{"id":110907,"date":"2024-12-06T17:05:29","date_gmt":"2024-12-06T22:05:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/?p=110907"},"modified":"2024-12-06T17:05:29","modified_gmt":"2024-12-06T22:05:29","slug":"rockets-warriors-losing-streak","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/2024\/12\/06\/rockets-warriors-losing-streak\/","title":{"rendered":"Can Rockets Break Warriors Losing Streak in the NBA Cup?"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Houston Rockets just extended their losing streak to the Golden State Warriors<\/a> to fifteen straight games. Can they lift longtime Warriors’ coach\u00a0Steve Kerr<\/a>‘s curse before their NBA Cup clash? The two teams will play each other in a quarterfinal<\/a> elimination game on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

Can Rockets Break Warriors Losing Streak in the NBA Cup?<\/h2>\n

The Rockets’ Streak versus the Warriors<\/h3>\n

The Rockets and Warriors have a lot of recent history<\/a> due to rival three-point revolutionaries<\/a> and stylistically diametric<\/a> superstars Steph Curry<\/a> and James Harden<\/a>. That played out in playoff series in 2017-18 and 2018-19. The 15-game losing streak against the Warriors dates back to March 2021. The Rockets last won a game in the matchup<\/a> in February 2020.<\/p>\n

Clearly, much of that time coincided with the early stages of the Rockets’ rebuild. The Rockets weren’t beating much of anybody else from 2021 through to 2023, either. But even since the acquisition of win-now head coach Ime Udoka<\/a>, the losing streak continues. Memorably, the Warriors halted Houston’s late-season push for a play-in spot<\/a> in a matchup last season. In the Rockets’ defense, though they had been playing well<\/a> courtesy of the best month of Jalen Green<\/a>‘s career, they were lacking their best player in Alperen Sengun<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This time, the shoe was on the other foot. Houston found a way to get kicked with it regardless. Even with Curry\u00a0and Draymond Green<\/a> both being absent from the Warriors’ lineup, the Rockets still couldn’t pull out a win.<\/p>\n

Matching Their Energy<\/h3>\n

The Warriors clearly get up to play the Rockets. Despite not playing in the game, Draymond Green barely ever sat down, yelling instructions and encouraging words from the sideline. Houston’s losing streak is certain to be something he gets a kick out of. Who can forget that even amid Golden State’s lottery plunging<\/a> 2019-2020 season, the team still found the will to upset the Rockets on Christmas day<\/a> behind Green’s best performance of the season?<\/p>\n

Even if the Warriors find extra motivation in the matchup, you would assume that the Rockets would at this point as well. Nobody wants to lose to the same team fifteen times in a row, after all. Maybe the Rockets had some of the wind taken from their sails by the absence of Golden State’s perpetual motion machine and table-setter, Chef Curry. Udoka called the team’s effort soft<\/a>. Maybe the absence of Rockets hypeman<\/a>\u00a0Tari Eason<\/a> left them with insufficient amounts of hype, or maybe the Warriors just have the Rockets’ number.<\/p>\n

The Rockets’ Stars<\/h3>\n

The Rockets’ number, as far as Golden State is concerned, might just be Jalen Green’s field goal percentage. Green is a streaky player at the best of times, which,\u00a0at the best of times<\/em>, can make him look very good<\/a>. But the best of times simply do not come for Green against the blue and gold.<\/p>\n

After a hot start, he’s averaging under 40% from the field in 2024-25. Somehow, for his career against the Warriors, it’s even worse. He actually averages<\/a> under 30% from the field in 11 career games against the Warriors. He has shot over 50% in precisely none of them, 29.2% overall.<\/p>\n

Kerr is dogmatic about Gregg Popovich<\/a>‘s theory<\/a> regarding the necessity of crowding Green in isolation. But even still, at this point, there has to be some mental element to Green’s poor performances. Green will get another chance to escape the asylum on Wednesday. Maybe an NBA Cup elimination game is exactly the kind of pressure he needs… Rockets fans can hope at least.<\/p>\n

Sengun Too<\/h4>\n

The Warriors have also done a fairly good job of containing Houston’s more reliable star, the Turkiye Terror<\/a>. Sengun got going late in the most recent matchup but started out the game, missing everything. He clearly struggles with the physical defense of longtime Warrior and dedicated Rockets’ saboteur Kevon Looney<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Warriors are physical with Sengun up and down the roster, too. They use the smalls-defending-bigs whistle better than any team in the NBA that isn’t based in Miami, a phenomenon the Rockets benefited from themselves in the days<\/a> of P.J. Tucker<\/a> at center.<\/p>\n

The Rockets have been finding ways to win this season despite slow starts on offense for their young stars, mostly on the defensive end. Maybe they could do it again on Wednesday and break Kerr’s curse with a complete team effort. Alternatively, if Jonathan Kuminga<\/a> can go for a career-high against Houston, then why can’t Jabari Smith Jr.<\/a> or Amen Thompson<\/a> do so against Golden State? But are Green and Sengun build-around-players or not?<\/p>\n

The Last Word<\/h3>\n

If either Green or Sengun are ever going to be considered bankable stars in this league, then Wednesday night is exactly the kind of game for them to go all in on. The team has had big wins<\/a> already this season. This would be bigger. The Rockets have a chance at breaking Kerr’s curse and coming one step closer to snagging the second-ever NBA Cup in a single game. And if nothing else, that chance is probably higher than Green’s Golden State field goal percentage.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Houston Rockets just extended their losing streak to the Golden State Warriors to fifteen straight games. Can they lift longtime Warriors’ coach\u00a0Steve Kerr‘s curse before their NBA Cup clash? The two teams will play each other in a quarterfinal elimination game on Wednesday. Can Rockets Break Warriors Losing Streak in the NBA Cup? The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5223,"featured_media":110937,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"no","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"1","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1608,25,31,62],"tags":[4293,409,3256,4297,48,528],"class_list":["post-110907","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-basketball","category-warriors","category-rockets","category-nba","tag-alperen-sengun","tag-draymond-green","tag-jalen-green","tag-jonathan-kuminga","tag-stephen-curry","tag-steve-kerr"],"modified_by":"Eamon Cassels, Editor","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110907","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5223"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=110907"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":110938,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/110907\/revisions\/110938"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110937"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=110907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=110907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/basketball\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=110907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}