Keith Smart leads Golden State Warriors to victory against Houston Rockets
Keith Smart is a happy guy and his happiness is justified by the charming 46 points spree by Monta Ellis, who scored his career high tying score for Golden State Warriors, in their 132-128 win over Houston Rockets. Smart just can’t
keep his emotions to himself as he says that Ellis has made a complete turnaround in his life and he is glad to be coaching Ellis at this point in his career.
While leaving the locker room for the game, Ellis was confident to lead the guys in the right direction and that was exactly what he did against Houston. His 46 points are the most by any Warriors player in a season opener after
Wilt Chamberlain, who crossed the mark twice in his days. Keith Smart’s coaching debut was thus a joy ride for him and he enjoyed it thoroughly.
Stephen Curry, David Lee and Dorell Wright scored 25, 17 and 15 points respectively to help the Warriors ease into a first season opener win since 2005. Warriors were more than happy to finally break a 9 game losing streak against
the Rockets that dates back to 2007.
Luis Scola added 36 points and 16 rebounds for the Rockets. He was helped by Kevin Martin on the way, who added another 28 points. Rockets dearly missed Yao Ming in the midst of all the fuss. Yao, who has missed all of the last
season recovering from an injury, has been limited to a 24 minute play each game and was not included in the game against Warriors as the Rockets do not want to bring him in for back to back games.
Chuck Hayes, who has been brought in as Yao’s replacement scored 16 points, eight rebounds and six assists but it was not just enough to compete Ellis’ winning spree and Rockets fell 0-2 in the season.
Even Rocket’s guard Aaron Brooks could not help but praise the Warriors saying the Rockets were up against a very good offensive team who shot the ball lights out. They just made the shots at times when Rockets broke out. Houston,
who already are facing the consequences of Yao’s absence, just could not put in the same effort they did in the 112-110 points loss to Los Angeles Lakers, in their opener on Tuesday.
Rocket’s Coach Rick Adelman considers it the worst of defensive efforts by his team who could not defend 128 points on the Board.
Warriors Coach Smart was simply exuberant about his first victory as coach in NBA and so was his team. Ellis started off well with 17 points in the first quarter and 23 in the half; however, Houston were still in a commanding 68-67
position by the break. Scola surpassed his 18 points in the Lakers game in the first half against the Warriors.
The Warriors, however, made it to the third quarter following Curry with his couple of 3-pointers; he fed Ellis on a fast break adding a couple of free throws to take Warriors to a 100-93 lead with a little more than a minute to
spare.
The turning point of the game was however Warriors newbie David Lee with his 15 rebounds and six assists, constantly feeding the ball to Ellis and Curry. He pushed 17 points on the board as well including his two-handed tip-in
of a rebound flying over Chuck Hayes. The free throw by Lee stretched the 5 points Warriors lead to 8 points. Ellis pushed it to the double figure and it was lights out for Rockets then onwards.
The Rockets lost grip in the second half as they shot 57.1 percent in the first half and a drastically low 29.4 percent in the third quarter.
This NBA season highlights the most famous and most notorious of the “Big Three” in the game. It was the Golden State Warriors’ trio of Ellis, Curry and Lee this time that combined to score 88 points this evening pushing Rockets
Coach Adelman to note that he needs to figure out a way to shore that up.
Rockets are to meet Denver Nuggets this Saturday who have already beaten Jazz in their season Opening game, while Warriors are up against Los Angeles Clippers today, who have already lost one to Portland Trail Blazers. Rockets
will be desperately looking for their first win of the season while Warriors will be looking forward for an 82-0 season with yet another win.
Tags: