The Rockets earned themselves a lifeline tonight as the Warriors failed to close out the series in Houston. The Rockets registered a 131-116 win over Stephen Curry’s Warriors. However, they are not out of trouble yet, as the next game is again an elimination game for them. Despite the lackluster team performance, Jalen Green has been the biggest worry for the Rockets.
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The 23-year-old has been awfully quiet in this series. He had one good outing in Game 2, where he scored 38 points with 4 rebounds and 6 assists. Other than that, it has been a forgettable run from Green.
He is averaging just 14.6 points per game. While there is no clear explanation on what has caused this decline, Dwight Howard has come up with a theory. On an episode of Above The Rim with DH12, the former Laker said that Green is putting all his energy into guarding Stephen Curry, so he has nothing left in him to produce some magic.
He said, “He’s probably tired than a mother****r from chasing that dog in Curry all around the court.” Howard believes that it’s not easy for anyone to be at their 100% while going against the Warriors, and since Green is handed the mammoth task of guarding Curry, he is getting exhausted on the floor.
This would’ve been an acceptable explanation if Green was actually the primary guard against Steph. Forward Amen Thompson is Steph’s primary defender, and he is the one chasing around the Warriors veteran. So, with this excuse out of the picture, there’s no good explanation for what has caused this disastrous run from Green.
Even Charles Barkley has been scratching his head about what’s going on with Green. Following the Rockets’ Game 4 loss, he called out the Rockets’ star, talking about how a player, who was almost an All-Star, went from a 38-point night to 8-point showings.
Steph Curry isn’t an easy player to defend
Steph is arguably the most well-conditioned player in the NBA. His fitness at the age of 37 is remarkable, which makes it difficult for any defender to successfully mark him. His personal trainer, Brandon Payne, ensures that Curry goes through some rigorous drills designed to improve his overall skills instead of focusing solely on conditioning.
Nobody praises Steph’s conditioning better than his head coach, Steve Kerr. During the 2022 NBA Finals, he said, “He just doesn’t get enough credit for his level of conditioning, physicality, and defense. People go at him to try to wear him down because they know how important he is to us offensively, and it’s pretty dramatic the difference in Steph’s strength and physicality and his body now than from eight years ago when I first got here.”
While it’ll be easy to discredit Kerr’s comment as he is the one who coaches Steph, he isn’t the only head coach in awe of Steph. Mavs head coach Jason Kidd also said that Steph is “the best-conditioned athlete in the NBA” during the Western Conference Finals.
