With arguably one of the best five players in the game sitting back in the locker room resting his injured ankle, the Spurs simply inserted a second-year pro into the starting lineup - a guy barely out of the D-League - to take Leonard's place.
"I don't know if it's true or not, but it's nearly like mentally it just zapped us", he said.
San Antonio grabbed 60 rebounds.
Call it whatever you want - juice, energy, life, passion - the Rockets had none of it. He went from shooting 44 percent to 41 percent, and his 3-point shooting dipped to below 28 percent.
Trevor Ariza led Houston with 20 points on a night when MVP hopeful Harden capped his stellar season by tying a season low with 10 points on 2-of-11 shooting before fouling out with 3:15 left. Houston was already down 50-29 when Harden took his first shot midway through the second quarter. Hopefully, this Game 6 victory will have given Leonard the time he needs to fully recover, and it will leave the Spurs' other players feeling empowered and motivated heading into the next series. Harden had a crappy day at work, and it was also his last day of work before a some hard-earned time off.
On the heels of their Game 5 win over the Houston Rockets, San Antonio Spurs head coach Gregg Popovich made a decision to list gimpy small forward Kawhi Leonard as "questionable" with a sprained ankle, a tweaked limb that kept him on the bench for the final moments of regulation and all of overtime in the Spurs' Game 5 win.
Typically, Harden gets plenty of points at the charity stripe.
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Udi Ofer , director of the organization's Campaign for Smart Justice, says it sounds a lot like a throwback to the war on drugs . The judge in my case knew I was not a drug dealer but because I went to trial and lost he had to give me a mandatory sentence.
"Everything falls on my shoulders", said Harden. "Especially the way we were resilient all year long, fought through adversity". Leonard missed the overtime period in game 5 against Houston after tweaking his left ankle, and sat out game 6 while the Spurs rolled over the Rockets by a final of 114-75. But Game 6 isn't a referendum on him, or the Rockets, or, c'mon damnit, their modern style.
He displayed flashes of brilliance in the playoffs to be sure, but couldn't deliver when the Rockets needed it most. I could believe any of these things, and by extension, I can't really buy into any one of them without more information. The bad news for them?
"This is going to hurt and linger, but hopefully it will spur us on to what we know where we've got to go. It stings. We've just got to figure out a way to get better and we will".
Daryl Morey is the true definition of a ride-or-die general manager. Coach Mike D'Antoni added Sam Dekker to the rotation after being criticized for not adding anyone to the rotation Tuesday in the first game since Nene suffered a season-ending thigh injury. Sometimes life hits you in the face.
Opposite of the leaderless Rockets, the leaderless Spurs had no mercy.
San Antonio moves on to play the Golden State Warriors in a series that will begin on Sunday.
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