Rockets roar back to beat Warriors, even West series at 2 apiece

OAKLAND - The Warriors choked.

They had a 12-point lead in the fourth quarter on their home court. They had the ball trailing by two points on the final possession of the game. And they had a timeout they could have used when the Houston Rockets trapped Klay Thompson on the baseline with five seconds left.

Warriors head coach Steve Kerr didn’t use the timeout. He didn’t do anything. He simply watched as Thompson turned and fired a fadeaway midrange airball, and the Warriors lost Game 4 of the Western Conference final 95-92. The series is tied 2-2, with two of the three remaining games in Houston. The Warriors gave back the home-court advantage they took from Houston in Game 1.

Choke.

“I wanted the timeout,” Kerr said after the game. “Draymond (Green) was trying to call one around four seconds once Thompson got trapped. At that point, the officials weren’t ?looking. They’re not going to look down at our bench. I saw Draymond trying to call it, and I was hoping they would give it to us, but we didn’t get it.”

Kerr was hoping?

After Thompson missed, Curry took one last shot - a desperation 3 from the corner with half a second left in the game. Another miss. The Warriors scored only 12 points during the fourth quarter and had just one assist.

Choke.

“We just settled for a lot of isos at the top,” Kerr said. “We didn’t make them make enough decisions defensively.”

The Warriors dished out only 14 assists total and scored just eight fast-break points the entire game. They were lethargic and sloppy. They committed 16 turnovers, and shot just 39 percent from the field. Kevin Durant had 27 points on 24 shots. Curry had 28 points on 26 shots. They were inefficient.

“We weren’t really able to make many subs,” Kerr said, making an excuse. “Our normal sub pattern was skewed with Andre Iguodala’s absence. In the fourth quarter, we just ran out of gas.”

Choke.

Iguodala missed the game with a left lateral leg contusion. “If he was close, he would play,” Kerr said during his pregame press conference. “We’ll see what happens in a couple of days.”

Iguodala, 34, is averaging ?7.9 points, 4.9 rebounds and 3.1 assists in the playoffs, while shooting 47.9 percent from the field and 35.5 percent on 3s. As a defender, he is allowing opponents to shoot 31.6 from the field and 26.8 on 3s in the postseason.

“He’s a great defender,” Kerr said. “He’s an organizer. He’s a guy who settles us down and continuously makes the right play. We will miss all that.”

The Warriors did miss all that in Game 4 - boy, did they - but not at first.

They took a 12-0 lead before the Rockets could blink, as the Rockets missed their first eight shots. They scored zero points during the first 5:18 - the longest scoring drought in a playoff game since 2016.

Before the Rockets were on the board, all five Warriors starters had scored, including center Kevon Looney, who replaced Iguodala in the starting lineup.

Looney finished with four points and six rebounds in ?25 minutes.

With the Warriors leading by nine points early in the second quarter, Thompson drove the lane, reached up with his left hand to lay the ball in the basket and got blocked. Rockets center Clint Capela swatted the ball away. Thompson grabbed his left knee as he hit the court and left the game.

When Thompson returned four minutes later, the Rockets had cut their deficit from nine points to two. Thompson air-balled the first shot he took, a midrange jumper. This was a foreshadowing. Thompson finished with 10 points on 13 shots.

The Rockets took their first lead with 1:59 left in the second quarter, as Chris Paul hit a wide-open 3. This was the beginning of a 12-0 run, which ended when Paul hit another 3. The Warriors trailed by 10 points at the end of the run. They were stunned.

“Chris’s foot felt better,” Rockets head coach Mike D’Antoni said. “I called him after Game 3, and he said, ‘Coach, I’m telling you, if I get my foot right, we’ll beat these guys.’ Low and behold, he got his foot right.”

The Rockets outscored the Warriors 53-34 after the Warriors took the early 12-0 advantage. “When you give yourself a lead like that, it would help to sustain it,” Curry said.

Choke.

Paul and James Harden alone outscored the Warriors 38-34 during that stretch. Those two finished with 57 points combined Tuesday night.

At halftime, the Rockets controlled the game. But that changed in the third quarter when the Warriors made their push, as they always do. Curry hit five 3s and scored 17 points - as many points as the entire Rockets team scored in the third.

When Shaun Livingston dunked at the beginning of the fourth, the Warriors took a 12-point lead - the same lead they opened the game with. They negated all the hard work the Rockets had done.

But the Warriors couldn’t finish them off. They led by eight points when Curry went to the bench with 9:59 remaining in the game, and then by only three points when he returned two minutes later. They needed Curry to carry them to victory.

But he couldn’t. He was exhausted. He shot 1 of 8 from the field, 0 for 2 on 3s and scored only 3 points during the fourth quarter. He also threw a pass into the stands.

Choke.