Chris Paul Is Officially Ruled OUT For Game 6

God dammit. While we all figured this was going to happen, I think there was still a small sliver of hope that somehow CP3 would magically recover. But when you saw this tweet float out there, this was all but a forgone conclusion

The Rockets now will have to play the biggest game of their season without their floor general, something that can’t be sugarcoated. This is a massive blow, and sucks for a variety of reasons. First, you hate to see Chris Paul’s first Conference Finals get messed with like this, after all those years of getting close now that he finally made it and was having some success, you hate to see that potentially cut short. It also now puts a tremendous amount of pressure on James Harden and Eric Gordon, two guys who have been streaky at best so far this series. We’ll have to see if the Rockets fall back into their bad habits that last year’s Rockets team experienced, and there’s no way Harden is going to be able to go 0-11 from three again that’s for sure.

If you’re HOU, this obviously is the smart way to play it. That’s why Game 5 was so huge. Yeah you run the risk of potentially having to beat the Warriors in a Game 7 where anything can happen, but if that gets you a Chris Paul that is like 60% instead of 50% that’s a win for you. It would be brutal if he forced his way onto the court, they still lost and he did further damage and was compromised for a potential Game 7. Jaylen Brown had about 5 days of rest when he pulled his hammy due to the schedule, and he missed one game as well. Granted he’s 21 and Paul is 33 but whenever you can go the rest route with these hamstring injuries you have to do it.

This now means Eric Gordon will slide into the starting role and have to do his best to be the playmaker this offense requires from that position. This season showed us that he can raise him game when put in this spot

Whether or not he can pull one more big time performance on the road in a hostile environment is another story, as Gordon shot 8-27 in the two games in Oakland earlier this series. Either way this sucks given how awesome the last two games are, let’s just hope if this does end up going seven games that Paul is back for that.

Fucking Warriors get all the damn breaks (and don’t give me shit about Iguodala, this is way worse for HOU).