Yeah, complete shock that a stacked championship team that added another MVP-calibre player in recent years could possibly defeat a team that lost a key starting guard in the series and barely played more than six players.

The Warriors destroying teams last year in series actually cost the league a ton of money.

I'm not buying it.

If you said the Sacramento-lakers series was fixed I'd agree. This season just bad luck Paul got injured late in season. Warriors also probably the best ever nba team assembled

Warriors are so boring

2014-2016 was peak NBA.

Durant is weak.

Long live Barkley and Malone, who fought through their primes battling valiantly without ever grasping the ultimate prize.

Warriors were so much better when Curry was bombing threes from the car park every third possession

Now that half their offense runs through Durant, it's just not the same watching them.

Just my opinion, but 100% the NBA is rigged. I don't support Houston, but it's clear the NBA wants them there.

The SF market is not big at all, but GSW is the most popular team in the NBA, they have a huge international following, merchandise, TV viewership etc.

Sport is disgraceful these days. NBA lost a fan today.

p.s. Houston also totally choked that game away though. Who shoots forty-something threes in a game. My god.

The 2 best teams in the finals yet again. My source? NBA Finals 2015, 16, 17 and now 18. Team missed 27 straight threes yet people banging on about a conspiracy.

" Who shoots forty-something threes in a game. Any team coached by that guy, who is imo the biggest whinger in NBA.

Isaac, I'm not saying the series was rigged, and who knows what might have happened if CP3 played, Rockets had just won 3 out of 4 games before the injury, I'm just saying it's funny that right when it's on a knifes edge, the underdog (and costly to the NBA) Rockets surging up by double figures, there was a 5 minute patch of decisions against the home team which was attrocious and got it within single figures. Through history find me a time when the perceived (and more often than not overblown) rigging is in favour of the less financially viable team.

And for the record if the Warriors were down 20 at the half I still think they would have won today with how the second half went, that's not the point I'm trying to make.

Agree '539. Some of the conspiracy thinking is lunacy. The team with what is probably the best starting five ever assembled in the NBA (when Iguodala is in) won through. Houston did well to make it seven games and lose without a key player.

And people are combining the arguments that Warriors-Cavs is boring and that they're switching off, but that it's also the match-up the NBA wants because it generates the most money and pleases most fans. So, is it a great money-making conspiracy or is it turning people off?

I'm not buying it, I get what you are saying @Melbourne Boy, but I think that suggesting the officials are making bias calls on purpose for the NBA's bottom line is drawing a very long straw.

Too many moving parts, too many if's, but's and maybe's.

I too am slightly disappointed at the results but you can't watch two 7 games series and suggest it was all just done as per script, no way can I accept that...

I'm not saying the series was rigged...

LOL just when I thought the levels of dumbness on here had peaked. The good old conspiracy theory. They missed 27 threes in a row, enough said.

Also, there is no such thing as an obvious foul with Harden. The limbs flailing and head being thrown back every time a defender is in the same post code. The poor refs are stuffed if they know if he has actually been fouled. That costs him in the end too, because as well as the ones where nobody touches him, he's going to miss out on calls because the refs are unsure. Reap what you sew.

Why can the average sports fan in this country not ever comment on a game without ref sooking? It truly baffles me. Why not concentrate on the mistakes and failings of the players? They make many, many more errors than the refs.

Yeah, just on Harden and his flopping, I agree with you that he is up there in the flop artists award, LeBron gets rough treatment but watching him when he sometimes flops it is nothing close to what Harden does and it does catch up with him...

The refs were absolutely atrocious and need to be dumped for future games. You can't ref a game with 3-5 shocking no-calls on the one player, it's far too blatant.

It's so obvious the NBA were ensuring the team they wanted made it to the finals: so much so that posters can't even agree whether the NBA wanted the Rockets or Warriors to win!

What an informative thread.

I'm just saying there was a sniff of a conspiracy brewing in the 2nd as the Rockets were surging ahead by a good margin. The better team won and it sorted itself out in the end, it just raised a few eyebrows in the 2nd. No Lakers vs Kings episode here, that ones pretty hard to deny.

Anon Houston let it get to 27 missed threes in a row - being a best three point team in history is meaningless in a game 7 if it's not going in.

That's where you have to be more than a one trick pony. Houston needed to keep the ball moving and get the Warriors defending closer to the basket again. They might be usually better at threes than twos but if you've missed 20+ threes in a no second chances game - no point in keeping cold just because of those acclaims, they had to work hard for closer to the basket twos.

Isaac - The NBA gives rise to these conspiracy theories because they've pulled a fair bit of shady behaviour in the past and they're known for interfering significantly on behalf of "whats better for business".

From Kings v Lakers, to FBI investigations, to making arbitrary rules on the spot to fine teams (see Spurs fined for resting players), to players receiving clearly favourable calls to protect the entertainment (Lebron) or unfavourable calls if they make it obvious they feel mistreated by the NBA (DHoward). And then there's opportunistic timing of certain teams receiving #1 draft picks.

The NBA might not have their hands in all of it, and much can be said for incompetent refs; but the way NBA handle things, it's very easy to see a scenario where they want something to go X way because of business and they'll interfere to avoid Y or Z happening.

There is no conspiracy. The refereeing was just bad, not corrupt.

A Rockets-Cavs series would have had a far better chance of going the distance. This series will be lucky to go 5 games.

The Warriors are one of the best teams in history, but they make the game less enjoyable to watch for those looking for a contest. It was always going to be the case when a sudden cap explosion and a weak Durant contrived to form a team that is virtually impossible to beat in a series.

I'll probably watch game 1 and then just highlights for the rest of the series.

What I'm most disappointed with is ESPN showing an add for the finals, naming the teams, during the replay of game 7. I mean wtf?

The Rockets had more uncontested 3s in the 3rd quarter than the Warriors, they just didn't have Curry, Durant and Klay. For the night Rockets went 4/14 on fully uncontested 3s, some games they just don't drop.

Someone's gone and listed the likely incorrect calls made during the game. There are a few on both sides. G7 calls

Separately, for anyone interested, the NBA refs account on Twitter posted the reasoning that the Bell "moving screen" was not a moving screen.

It's the correct call. The offensive player is rotated when the defensive player comes over the top and pulls him. The defensive player has the opportunity to stop or change direction but declined, and instead grabbed and pulled him in an attempt to draw an offensive foul: https://t.co/S1135VD5BV

— NBA Referees (@OfficialNBARefs) May 29, 2018