Who ya got? Previewing Warriors-Rockets

With the Eastern Conference portion of our second-round preview completed, it's time to move west. Let's start with the rematch we've all been waiting for:

No. 1 Warriors vs. No. 4 Rockets

Prediction

Joe Wolfond: Rockets in 7

I flip-flopped on this prediction at least 12 times. If I spend too much time thinking about it, I'll probably change it back. I just think these Golden State Warriors have shown us who they are. If/when they ultimately lose, it's going to get retconned into an inevitability we all saw - or should've seen - coming. The red flags will look more obvious in hindsight.

Of course, they may wind up looking like red herrings instead, as they have in the past. The Warriors' massive burden of expectations sometimes exaggerates the cracks in their foundation, but I sincerely believe this iteration of the team is worse than the previous two.

Their defense has been straight-up awful, and the extent to which they struggled with the Lou Williams-Montrezl Harrell pick-and-roll doesn't give me a lot of faith in their ability to contain the millionaire's version of that two-man dance featuring James Harden and Clint Capela. The Houston Rockets' defense gave them fits last spring, and the Warriors lost a potential switch-busting ace in the hole when DeMarcus Cousins tore his quad in the first round. They also gave themselves a quick turnaround by letting the Clippers drag them to six games, and are already dealing with injury concerns for both Steph Curry and Klay Thompson.

I'd feel more confident in this pick if Harden hadn't quietly had a rough offensive finish to the first round against the Jazz after a torrid first two games. Now, the Warriors don’t have a rim protector like Rudy Gobert to help stifle Harden at the rim, but they're also going to switch a lot more and throw a greater variety of looks at him.

If they want to scrape some spot minutes out of Andrew Bogut to shore up their rebounding, they can plant him close to the basket and try to mimic Utah's approach. If Kevon Looney plays like he did last round, they can get away with playing him starter's minutes. He's capable of doing at least a bit of switching onto the perimeter, especially when it's Chris Paul handling rather than Harden. They can also turn to the "Hamptons 5" lineup and prepare to switch everything, with the possible exception of ball screens on Curry (which they tend to either trap or hard hedge if they can't execute a pre-switch).

But all of that is still contingent on the Warriors' overall execution and focus, which has been lacking all season. It's contingent on Kevin Durant actually defending at a high level, and not becoming the vulnerable switch target he was at times against Williams. The Warriors seem more disconnected defensively than they have in the past, with more places to attack. The Rockets are better than probably any team at seeking those soft spots out and pressing them until they break.

Picking the Rockets in 6 felt too bold, so I settled on them winning Game 7 in Oracle, which doesn't make me feel as queasy as it once might have given how vincible the Warriors have looked at home this season. I do believe in Houston, but this pick ultimately came down to my lack of trust in Golden State.

Casciaro: Warriors in 7

There's a lot to digest there. Here's how I see things.

For one, the Splash Brothers both rolling their ankles in a Game 6 at Staples Center is exactly what I've been harping on in terms of how every first-round loss - no matter how meaningless to the end result of their series against the Clippers - narrowed the Warriors' margin for error and opened them up to disaster down the road.

Regardless of whether Curry and Thompson play in Sunday's series opener, the Warriors enter the West semifinal banged up and with only 38 hours between their first- and second-round series. That's as close to a back-to-back as you'll get in the playoffs. A rested Houston needs to take advantage of that and steal homecourt advantage by winning Game 1.

All that said, I still can't bring myself to actually pick against the Warriors, at least not yet. As prolific as Harden has been, Golden State still has the two best players in the series in Durant and Curry, multiple options to defend Harden in Thompson and Andre Iguodala, and even Draymond Green to bully him a bit on switches.

The Rockets are the hotter and healthier team, but the Warriors are still the better team, and I'm not concerned about them laying the type of effort-related eggs they did against a Clippers team they knew they didn't need to go full throttle against. I do, however, believe Houston can once again push Golden State to the limit, delivering another crack to the champions' foundation that an East team will thank the Rockets for later this spring.

Series X-factor

Wolfond: P.J. Tucker

Tucker is a massively important ingredient to the Rockets' recipe for success in any context, but that importance gets spotlighted even more brightly against the Warriors. If every other Rocket plays to his median expectancy, the variance in Tucker's performance could be the difference between Houston winning the series or suffering a quick exit.

His shooting is always going to be vital, since he's the beneficiary of so many Harden kickouts and skip passes to the corners. How accurate he is on those corner threes is usually the determining factor in whether or not a scheme that bends dramatically toward Harden proves successful. But even more than that, it's Tucker's defensive versatility - his ability to toggle between Golden State's guards, forwards, and centers and lock them down in single coverage - and his ability to tip the scales of the rebounding battle in Houston's favor when the two teams match small-ball lineups that make him so crucial to this specific matchup.

He brings relentless energy and physicality to every single possession, and that's something Golden State has a tough time dealing with these days (see: Harrell, M.). Even in last year's conference final, Tucker beat the Warriors out for loose balls, scoffed at their feeble attempts to box him out, and was the only Rockets player capable of consistently knocking down threes, shooting a team-best 48.1 percent from deep. The Rockets were 39.7 points per 100 possessions better with him on the floor in the series.

Casciaro: Size

What a lot of people seemed to ignore when they brushed off the loss of Cousins is that while the Warriors may be at their best with him on the bench, the very reason they added the former All-Star to the roster was to eradicate the one weak spot opponents like Houston could exploit: their size.

I'm interested to see if Capela can punish the Warriors inside and if the Rockets can take some liberties crashing the glass and creating mismatches in the paint, or if the Warriors' smaller lineups, plus effective minutes from Bogut and Looney, render this conversation moot.