Rockets end road-trip with 120-107 loss to Warriors

After keeping pace with them throughout the opening half, the Houston Rockets ran into a heap of problems en route to a 120-107 defeat to the Golden State Warriors.

Their Sunday night loss marked the eighth straight of that sort for a team that’s been able to string together a couple of impressive showings against the likes of the Los Angeles Lakers, Phoenix Suns, and Denver Nuggets but a barrage of three-pointers from the Warriors while the offensive struggles for Houston continued got rid of any belief that this game would be close down the stretch.

The opening few minutes of the game had the fingerprints of Jordan Poole all over them as he scored the first eight points for GS which seemingly was an early notion that things would get ugly. But the Rockets buckled down and fought as Jae-Sean Tate helped provide a spark, he finished with 21 points with 10 rebounds on 2-4 shooting from beyond the arc.

Houston was able to keep the game close despite Otto Porter finding the hot hand and drilling three straight treys to shift momentum in favor of the Bay Area as the first half began to wind down. Houston went into the locker room at the half down 69-61, those opening 24 minutes saw action from both Josh Christopher and Armoni Brooks due to both Eric Gordon and Danuel House Jr nursing injuries.

The Warriors of old often were able to put together daunting third-quarter runs and rest their starters throughout the majority of the fourth quarter and that’s exactly what they did on Sunday night, outscoring Houston 34-22 en route to a 103-83 lead heading into the final frame.

Throughout the final twelve minutes, the Rockets were able to cut into the lead and even outscore Golden State with a lineup that briefly featured the likes of Jalen Green, Christopher, Brooks, and Usman Garuba but it was too little too late which left the Rockets with a 120-107 loss to conclude their 5-game road trip.

Houston has been plagued throughout the season with sloppy play and it was again on display in San Francisco as they turned the ball over 21 times and only converted 25-37 of their free throws.

The Rockets' offensive woes were evident when looking at the scoring contributions as they didn’t have a player step up and match the scoring efforts of Tate. Their second-highest leading scorer was Daniel Theis who had 14 points, meanwhile, Alparen Sengun was their third-leading scorer with 12 while D.J. Augustin and Kevin Porter Jr each had 11 points apiece.

Upon returning to Houston, their schedule will finally begin to cool off starting with a Wednesday night date with the Detroit Pistons at 6:30 P.M. CT which officially marks the first meeting on an NBA hardwood between Cade Cunningham and Green.