’s nothing that can stop you, and that is what we did tonight,” he said.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMssk9hosxw&t=95s

Paul was the key for the win, as he took over the wheel when needed and played most of the one-on-one situations, but the rest of the team played very well, in terms of providing him the positions and creating the space for his plays.

But not only that, Gordon, Faried, Tucker and the rest did their part of the job when GSW’s defended Paul hitting downtown shots or scoring from another plan.

The points were equally distributed among the Rockets players. Eric Gordon had a team-high 25 buckets, Faried had 20 with 10 boards, PJ Tucker 18 also with 10 rebounds, while Chris Paul ended the night scoring 23, but with 17 assists.

That was the product of the team effort Rockets’ posted last night. Paul was referring to that also, and he explained the mindset of the whole crew coming into this match.

“It’s a talented team over there,” he started explaining. “So playing hard isn’t enough against them, you got to play smart, and that’s what I just kept telling the guys keep playing smart.”

And that is what they did. The Rockets opened the match with a 15-0 series, kept that lead throughout the contest, and in the moments when GSW made their usual pushes and runs, Houston remained calm.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xn74Sw1GlAE

The third quarter was a bit problematic because the home team took the lead for a brief moment. After leading 20 points in the second period, 48-28, that would have been a devastating situation for the majority of the teams in the league. But not for the Rockets. They were calm, and the players off the bench like Nene and Austin Rivers played excellently, making it possible for their team to bounce back to a safe distance.

Still, no matter how huge this win is, for Paul it is another step towards the title, and defeating the Warriors now isn’t that big of a deal like beating them in the playoffs when it counts.

“You can come in here and win on a Monday night in February or a Tuesday night in November or December,” Paul said. “But in the playoffs is when you have to beat a team four out of seven times. It’s great tonight that we won this but in two days y’all will forget this. We all will.”

CP3 personally has a huge motive to play against the Warriors. In general, the whole Rockets team does, but the All-Star playmaker is in a specific situation.

Last year, with Houston, leading 3-2 in the Western Conference Finals, Paul picked up a hamstring injury, which eventually cost his team the big Finals.

So, he wants to “redeem” for that, if we might say, and be even more useful against their biggest rivals at the moment.

Paul will have another chance for that on 13th of March when Golden State arrives in Texas. If his crew wins, the Warriors will suffer their first seasonal sweep since Steve Kerr sat on their bench.

But that won’t mean a thing without playoffs. So, we will wait and see what happens next. For now, it looks very interesting.