No. 2: May 22, 2018
Rockets 95, Warriors 92: In Game 4 of the 2019 Western Conference Finals, this was the strongest statement yet that James Harden’s Rockets were capable of winning the NBA championship.
The Rockets trailed in the series, two games to one. They lost Game 3 by nearly 40 points at Oakland’s Oracle Arena, and they fell behind 12-0 in the opening minutes of Game 4. It appeared briefly that the moment might again be too large for them, or the team simply not good enough.
And suddenly, it all changed. Harden delivered an epic poster dunk over Draymond Green. The 12-point early deficit became a seven-point halftime lead. Even after the Warriors delivered one of their patented third-quarter flurries to take a 10-point lead heading to the fourth, the Rockets played lockdown defense in the final period and held the defending champs to just 12 points. Houston scored 25, leading to the 95-92 win and a statement in the NBA’s toughest opposing arena.
The Harden dunk on Draymond Green as called by @ca_rockets. pic.twitter.com/rybUyQy5Pt
— ClutchFans (@clutchfans) May 23, 2018
Harden scored a game-high 30 points in the Game 4 victory, and he also had three steals and two blocks. In that game on the biggest stage, Harden pushed back strongly against faulty narratives that he wasn’t reliable in the postseason and couldn’t be trusted on defense.
For the team, that win tied the series at two games apiece and put the Rockets back in the driver’s seat with home-court advantage — in what effectively had become a best-of-three series.
We know how it ended, of course. Though the Rockets won Game 5 two nights later, they lost future Hall of Famer Chris Paul in the final minute to a hamstring pull that ended his series prematurely.
Without Paul, Golden State rallied to win Games 6 and 7 and, ultimately, its second straight NBA championship.
For the Rockets, the 2018 Western Conference Finals will be remembered most for what might have been. But it was also a strong statement — even against one of the NBA’s all-time great teams — of what they were capable of. That’s the form they’ll be looking to recapture in the 2020 playoffs, albeit now with Russell Westbrook in Paul’s place.
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