Five games into the Western Conference Semifinals, the major adjustments have been made by both teams, which led to the first nail-biter of the series. How did we get here?
Spurs Make the First Defensive Adjustments
After the Rockets blitzed the Spurs in Game 1, San Antonio went away from switching and instead hedged out on Harden pick and rolls with wing players and zoned up pick and rolls with Harden and bigs.
Rockets Are Late to React, but Nene Injury Forces Them To
The natural response for Houston was playing Anderson at the five, which we saw in Game 4, although it only came after Nene was injured and Rockets coach Mike D’Antoni was forced to go in that direction.