Don’t question the Rockets’ reliance on 3s. That was their only hope.

HOUSTON — They skittered off the rim every which way, some flying off with purpose and others lazing around the iron several times before falling away. One was blocked upon being released and another flew past the hoop entirely. They included every degree of difficulty possible, from forced jumpers over outstretched hands to wide-open corner looks. People started paying attention around the 15th straight miss, and it kept adding up: 20, then 25, then a 26th three-pointer missed, and then a 27th.

Even in season-ending defeat, the Houston Rockets couldn’t help redefine three-point boundaries — in this case, the most consecutive missed three-point shots in a game. An undesirable ending, but fitting, at least.

Houston took the Golden State Warriors to the brink, something that wasn’t supposed to be possible — certainly not this soon — in the Kevin Durant era. They twice recovered from one-game deficits, and they became just the third team since 2015 to force these Warriors into a Game 7. They entered halftime up 11 points and lost to the Third Quarter Warriors, a noble demise that has summarily executed foes for months, a talent explosion that no roster in the league can match.

Golden State’s 101-92 win sends them to a fourth straight NBA Finals, an outcome that’s hardly unexpected, but one that turned out to be far from inevitable.

The saying has been all over Twitter, with a hint of schadenfraude: You live by the three, you die by the three.

If I may have a word: pls.

Houston definitely lives by the three. They set new NBA records in both three-pointers made and attempted this regular season. But other teams that lived by the three included the Cleveland Cavaliers (No. 2 in attempts these playoffs), the Boston Celtics (No. 4), and the Warriors (No. 5), meaning four of the five were the four teams still standing in the conference finals.

The Rockets finished Game 7 shooting 7-of-44 behind the arc, or 15.9 percent, despite not shooting worse than 20 percent in any game all season. The odds of the Rockets missing 26 straight threes was 0.00084 percent, per Eric Sidewater’s math. That’s just an average, and everything is contextual. If Houston shot 26 straight threes from the half-court line, then their odds of missing all 26 would obviously be much higher. Except, the opposite happened, and what was nearly half of those Rockets’ attempts came on wide-open looks within their offense.

Asked if his team shot too many three-pointers, Mike D’Antoni’s reaction was a quick laugh.

“We did everything well, except they outshot us,” he said.

You shouldn’t ask the Rockets to stop shooting threes any more than you would ask Aaron Rodgers to start relying on his running game. This is their ingrained identity, and it involves purposeful variance. When the Rockets established their roster, they did so knowing they could never out-talent a Golden State team boasting four all-stars. There were other ways of closing the gap, and we saw nearly all of them during this two-week dogfight.

What Houston missed in Game 7 was Chris Paul — his tenacity, his infectious energy, and the way he pushed the ball up the floor even when everyone else was exhausted. They brought him and his historically accurate mid-range shooting as an alternative for when the threes didn’t fall, but he could only helplessly watch from the bench with a hamstring strain suffered in the final moments of Game 5. At least one Rocket said they would be Finals bound with him. They all must be thinking it.

Injuries happen, especially to injury-prone players. Golden State was without for Andre Iguodala for four games, not just two, although his role is smaller than Paul’s. James Harden brought up another problem, one that has always been a bug in D’Antoni’s philosophy.

“In that second half, our pace wasn’t there,” Harden admitted afterwards. “In the third quarter, I was trying to get the guys: ‘Come on, let’s go. Let’s go, it’s time.’ But we didn’t have that extra juice we needed.”

When a team misses 37 three-point shots, you must think that tired legs contributed a little. Still, even tired shooters are still professional ones. They don’t miss 37 times in 44 attempts, not when so many of them are ordinary, open looks. There is truth to the fatigue talk this series, and it consistently appeared that Harden had emptied his tank before the second half of every game.

But the Golden State stars played similar minutes, and they still made jump shots just fine. The Warriors shot 16-of-39 behind the arc despite contested looks galore. Living by the three didn’t seem to kill them.

No one thing can explain the league’s most prolific bombers losing their touch, just the morbid reality that jump shots are sending one team to the Finals and another one home.

If you believe that Houston’s style never could work against the Warriors, answer this: what can?

The Rockets won a franchise record 65 games, securing home court and packing the Toyota Center on Monday. They led by double digits at halftime in Games 6 and 7 with Golden State fighting elimination. They lost by single digits despite missing their second-best player, and even had to bring Joe Johnson out of cryostasis because one of their most reliable bench players (Luc Mbah a Moute) couldn’t effectively recover from a shoulder injury. They got a bad whistle in the last game — a real thing, but a uncontrollable one not worth dwelling on. They had a cold shooting streak that statistically won’t happen again until the year 3466.

Laud Houston’s analytical approach, or appreciate how their players are so versatile defensively, or just get hyped up at Harden ruthlessly crossing someone into the underworld. These Rockets knew who they were, and they didn’t change that for a moment. It damn near worked.

If this was all filler for another “inevitable” Warriors Finals, then everything is, and we should all embrace the fatalism.

That the missed three-pointers were so mathematically implausible, or that Paul’s presence might have changed everything, or any other logical rationalization, won’t make the Rockets feel any better about Monday’s results.

“Heartbroken,” Gerald Green said afterwards. He spoke for everyone in the locker room.

To think that a few inches left, right, back, or forward on a half-dozen shots could have changed this outcome, and history, and legacies. Houston’s run is hardly over, but Chris Paul’s age, pending free agency, and other questions lie before next season. Mike D’Antoni issued one vow at his post-game press conference.

“Golden State has set the bar for the whole league, not just us,” D’Antoni said. “You keep knocking on the door, and they’ll eventually open.”

D’Antoni saw the bigger picture: “I’m devastated, but I’m proud. It’s like, I don’t know what I am.”

But the 67-year-old offensive innovator has been through this all before. His players went through the grueling regular season, and for someone like P.J. Tucker, he admits there’s no appreciation about what they did happening just yet.

“Not right now,” he said. “It’s hard, it’s tough to look at the bright side how good we’ve played this year since it doesn’t matter.”

Tucker will hopefully change his tune with time. If that season didn’t matter, if 65 wins didn’t matter, then what does save for a title?

But at the same time, in the moments after a heartbreaking Game 7 that the whole team understands came down to the way the ball bounces, how could he say anything else?