LAKE BUENA VISTA, Florida—James Harden couldn’t get his shot to fall all night, so the scorer turned stopper.
In this wild Game Seven that took one strange turn after another in the final seconds, the biggest play came when a guy known almost entirely for his offense turned up the defense.
Harden made up for a miserable shooting night with a big blocked shot, Russell Westbrook scored 20 points against his former team and the Houston Rockets edged the Oklahoma City Thunder, 104-102, on Wednesday night to win the first-round series.
“It was one of those nights offensively so I just wanted to change the game defensively and I think I did that,” Harden said.
The Rockets pulled out a tense final game of the first round that lasted long past the final basket as replays and fouls were sorted out.
“I’ve been around a long time and just at the end it was a little crazy,” Houston Coach Mike D’Antoni said.
In the end, Houston prevailed to set up a second-round matchup with the Los Angeles Lakers that begins Friday despite Harden, the National Basketball Association’s (NBA) leading scorer, going four for 15 from the field.
“These are the games, you want to win a championship or win playoff games, you’ve got to do it with your heart,” D’Antoni added.
The frantic final seconds of a game that was tight throughout had Houston take the lead for good at 103-102 when PJ Tucker scored with 1:25 remaining. After changes of possession, the Thunder got the ball to Lu Dort, who attempted a 3-pointer that Harden blocked with 4.8 seconds left.
Robert Covington made a free throw with 1.4 seconds to go and Harden was whistled for fouling Danilo Gallinari before the ball was inbounded, giving the Thunder one free throw and the ball. But Gallinari missed the free throw and the Thunder turned it over on the last inbounds pass.
Westbrook helped defend that, perhaps remembering some of his old coach’s plays.
“I kind of know a little bit,” Westbrook said.
Covington had 21 points and 10 rebounds, and Eric Gordon also scored 21 points for the Rockets. Harden finished with 17 points and nine assists.
Dort scored a career-best 30 points for the Thunder. Chris Paul, swapped for Westbrook over the summer, had 19 points, 12 assists and 11 rebounds.
“It’s a tough one. It’s tough,” Paul said. “We fought hard all year. Honestly, a lot of people doubted us, but we didn’t doubt ourselves. We didn’t give a damn about anybody’s predictions going into any series.”
It was a wild conclusion to a strange series in which the Rockets won Games One and Two handily and Game Five by 34, the biggest margin in franchise postseason history, but hadn’t come through in the close ones.
BUTLER WINS IT IN ‘PENALTY’
JIMMY BUTLER loves soccer, and the final scene from Game Two of the Eastern Conference semifinals resembled a penalty shot in a shootout.
Only there was no goalie.
This was just a free throw, no time on the clock, nobody else from the Miami Heat or Milwaukee Bucks standing along the lane. Game tied, two chances to make one shot, the outcome completely in Butler’s hands.
“I wish I could kick it in there and say that’s how I won it,” Butler said.
Rattling home a free throw will have to suffice. Butler got the first one to bounce home, made a second one that was irrelevant, and the Heat grabbed control of their East semifinal matchup with a 116-114 win over the Bucks on Wednesday night—becoming the first No. 5 seed to take a 2-0 series lead over a No. 1 seed.
Butler was fouled by Giannis Antetokounmpo with no time remaining, the referees said, a call that was affirmed in a review after the initial whistle. The ball was out of Butler’s hands when Antetokounmpo clearly made contact.
“I’d say we’re disappointed with the judgment, the decision, the timing,” Bucks Coach Mike Budenholzer said.
Crew Chief Marc Davis said the foul call was correct.
“He must be allowed the space to land and Giannis contacts him with his left hand on his torso and I felt like it affected his balance and did not allow him the space to land in a normal basketball position,” Davis told a pool reporter postgame. “As a result I judged this to be a shooting foul.”
It was a bizarre ending to, well, a bizarre ending.
The Heat were up by six with 27 seconds left and frittered that away, Butler giving Milwaukee two points with a most ill-advised pass—“a terrible IQ play,” he acknowledged—back toward the Bucks’ basket that turned into a layup by Brook Lopez.
That got Milwaukee within two, and Butler made one free throw with 7.7 seconds left to get the lead back to three. Khris Middleton was fouled by Goran Dragic—a call Miami argued to no avail, because the Heat unsuccessfully used their challenge on a foul of Lopez shooting a 3 in the first quarter—with 4.3 seconds left, and the All-Star made all three free throws to tie it. Davis, in the postgame pool report, said Dragic was properly assessed a foul.
Butler wound up with the ball in the deep corner, and Antetokounmpo—the reigning Defensive Player of the Year—contested. AP
Image credits: AP