By Leobert Julian A. de la Peña
The Houston Rockets lived another day and extended their NBA Western Conference best-of-seven first-round playoff series with a convincing 131-116 Game 5 win over the Golden State Warriors on May 1, 2025.
Facing elimination in front of their hopeful fans at the Toyota Center, the Rockets refused to go home and grabbed their biggest chance of protecting home court to stay alive in the first round and force a Game 6.
Fresh off a close three-point loss that allowed the Warriors to move a win away from clinching a semifinal seat in the West, the Rockets showed the hunger to win after immediately entering a frenzied state offensively in the first 12 minutes of the ball game.
Fred Vanvleet, the team’s veteran floor general carrying a championship experience from his title campaign with Toronto in 2019, set the tone for the young Houston squad after netting a couple of three-pointers and pull-up jumpers.
Vanvleet’s early waxing-hot start energized his teammates with Alperen Sengun following his mark with another post clinic against the smaller Golden State frontcourt defenders.
Unfortunately for the Warriors, their 1-2 punch of Stephen Curry and Jimmy Butler went scoreless in the first quarter which put them in an uncomfortable position heading into the second period with a huge deficit, 40-24.
Aside from their cold shooting, Houston’s swarming perimeter defense once again took a toll on them, an exact scene that helped them take the momentum during their dominant Game 2 win at home.
It was also in Game 5 that the duo combined for no points in the opening frame, a thing that disrupted the Warriors’ flow throughout the entire affair.
The Rockets showed no signs of slowing down in the second quarter as they established the biggest lead of the ball game at 31 points, Golden State’s biggest deficit in the entire first-round series.
With everything falling into place for Houston and Golden State having a bad day shooting the rock, Warriors’ head coach Steve Kerr waved the early white flag and rested all of his starters with five minutes remaining in the third.
However, Golden State’s third stringers unexpectedly brought them back into the ball game and trimmed Houston’s 31-point lead to just 14 points.
To avoid any demoralizing upset, Houston’s head coach Ime Udoka re-inserted his starting five to restore order. Despite the Rockets fielding their premier five in, Golden State struck to the lineup that nearly cut their disadvantage to 10 but had no answers to the inside-outside dominance of Vanvleet, Sengun, Dillon Brooks, Jalen Green, and Amen Thompson.
Vanvleet maintained his fine form and picked up where he left off from Game 4 with a 26-point outburst at home including 4/6 shooting from downtown and a perfect 6/6 from the charity stripe.
The duo of Thompson and Brooks wouldn’t be denied a bounce-back performance as they combined for 49 points, 25 and 24, respectively.
Sengun also had a masterful post clinic as he nearly tallied a triple-double with 15 markers, nine rebounds, nine assists, two steals, and two blocks.
On the other hand, Golden State’s two-headed monster in Curry and Butler only combined for 6/22 shooting from the field, their worst merged offensive stat line in the ongoing first round.
Can Golden State finally close out the series in six games? Or will the resilient and young Houston squad force a winner-take-all Game 7 and shock the world in the postseason?
