The Houston Rockets defeated the Golden State Warriors on Monday night, perhaps delaying the inevitable in the Western Conference Finals. Still, the Rockets surprised plenty of people by extending the series to a fifth game.
That includes the Warriors themselves, who distributed a memo to Rockets players that made reference to Golden State sweeping the series. The first part of the release read as follows:
“The Golden State Warriors will return to Oakland tomorrow (Tuesday, May 26) following their 4-0 series sweep of the Houston Rockets in the Western Conference Finals.”
The Warriors are, indeed, returning to Oakland, but they’ll be facing the same team in Game 5. Josh Smith, who scored 20 points for the Rockets in their elimination game, said the memo will not serve as bulletin board material.
“They’re confident in their team,” Smith told reporters, via Calvin Watkins of ESPN.com. “It’s not added motivation; we just got to go out there and play. I don’t really feed into the whole mentally get your rah-rah hype. I just want to go out and play my game.”
Watkins also noted that Corey Brewer and several other Houston players smiled and shook their heads, which makes Smith’s comments a bit difficult to believe.
It appears the Warriors avoided a potential disaster after Stephen Curry took this nasty fall, so they are still very much expected to win the series. They’re also expected to be more careful with their postgame memos going forward.
