Rockets vs. Warriors: James Harden Wants 'Aggressive Approach' For Game 5

The Houston Rockets leveled up the Western Conference semifinals against the Golden State Warriors with yet another closely fought win in Game 4 at the Toyota Center on Monday night. Mike D’Antoni’s team won 112-108 on the back of 38 points from James Harden, who was ably backed up by PJ Tucker, Eric Gordon and Chris Paul.

The reigning back-to-back champions won the opening two games of the seven-game series at the Oracle Arena, but were unable to carry their good form away to Houston and have succumbed in both games and will now return to the Bay Area for Game 5 on Wednesday night.

The Rockets led for most of the game and as many as 17-points at one stage. But the Warriors refused to give in and had a chance to tie the game with 11.1 seconds on the board but both Kevin Durant and Stephen Curry missed their three point attempts.

“Our motto is to keep fighting,” Harden told NBA on TNT when asked how they held on in the final moments when the Warriors reduced the deficit to two points with 19 seconds remaining. “Like I said, we know how tough they are so we got to keep fighting on both ends of the floor stay on attack mode be aggressive. Steph played well tonight but we just kept fighting all four quarters.”

“It’s a lot of people that got game this series. It’s every possession too like, we take couple of possessions off defensively and they make us play with layups and three’s and vice versa,” he added talking about how every game has been decided by a few possessions. “So, whoever can somehow find a way to defensively round up a couple of stops and get a couple of buckets off and that’s it.”

“Now it’s best out of three, so we got to take a win in Game 5,” Harden said talking about the next game at the Oracle Arena on Wednesday night. “We’ve been a resilient team all year long and even in the first two games we felt like we had opportunities but we let it slip away, so take that same mindset be aggressive,” he added talking about their form on the road.