HOUSTON — The Houston Rockets have plenty of things to fix after squandering their coveted home-court advantage in the Western Conference finals.

Tops on their list: limiting turnovers, eliminating open 3s and making things tougher on the Golden State Warriors – particularly Kevin Durant.

Houston's James Harden scored 41 points in the Western Conference finals opener against Golden State Monday night despite getting injured in the first half. Associated Press/David J. Phillip

“Kevin Durant and (Stephen) Curry, they’re good. So they’re going to make (shots),” Houston Coach Mike D’Antoni said. “Our head can’t explode that they go one-on-one and make shots … you have to be able to absorb some of their greatness; at the same time, don’t make the mental errors that we did. That would accumulate for 15, 20 points, and that’s the difference in the game.”

It almost sounds like the Rockets will have to play almost perfect to beat the Warriors. They wouldn’t go as far as to say that, but James Harden, who scored 41 in Game 1, did say that at this level the margin for error gets razor thin.

“It’s the (conference) finals,” he said. “There’s four teams here for a reason. Obviously these four teams have done great things all year.

“You can’t make the same mental mistakes like you’re in a regular season.”

There were plenty of Rockets miscues in Game 1.

They coughed up the ball 13 times on Monday and the Warriors outscored the Rockets 18-3 on fast-break points en route to a 119-106 victory. Klay Thompson scored 28 points and made 6 of 15 3-point attempts on a night Harden lamented that about 10 of those looks were wide open. Thompson’s performance came on top of Durant scoring 37 points, mostly by knocking down long 2’s when he was matched up against smaller defenders.

That said, what the Rockets won’t do in Game 2 on Wednesday night is change what they’ve done all year and what led to them winning a franchise-record 65 games in the regular season to earn the top seed.

“We are who we are, and we’re pretty good at it,” D’Antoni said. “We can’t get off who we are. Embrace it. Just be a better (version) of who we are and don’t worry if somebody else solves the puzzle a different way … we’ve got to play at our strengths.”

For the defending champion Warriors, they masterfully answered the challenge of opening a playoff series on the road for the first time since 2014. After falling behind by nine points early in front of a raucous Houston crowd, they settled down and led for most of the second half en route to the victory.

But playing in a franchise-record fourth straight conference finals, the Warriors know that they can’t let up after wrestling home-court advantage away from the Rockets.

“That was a big win. We’re not going to downplay it,” Thompson said. “But we’re not satisfied. We have a golden opportunity to take a good lead. You have to have a short memory in the playoffs, because the next game will come at you fast, and it might feel good to win, but it’s a seven-game series for a reason.”

Now they believe they’re up for an even bigger test in Game 2, with the Rockets desperate not to head to Oakland in a 0-2 hole. But they insist they won’t approach this game any differently than they did the opener.

Related Stories