People like to say that after the third game it can be foreseen where a best-of-seven series will develop – which of course may also be due to the fact that no team in the North American professional basketball league NBA is ever 3-0 down has caught up. Seen in this way, a lot has happened in the Saturday games of the first playoff round: The favorites to participate in the finals, the Milwaukee Bucks and the Los Angeles Lakers, have shown with convincing wins against Orlando Magic and the Portland Trail Blazers that their respective defeats at the beginning there were probably only slips; both now lead with 2: 1 successes. As far as history can be trusted, Miami Heat has almost certainly reached the second round with its third win against Indiana.
That leaves the fourth duel of the day, and less than a minute before the end it looked as if the Houston Rockets would also win their third game against Oklahoma City Thunder – but then something unbelievable happened: Chris Paul lay-up, Houston lost the ball, Lay-up by Steven Adams, loss of ball from Houston, three-point throw by Shai Gilgeous-Alexander. The Rockets saved themselves only with two free throws in extra time, where they were completely helpless against the now unleashed opponent. They lost 107: 119, instead of 3: 0 it is 2: 1. “We didn’t want to give up,” said Paul afterwards: “There is no other reason for this win: We just didn’t want to give up.”
This playoff series is a special one, because of a swap deal last summer in which Paul was involved. The Rockets had brought him from the Los Angeles Clippers in 2017 in the hope that he would form a build-up duo with James Harden that no defense in the world would be able to stop. The two are among the best players in the league who have not yet won a title, and they are at an age where they don’t have that many years left: Paul is 35, Harden 30. It didn’t work out as hoped, either due to an injury to Paul during the playoffs two years ago. So there was a transfer that was a special one.
The explosiveness of the series lies in a swap between the teams from last summer
The Rockets sent Paul to Oklahoma City, in return they got Russell Westbrook, who until then had spent his entire career at Thunder, from 2009 to 2012 even at the side of James Harden. At the age of 31, Westbrook is also chasing the first title. “I was always the type who said: Okay, what happens, that just happens,” Paul said before the series began in an interview with the NBA video portal; he also immediately explained the allegedly disturbed relationship with Harden: “What many do not understand: We were teammates for a certain time, that was it. That doesn’t mean that you sing ‘Kumbaya’ together or that you become enemies In the end everyone lives their own life. “
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