The NBA playoffs standings has the Houston Rockets into the western conference finals against the Golden State Warriors and it comes after the team won over the LA Clippers in Game 7 on Sunday to take the second round series 4-3, which clinched a comeback from a 3-1 deficit against Los Angeles, pushing James Harden, Josh Smith and Dwight Howard past Chris Paul and Blake Griffin.
The conference finals has the top two teams in the west this season with the Warriors and Rockets facing off. The Golden State Warriors finished with the best record in the NBA with 67 wins and they will have home court advantage against Houston in the conference finals. The Rockets came back by winning three games in a row and now the Clippers will have to look back and wonder what happened.
The Clippers gutted out a seven game series against the San Antonio Spurs in the first round, but they could not beat the Rockets in the same amount of matchups. The team looked like a strong contender for the title and they appeared to be in good position to win the series after going up 3-1 on Houston. LA could not close things out and now they head into the offseason wondering how it all went wrong. James Harden played like an MVP and now he will matchup against the most valuable player in Stephen Curry after coming second in the voting.
The Rockets won the game on Sunday 113-100 on their home floor and while the Clippers cut things to eight late, they never were able to get close enough to get the lead back. James Harden had another standout game with 31 points, seven rebounds and eight assists, while Chris Paul had 26 points, five rebounds and 10 assists in the losing effort. Dwight Howard had 15 rebounds, while DeAndre Jordan led with 17 boards for the Clippers. Blake Griffin led the way for LA with 27 points and now the team heads home for the offseason.
The Clippers were behind from the start of the game after getting outscored 28-21 in the first quarter and they only outscored the Rockets in the fourth. The series went back and forth with both teams blowing each other out and the real push came in Game 6 when the Rockets were down 19 points and made a comeback. The Clippers won big in Game 4 and the Rockets came back and won big in Game 5 and now the Rockets are into the conference finals for the first time since the mid-90s.