The Houston Rockets have found themselves in a significant hole against the Golden State Warriors after their loss in Game 2 Tuesday night, and Austin Rivers and his teammates know that the same result in Game 3 could signal the unofficial end to their season.
After Golden State hung on to win 115-109 on Tuesday, Rivers called Game 3 a “must-win.”
Austin Rivers: "Game 3 is a must-win, man. There's no other way to look at it. We have to win that game. Everybody knows that. You don't even have to know basketball to know we can't go down, 3-0."
— Jonathan Feigen (@Jonathan_Feigen) May 1, 2019
As Rivers alluded to, that is obvious. Coming back from two games down against the defending champs is going to be difficult enough, but going down 3-0 would be almost impossible to overcome.
If the Rockets want to take anything from the first two games of the series, it should be that they played the Warriors tough in both games on the road. They may not have handled the aftermath of Game 1 well with the way they blamed the officials for the outcome, but they had a chance to win on Sunday and Tuesday. While returning home for two games should help, they may need to win both. Even going down 3-1 before returning to Golden State could be a death sentence.
