Stephen Curry was held to 18 points and found it tough to contain James Harden in the Golden State Warriors' 119-106 game one victory over the Houston Rockets.

However, Curry – who only returned from six weeks out with a knee injury in game two of the second round - expected the Rockets to target him.

The 30-year-old knows the Western Conference finals series will see stars on both sides seize the momentum at different moments.

"If that's the game plan they want to stick with, my job is just to make it as tough as possible," Curry said, via ESPN. 

"You've got two great scorers over there in [Chris Paul] and James. You know how they get shots off in isolation-type situations, and they're tough to stop. 

"So I'm going to get scored on; they're going to get scored on. There's going to be a lot of back-and-forth.

"But as long as we - I should say as long as I - am in the right spot at the right time and defend and just try to make it as tough as possible, I can be all right with that and just have that competitiveness that we need."

Not only did the Rockets continually isolate Curry, but Harden scored 41 points while the two-time NBA champion was defending him. However, he was not able to set up any of his team-mates for 3-pointers and only had seven assists on the night.

"We're all in this together," Harden said. "It doesn't matter who has a bad game, who's missing shots, whether it's myself or Chris or anybody. 

"Keep going. Keep shooting your shot and keep being aggressive. We've got this far doing that and having that mindset, so we're just going to continue with it."