Rockets vs. Warriors G6 Preview: Curry Butler strives to advance 4-2, and another set of tiebreakers in the West?

At 9 a.m. on May 3, the Warriors played against the Rockets at home, starting the sixth game of the series. In the first 5 games, the Warriors led 3-2 in total. Curry and Butler strive to advance 4-2 to end this series. For the Rockets young people, this is another back-to-earth battle, and they want to try to drag the series into a tiebreak. So far, only the Clippers and Nuggets in the first round of the NBA this season have scored a tiebreak. In the game of

G5, the Rockets defeated the Warriors 131-116. With nearly 18 minutes left in the game, Warriors head coach Cole decided to withdraw all the main players and give up fighting for victory. Cole's decision is intriguing. In this loss, no starting player in the Warriors played more than 26 minutes. Obviously, the Warriors have shifted their attention to the next game in advance, hoping to seize the opportunity to eliminate this resilient Rockets again.

"Obviously, it is not ideal to play so little, because if we can win the game, we will definitely have much more playing time." Warriors player Zhu Meng said, who only played 18 minutes in this game. "But we (Kehl and the veterans) had a brief exchange in the third quarter, and Kohl said 'I don't think we need to chase points anymore.' I said 'Okay, let's hold on for another five or six minutes, and if the situation still cannot be reversed, give up.'" In addition to getting into the state quickly at the beginning of the game and taking an 18-point lead in the first quarter, the Rockets also took full advantage of their athletic ability and firmly controlled the situation in Game 5. On the offensive end, the Rockets frequently advance quickly; on the defensive end, they continuously oppressive defense against the Warriors.

The Rockets also showed this feature in Game 3 and Game 4, but they have not been able to maintain good shape until the end and win.

"As the series progressed, we seemed to be more and more aware of their (Warriors) tactical styles." Rockets head coach Uduka said, "We tried to consume their energy and limit some of their tactics, and we did it. We wanted them (Warriors players) to create offensive opportunities on their own, rather than letting them play the established tactics smoothly. If they have to rely on individual singles to beat us, we think it is good for us."

However, the Warriors still have a huge advantage in playoff experience. In the fifth game of the 2022 Western Conference semi-finals, the Warriors lost to the Grizzlies by 39 points away, but they eliminated the Grizzlies in Game 6 after returning to home.

Given such historical record, it is no surprise that the Warriors did not seem to be affected by the G5's defeat.

"In this process, we can definitely review some past experiences, but it's not enough to just say not to practice." Warriors defender Curry said, "We have to make a difference on the court. We have discussed that our team must work hard to do something that has never been done together before. I like this challenge because we have the opportunity to write our own rebound story. For the past two months, we have been a very resilient team, and this resilience must be shown in the G6 game."

And in the G5 game, the team that shows strong resilience is the Rockets. In this round of the series, the young Rockets proved their strength for the second time.

"We may not always make the right decisions, and sometimes it is far from perfect, but being able to cheer up quickly and not be entangled with past failures is a big advantage for young teams." Rockets guard Van Vleet said, who scored the team's highest 26 points in this game. "Young players don't always know the stakes of the game, so this may be good for them or bad. In this series, we played some great games. The fault tolerance space in the game is very small, so when you fail to win, you can't be too frustrated, you have to cheer up quickly."

Injury roster

Rockets: Landal and Tate are absent

Warriors: All players can play

ESPN predicted winning rate: Rockets 39.6%, Warriors 60.4%