NBA reporters torch refs for Warriors-Rockets: ‘Barely resembled basketball’

Golden State Warriors guard Stephen Curry reacts during the first half of Game 4 of an NBA basketball first-round playoff series against the Houston Rockets, Monday, April 28, 2025, in San Francisco.

The first-round playoff series between the Golden State Warriors and Houston Rockets has been the poster child for the uptick in physical play this postseason, but not everyone sees that as a good thing.

The Athletic published a story Wednesday asking four NBA reporters to answer a series of questions about the on-court physicality that’s been displayed this postseason. It didn’t take long for the Rockets-Warriors series to come up, and not just because one of the reporters quoted in the article is a Houston beat writer. That series has been a raucous affair between two teams that truly don’t like one another, which boiled over in the Dubs’ 109-106 Game 4 win on Monday.

While all four respondents responded favorably to the heightened physicality, they lamented how the Houston-Golden State series has been officiated.

“There were some moments early in the Rockets-Warriors series that barely resembled basketball,” Eric Koreen, a senior writer covering the Raptors, said. “… We shouldn’t be surprised, given some of the involved parties, but that series started off as a slog. It has been a reminder that you only want to go so far in bringing back the ’80s and ’90s.”

Rockets reporter Kelly Iko went as far to cite Game 4 on Monday as “a moment or series that has crossed the line,” even with all signs pointing toward some sort of in-game blowup between the two sides. Iko recalled NBC Sports Bay Area reporter Monte Poole shouting during the dustups, “Can we just get back to basketball?”

“There was just so much going on in that game that had nothing to do with anything meaningful,” the reporter said.

After listing all of the incidents that took place, Iko then added, “At one point, there were more stoppages to review for hostile acts than made buckets. It was a complete mess.”

Of course, it wouldn’t be a proper list of grievances against a Warriors series without some mention of Draymond Green, which Law Murray was happy to provide in response to his moment that crossed the line this postseason.

“I’m not comfortable with how inconsistent some of these games get, or how officials have to overcorrect to regain control of a game,” he said. “I don’t like how you know Draymond Green isn’t going to get ejected despite putting out a mixtape of physicality that is usually only available on pay-per-view. That’s the physicality that crosses the line.”

Noticeably absent from these complaints is the way that Steph Curry has been manhandled all series with few fouls, let alone free throws, to show for it. Perhaps the Rockets’ defense toeing the legal limit of physicality on every possession isn’t enough to warrant a gripe, or falls under the kind of physical play that was briefly celebrated to start the story, and considered a net positive for the league at the end of it — the final question was whether the increased physicality was “good or bad for the league?”

“Defense is physicality,” Murray said for his final answer of the article. “I see teams playing hard and realizing that if they don’t, they get to book Cancun shortly.”

(Exceptions may apply if they’re a 35-year-old forward from Saginaw, Michigan.)

It remains to be seen whether officials will tolerate this level of physicality into the second round of the playoffs, but at least the worst offenders of this new brand of basketball can finish up their series on Wednesday with a Warriors win.