Hornets. They always seem to have trouble playing well against us, plus our guards are quick enough to keep up with Chris Paul.
to the op - why did you leave out the lakers in your poll? if you think there's no way we can be the #8 seed and meet them in the 1st round since they're likely to be #1 seed, then it's ok with me; but if you think it's an automatic loss for us if we meet them in the 1st round, then i consider your poll an insult to the rockets.
The poll is not about who we can beat. The question is who would you most like the rockets to meet in the first round. No body in their right mind would choose the lakers, unless they have absolutely no knowledge about basketball.
Hornets or Blazers. Revenge on the Jazz can wait until the 2nd round (if we actually get there). Facing the Jazz in the 1st round is not good since they have had our number the last few years and there are just too many matchup problems for us. Brooks vs. Williams and Yao vs. Okur.
Mav's, I still want revenge for the game 7 blowout. Plus, the Houston-Dallas games always seem very exciting, and the arena is very loud for the most part.
I wouldn't want to face the Blazers. Their bigs are actually really good defensively especially Joel Pryzbilla. He is a highly underrated defender and gives every single elite post player in the NBA trouble scoring including Yao Ming, Tim Duncan, Al Jefferson, pretty much every post player. I would want to face the Nuggets. We have taken them out when T-Mac wasn't playing. They also have weak defense at the wing position. Melo needs work on D, J.R needs work on D.
k. but your last statement was an overstatement. the lakers are not THAT terribly good. from a fan perspective, i'd LIKE to see - jazz mavs lakers spurs whoever else and in that order. just for revenge and intensity level. for the team's sake, the easiest opposing team obviously would be the blazers, imo. the nuggets and hornet wouldn't be too bad, either.
http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/recap?gameId=281216010 http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/recap?gameId=290119010 2-1 against them, Although that last game was very hard fought. Those guys don't frighten me a bit. Melo has had horrendous playoff series since his career started, the best one he had was against the Spurs. The only guy to watch out for if we play them is Chauncey Billups. AB is probably going to be the starter for the rest of the season unless he gets hurt. Billups size is a huge advantage.
<object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/WhDi0Ce_Z5w&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/WhDi0Ce_Z5w&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object> Jazz, because i still have not gotten over this ^
It really depends on injuries at this point. So much of the league has become affected by it; I'm glad that the epidemic we started has found new victims. If Utah has no Boozer, and San Antonio has no Manu, and New Orleans has no Chandler, then give me those teams in any order. I don't want to face the Blazers actually. Everyone was ragging on Dallas and Utah being inexperienced in the playoffs when we played them in 04 and 07, respectively, and they still came out and punked our asses priming themselves for a future year of success that demonstrated how underrated they were when they played us. The same thing could happen to Portland.
That is true, especially when they have a guy named Brandon Roy on their team who is arguably the most clutch player in the NBA. Blazers have no weaknesses at any positions and if they have any it's not that big of a weakness as other playoff teams would have. Blazers have both offense and defense which scares me a lot to be honest. Blazers have potential to be the best team in the NBA once they get experienced enough and more depth and chemistry. As I said, the team I want to face is the Denver Nuggets. They have weak defense at the wings position and we have great wing scorers like Von Wafer and Ron Artest. Also, they really don't have a good backup PG, so we can expose them on that part as well. They have enough big men to contain Yao, but they don't have enough players to contain our entire team. Nuggets are my pick.
Hornets, are strong with cp3 and west, i would not like to face them in the first round. spurs are to unpredicatable to me. Nuggets are unpredictable too though i like our chances against them. Roy would run circles around Yao. THere is nothing i would like than to win the fourth game against a dejected Mav team. I want the mavs.
