HOUSTON — The Houston Rockets will be without guard Chris Paul for Game 6 because of a strained hamstring, a huge blow for a team trying to close out the Golden State Warriors.

Paul was injured in the fourth quarter of Thursday night’s victory that gave the Rockets a 3-2 lead in the Western Conference finals.

“I hate it for him, above all,” Coach Mike D’Antoni said. “He’s practically won us the last two games. But great opportunity for other guys, and we have plenty to choose from and we’ll be ready.”

Eric Gordon, the star of Game 5, will start in Paul’s place Saturday night. He started 30 games this season while Paul and James Harden dealt with injuries.

“It will not change anything that we do or how we do it,” D’Antoni said.

Paul’s right leg will be re-evaluated after the team returns to Houston following Game 6. On Friday he was with the team, laughing and joking with teammates as they walked on the court for practice.

Harden said the Rockets don’t have time to dwell on Paul’s absence.

“We don’t want to come and be pouting around,” he said. “We want to keep our same swagger, our same positive energy. We try to feed that off to him as well: ‘Be happy, be ready; get this thing right, get this thing going and be back in no time.”‘

BUCKS: Sterling Brown said he “gave in” when police used a stun gun as they detained him for a parking violation because he didn’t want officers to “pull out their guns.”

“I was just being smart. I just wanted to get out of the situation and get home,” Brown told the Journal Sentinel. He said he still gets upset when he watches the video of his Jan. 26 interaction with officers in the parking lot of a Walgreens.

An officer approached Brown because he was double-parked in a handicap spot and the interaction quickly escalated. The officer called for backup as the conversation with Brown became tense and a half-dozen squad cars responded.

Brown said he thought he and the first responding officer were simply “going to have a dialogue back and forth between two men” and didn’t expect the situation to escalate.

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