James Harden and Mike D'Antoni were in agreement that the Houston Rockets played "soft" in their game three humbling at the hands of the Golden State Warriors.
Stephen Curry inspired the Warriors to a 126-85 victory in the Western Conference finals series encounter at Oracle Arena with a game-high 35 points.
The Rockets' big names, including MVP candidate Harden, endured a costly off night to fall 2-1 behind, and head coach D'Antoni did not pull any punches when discussing his side's performance.
"We played soft, actually. You can't do that with these guys - these guys are good," D'Antoni said.
"We still might not have won, but you've got to play well. We didn't make shots early, we turned it over. It was not a very good game."
That was an assessment shared by Harden, who said: "We just for whatever the reason was, we allowed them, especially like I said at the end of the first quarter, what did they have, 31 points, and the second half we came on too slow, too soft.
"Offensively we didn't have any thrust, and they exploited it. I think Curry had 27 points in that second half, and we did a pretty good job in the first half.
"But, you know, you just can't allow it to happen."
