HOUSTON (AP) — While Steph Curry was hitting circus shots for the Golden State Warriors on Sunday night, Fred VanVleet and the Houston Rockets couldn’t seem to get much of anything to go in — even wide-open looks.

VanVleet and Jalen Green made just 7 of 34 shots in Houston’s 95-85 loss to Golden State in Game 1 of the first-round playoff series Sunday night.

VanVleet was 2 for 13 from 3-point range on a night Houston made just 6 of 29 3-pointers and was 11 for 20 on free throws.

“It was an offensively poor showing,” coach Ime Udoka said. “The defense was good enough but we’re not going to overreact to that game. It was some of those guys first time and we had our chances.”

The second-seeded Rockets, who returned to the playoffs for the first time since 2020, had three players in their starting lineup and two reserves making their playoff debuts Sunday. Of those young players in the postseason for the first time, the only one to play well was Alperen Sengun, who led the team with 26 points and nine rebounds.

Despite the poor shooting, Houston managed to get within four points with about 2 1/2 minutes left on a 3 by VanVleet. But he missed two 3s after that and Warriors went on a run to close it out.

“We can generate better looks,” VanVleet said. “I think our spacing can get better. We can make more shots, obviously, myself included — didn’t shoot the ball great tonight.”

The Rockets managed to keep it close late thanks in part to their offensive rebounding where they had a 22-6 advantage. They’re encouraged that they were able to get within striking distance late after falling behind by 23 in the third quarter.

“We’ve just got to clean some things up on the offensive end and it’s definitely encouraging knowing that we were still in the game despite being down that much,” Jabari Smith said. “We stayed together and showed some growth tonight.”

___

AP NBA: https://apnews.com/hub/nba