ClutchFans Game Thread: Rockets @ Thunder 12/29/2013

Harden beats his career high and goes for 50

 

It's OKC. How about the starting unit and the bench all need to step up? Reggie Jackson is no scrub, he's Westbrook-lite and a good defender. We're gonna need to double KD just to slow him down. Their bench is way better and more consistent than ours. Lamb, Fisher will kill you from the outside if you leave them open. Perry is long enough that he'll bother anyone on defense. Adams, Collison, these are all productive bench players. We're also in hostile territory on a B2B where I'm sure the zebras will favor the home team. It'll be another long tough fight, and I can't wait to see how we respond.

 

Dwight being here means the need for more Perkins. That helps the Rockets.

 

I hate Fisher, sooo much.

 

That should be counted as two offensive fouls by Asik!:grin:

 

Honestly, I don't expect that much. The starters have been playing crazy minutes, and have played an insane number of games (32, most in the NBA vs OKC's 27) on top of being on the 2nd B2B of a 4 in 5. They most likely didn't even land in OKC until 3 or 4am.

Toss in that they're on the road facing home cooking by the refs and I'm setting my expectations fairly low.

Barring a superhuman effort, I'm expect lots of short shots that clang the front side of the rim and no shortage of mental mistakes. I fully expect us to either be slow out of the gate or losing steam fairly early.

Of course OKC is playing at home coming off a day of rest after having played only 3 games in the last 7 days without a single back to back. Talk about being totally set up to fail by the schedule....

If our coach was Popovich he'd seriously be thinking about resting Harden, Parsons, Dwight and Lin as a big FU to Stern and Co... unfortunately I don't think that's going to happen.

So expected our guys to be tired. Really, really tired...

 

maybe it is time for us to guess the season high FTs for both teams.

Thunder:
Durant 26/31 FTs
Rocket
Harden 24/30 FTs

Thunder is a king in FTs in this league
Let's challange them, Harden !

 

Agreed, but fatigue may be our downfall. 4th game 5 nights.

 

I think the matchup to watch is T Jones vs Ibaka. We need T Jones to continue to play at a high level while also not allowing ibaka to fill in as the 2nd scorer for OKC with Westbrook out. Also, I know Perkins isn't the player he once was but he's always been good at guarding Dwight so I think it's important we drive at him early and often to get him into foul trouble.

 

Everyone must be kidding themselves thinking Rox and company are going to let the last couple of brutal games stand in their way from going all out. Rox want this game just as bad as OKC.

 

PB takes out Westbrick's other knee

 

The Jazz have played 33 games.

 

This is a real test. If we manage to pull this game out, we might be capable of anything. They won't have Westbrook, thank god, but we won't have Asik, Bev, and Smith, so it isn't like both teams aren't banged up, and by rights, we should be exhausted.

The key to the game, in my opinion? Garcia. He has to step up, and step up big. This is the team that eliminated us in the playoffs in a hard fought series, and Cisco's play in that series won me over, and made me excited about resigning him. Except for a few stretches here and there, that player has been missing in action. Garcia needs to play outstanding defense when he's out there, and hit his freakin' treys. If he does that, I like our chances. Otherwise, we need a miracle from our big three.

 

I'm hoping we start off by either (a) feeding Dwight in the post and letting him go to work or (b) Harden, Lin and Parsons attacking the basket and drawing fouls (not kicking it out for 3s). Tired legs = poor jumpshooting. No kickout 3s, just try to get to the line.

 

Hope Perkins been workin out for this one.

 

That would be hilarious if he did and rest all of the name players. Start, AB, Garcia, Casspi, TJ and Demo. But who would come off of the bench? All that's left is Canaan and Brewer.

 

Howard kinda announced in post game interview that we will dominate OKC from the start....

 

I'm worried about this one. Our starters are running on fumes. Harden, Howard and Parsons have been consistently playing forty minutes. Tjones has never played this many minutes before. Lin is just back from a few weeks off injury.

Need the bench to step up this time.

 

Durant is gonna get his plus some, but we just gotta give it to D all night long, he can handle Kenrick.

 

Hate to say it. Yes you are.