Golden State At Houston
When: 9:00 PM ET, Saturday, May 23, 2015
Where: Toyota Center, Houston, Texas
TV: 9 p.m. ET, ESPN
PREDICTION: Rockets 109, Warriors 107
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Oddsmakers currently have the Warriors listed as 1-point favorites versus the Rockets, while the game’s total is sitting at 217.

The Rockets were a 99-98 loser in their most recent outing on the road against the Warriors. They covered the +9.5-point spread as underdogs, while the total score (197) made winners of UNDER bettors.

Center Andrew Bogut bought into Golden State’s up-tempo offensive approach by accepting a role as a defender and rebounder and seldom puts up the solid offensive numbers he did earlier in his career. He was a huge factor in Game 2, however, with 14 points on 7-of-9 shooting and also produced eight rebounds, five blocked shots and four assists. Bogut also put his typical strong defense on display and earlier in the week was named to NBA All-Defensive second team while teammate Draymond Green was a first-team choice.

Team record: 77-17 SU,52-41-1 ATS
Current Streak: won 5 straight games.
Golden State is 5-10 ATS in its last 15 games
Golden State is 5-0 SU in its last 5 games
The total has gone UNDER in 8 of Golden State’s last 9 games
Golden State is 8-4 ATS in its last 12 games on the road

Center Dwight Howard is listed as probable for Game 3 and will again wear a brace on his injured left knee after a surprisingly solid performance on Thursday. Howard sprained knee ligaments in the opening game and his availability for Game 2 was in question but he played 40 minutes and contributed 19 points and 17 rebounds. “I just tried to play as hard as I could,” Howard told reporters afterward. “I didn’t think about it at all. We’ll see how it feels. I just went out there and gave my teammates all that I could give them despite what happened with my knee.”

Team record: 64-32 SU,57-39 ATS
Houston is 5-0 ATS in its last 5 games
The total has gone OVER in 14 of Houston’s last 20 games
Houston is 8-2 ATS in its last 10 games at home
Houston is 8-1 SU in its last 9 games at home

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Houston At Golden State
When: 9:00 PM ET, Tuesday, May 19, 2015
Where: Oracle Arena, Oakland, California
TV: 9 p.m. ET, ESPN
PREDICTION: Warriors 109, Rockets 102
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Oddsmakers currently have the Warriors listed as 10-point favorites versus the Rockets, while the game’s total is sitting at 218½.

Golden State was a 108-95 winner in its last match on the road against the Grizzlies. They covered the -5-point spread as favorites, while the total score of 203 sent OVER bettors to the payout window.

In their last action, Houston was a 113-100 winner at home against the Clippers. They covered the +2-point spread as underdogs, while the combined score (213) was profitable news for UNDER bettors.

Harden averaged 25.5 points, 5.5 rebounds and 5.3 assists versus Golden State during the regular season, and he has scored 20 or more points in all 12 games this postseason with a high of 42. Houston received a surprise when playoff disappointment Josh Smith emerged to average 17 points in the final two games against the Clippers while small forward Trevor Ariza made six 3-pointers in the series finale for his second 22-point effort in three games. Center Dwight Howard has been superb in the postseason with six double-doubles in the series against Los Angeles and nine overall.

Team record: 64-30 SU,55-39 ATS
Current Streak: won 3 straight games.
Houston is 11-4 SU in its last 15 games
The total has gone OVER in 6 of Houston’s last 7 games
Houston is 2-5 ATS in its last 7 games on the road
The total has gone OVER in 5 of Houston’s last 5 games on the road

Curry averaged 25.8 points, 8.3 assists and 6.5 rebounds in the four regular-season games against Houston and is coming off a superb outing in the finale against the Grizzlies in which he made eight 3-pointers while contributing 32 points and 10 assists. He has five 30-point outings in the postseason and Golden State is hoping shooting guard Klay Thompson will regain his shooting stroke after his high point total was just 21 against Memphis. Forward Draymond Green is averaging 13.8 points, 10.1 rebounds and 5.1 assists in the postseason, while center Andrew Bogut’s main job will be getting under the skin of the easy-to-frustrate Howard.

Team record: 75-17 SU,52-39-1 ATS
Current Streak: won 3 straight games.
Golden State is 5-2 ATS in its last 7 games
Golden State is 12-2 SU in its last 14 games
The total has gone UNDER in 6 of Golden State’s last 7 games
Golden State is 2-6 ATS in its last 8 games at home

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X-rays were negative.

Bryant would not speculate whether he would play Friday against the Indiana Pacers, but he left Philips Arena on Wednesday walking with a limp but without the aid of crutches.

The Lakers do not practice on Thursday. Bryant’s regiment for the day? “Compression. Ice. Django. Zero Dark Thirty. This is Forty and 1 hour of sleep. #countonwill #countonhaters. On to the next,” he tweeted.

Bryant, who had 31 points, seven rebounds and five assists in the Lakers’ 96-92 loss to Atlanta, landed awkwardly after taking a baseline jumper that would have forced overtime if it had gone in with 3.9 seconds remaining.

Bryant appeared to land on Dahntay Jones’ foot and twisted his left ankle, crumpling to the court in pain. No foul was called.

After the game, Bryant said referees need to do a better job protecting shooters from defenders who go underneath them while shooting.

“As defensive players, you can contest shots, but you can’t walk underneath players,” Bryant said. “That’s dangerous for the shooter.”

Bryant later tweeted: “#dangerousplay that should have been called. Period.”

Jones responded via Twitter: “Tape doesn’t lie. Ankle was turned on the floor after the leg kick out that knocked him off balance. I would never try to hurt the man.

He later added: “Leg kick that makes contact with a defensive player is an offense foul. Period. The nba changed that rule 2 yrs ago. Stop it!”

Bryant and Jones have a history. The Hawks’ swingman was called for a flagrant foul for tripping Bryant in Game 4 of the 2009 Western Conference finals when he played for the Denver Nuggets.

The play jogged Bryant’s memory even further than that, all the way back to Game 2 of the 2000 NBA Finals when he played just seven minutes after landing on then-Indiana Pacers guard and current ESPN NBA analyst Jalen Rose’s foot.

“He Jalen Rose’d me,” Bryant said of Jones on Wednesday night.

Rose admitted on “The Jalen Rose Show,” a podcast on ESPN.com’s Grantland Network, back in September that he purposely stepped under Bryant.

“I can’t say that it was an accident,” Rose said.

A reporter asked Bryant if he felt like Jones’ play was “deliberate.”

“I don’t ever want to put that on somebody, I really don’t,” Bryant said. “I just think players need to be made conscious of it and I think officials need to protect shooters. Period.”

Deliberate or not, Bryant was upset that Wednesday likely was the Lakers’ final game against the Hawks this season.

“I can’t get my mind past the fact that I got to wait a year to get revenge,” he said.

Jodie Meeks subbed in for Bryant with 2.6 seconds left to play after he fell to the floor, at which point Bryant approached the official on the sideline.

“He instructed (Lakers trainer) Gary (Vitti) to come out onto the court and he came out there on the court, which then takes me out of the game permanently; I can’t go back in,” Bryant said. “So that was just a miscommunication I was having a conversation with the official about.”

Lakers forward Earl Clark also suffered a sprained right ankle in the first half and did not play after exiting the game early in the third quarter. X-rays on Clark’s ankle were negative, and he is day to day.

“It didn’t swell up real big,” Clark said. “I can walk, I didn’t need crutches, so it feels pretty good. I’ll be ready to go on Friday.”

The Lakers (34-32) are a half-game ahead of the Utah Jazz (33-32) for the eighth and final Western Conference playoff spot.

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Gentry didn’t mesh quite as well with the new bunch at Planet Orange and it cost him his job.

Unable to get a revamped roster headed in the right direction, Gentry and the last-place Suns agreed to part ways on Friday, ending the five-year run of one of the franchise’s most popular coaches.

The team said an interim coach from within the organization is expected to be named in the next 24 to 48 hours.

“Alvin Gentry is a good coach and a good person,” Suns vice president of basketball operations Lon Babby said from the US Airways Center. “He was the perfect coach for our previous group. But with the current group, all of us, including Alvin himself, realized that it just wasn’t working, the pieces just weren’t fitting.”

Phoenix’s head coach since Terry Porter was fired at the All-Star break in 2009, Gentry got the Suns back to the freewheeling ways of former coach Mike D’Antoni, his one-time boss.

Led by Nash, a two-time league MVP, the fast-paced style worked early on, with the Suns going 54-28 and reaching the Western Conference finals in Gentry’s first full season as coach.

After that, Phoenix had mixed results, struggling to find a go-to scorer when power forward Amar’e Stoudemire turned down a deal to return to the desert and signed with the New York Knicks.

The Suns underwent a complete overhaul over the summer, when Nash went to the rival Los Angeles Lakers in a sign-and-trade deal, All-Star forward Grant Hill left for the Clippers and nine new players were added to the roster.

The new-look Suns struggled from the start and went into a deeper tailspin over the past month or so, losing 13 of 15 and four straight at home. Their 13-28 record is the worst in the Western Conference and leaves them 18½ games behind the Los Angeles Clippers in the Pacific Division heading into Friday’s games.

After a 98-94 loss to Milwaukee on Thursday night, one that ended the Bucks’ 24-game losing streak in Phoenix, Gentry met with Babby and Suns managing partner Robert Sarver, coming to the conclusion that his tenure in the desert should end.

Gentry went 158-144 during his stint with the Suns.

“After nine years with the Suns, the organization and I came to a mutual agreement to go in different directions,” Gentry said in a statement. “I have the utmost respect for Robert and what he’s done with the organization. It’s unfortunate that I was unable to accomplish what I set out to do here.”

Gentry, who was in the final year of his contract, has been in coaching for three decades, including stints as head coach of the Detroit Pistons, Clippers and Miami Heat.

He came to the Suns as an assistant to D’Antoni and stayed on Porter’s staff when D’Antoni left for the Knicks. Gentry was named interim coach when Porter was fired and stayed on as the permanent head coach.

He had some success with the up-tempo style D’Antoni had championed, but the Suns lacked a true scorer and struggled defensively, missing the playoffs the previous two seasons.

When Phoenix opted not to sign Nash with an eye toward rebuilding, Babby and general manager Lance Blanks blew up its roster. Gentry continuously tried new lineups to find a spark, but nothing seemed to work as crowds at the once boisterous US Airways Center started to dwindle.

Gentry recently said it might be better for the team to turn to its younger players and look toward the future, but now it will be without him at the helm.

“It wasn’t that we weren’t winning enough games so much as a feel that we weren’t progressing, that we were regressing,” Babby said. “We can’t have that. We’ve got to have our closure moving forward. We didn’t feel like we were moving forward and I don’t think Alvin felt like we were moving forward.”

The Suns don’t play again until Wednesday, when they’re at Sacramento.

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