Steph Curry, Warriors' defense rout Rockets in Game 3

Posted: May 23, 2015 -- 11:55 pm.

HOUSTON, TX (Toyota Center) -- The Houston Rockets were blasted 115-80 Saturday night by the Golden State Warriors. The Rockets led the Warriors 2-0 and tied the Warriors three times (the last at 9-9). But, the Warriors led 30-18 after the first quarter and 62-37 at halftime.

The rout was on; and, the second half was just like the first.

The Warriors won all four quarters of the ball game to take a commanding 3-0 series lead in the 2015 NBA Western Conference Finals. No NBA team has won a best-of-seven series after trailing 3 games to none.

Golden State's Steph Curry was sensational. Curry scored a game-high 40 points; but, Curry scored just three points in the first period. However, the Rockets' offense was stifled by the Warriors' defense. The Rockets made just 7 of 22 field goals in the first quarter and only 5 of 19 fields in the second quarter.

"Steph was Steph," said Steve Kerr, Warriors head coach.  "He's the MVP.  He's had a brilliant season.  The shooting is hard to describes because I don't think we've ever seen anybody shoot the ball the way Steph does off the dribble, off the catch.  Seven for nine from three, I mean, it was remarkable, just a tremendous performance."

Dwight Howard was the only Rockets player to make more than half his field goal attempts (6 of his 10 field goals). James Harden was swarmed by the Warriors which helped limit to Harden to just 3 of 16 field goal shooting.

"We've got nothing else we can do," Kevin McHale said.  "We've got to come out and fight.  We didn't play particularly well tonight, but they out hustled  they got loose balls, they got tips, they made the second and third and fourth efforts.  You know, we seemed to get down because our offense wasn't flowing, and you know, again, it doesn't matter who we play.  That team won 67 games this year.

"But it doesn't matter who we play, when we get beat on the boards and get beat in the paint points, we very seldom win those games against anybody."

Dwight Howard said, "There's a lot of words I could say about tonight, but got to keep my teammates together.  We can't fold.  We can't quit because we're down.  It's easy to just give up and say they're playing great.  It's easy to do that.  But they're going to have to take all of us out on a stretcher.  We ain't going down like that.  I mean, we've got to fight for our lives.  We're down 3 0.  It's the Western Conference Finals.  I mean, the only thing we can do is fight."

Veteran guard Pablo Prigioni summed up the Rockets performance: "We didn’t have the same energy that we had in the first couple of games. I don’t know why. When they made their separation, we couldn’t come back. We have to forget this game and come back tomorrow and regroup. We have one more life."

Game 4 is Monday night at 8 p.m.

CLICK HERE for The HRR's Rockets' write-ups.