Houston’s Chris Paul out for Game 6 vs Warriors with injury

Chris Paul, James Harden and the Rockets took down the Warriors 98-94 to go up 3-2 in the Western Conference Finals. Gordon recovered the loose ball.

The teams will get a travel day Sunday before meeting one final time in Houston on Monday night, with the Game 7 victor advancing to the NBA Finals to face either the Boston Celtics or Cleveland Cavaliers, who play their Game 7 in Boston on Sunday.

It was Paul’s left hamstring that held him out of the lineup earlier in the regular season but this was clearly a painful injury.

“His spirits aren’t great”, D’Antoni admitted.

“He’ll be evaluated tomorrow”. They’ll do whatever they can do. If he isn’t, we have enough guys. Houston (65-17) and Golden State (58-24) finished with the top records in the National Basketball Association, while Boston (55-27) and Cleveland (50-32) finished just behind their Western Conference foes.

“Last game was the plan [to play]”.

Kerr also said he wasn’t pleased with the Warriors’ execution on offense for Game 4. “Penetrates, kind of sag off, and he hits me for a 3”, Gordon said. “It sounds insane because of the talent of the Warriors, but just the way their switching defense has given Golden State problems over the years, that gives the Celtics confidence”.

This time he scored 35 points with nine 3-pointers as the Warriors rallied with a huge second half to beat the Rockets 115-86 on Saturday night to force a deciding game in the Western Conference finals. Don’t be shocked if he starts Game 7 for Golden State.

Rockets: Clint Capela had 12 points and 14 rebounds for his seventh double-double this postseason.

“I have no clue why our team is like this”, Steve Kerr said.

“If we take the same focus and execute the game plan like we should, I have all the confidence in the world in this team [to win Game 7]. If we settle down a little bit, we’ll be in great shape”. Klay Thompson could only muster 10 points on 4-13 from the field. That served to ignite him.

Golden State closed the second quarter with an 8-0 spurt and pulled even at the break after Durant kept them afloat with 18 first-half points.

Thompson made a 3-pointer after that and then officials reviewed Paul’s first basket of the quarter and ruled he got it off after the shot clock expired, leaving the Warriors ahead 80-79.

Klay Thompson flashed back to a night he left the arena still in uniform, furious about his forgettable performance against Denver. Just too many turnovers, too many reaches.

Houston won despite being outshot from the floor 44.4 per cent to 37.2 per cent. If the Warriors don’t get back to their normal ways, they need to tighten things up and prepare for a grind-it-out series where they have far less of an advantage.

“I guess you could say I was born for it. Man, that felt good”, Thompson said.