Denver is by far our biggest threat. Portland nor Utah scares me. Denver plays faster & they're a team that gets scoring everywhere, not just from one or 2 superstars. Isaiah Thomas scares me in the playoffs
I'm simply talking about teams that could hinder our efforts to make it to the 3 seed and not be overtaken.... Competition in the playoffs is a different story.
I look at it like, 1st/2nd seed - Not Possible 3rd seed - Possible 4th Seed - Very Possible 5th seed - Very Possible 6th/7th seed - Less Possible 8th seed - Not possible Not really worried about falling below 5th Portland has the more favorable schedule and has been playing well. OKC has a tougher schedule, kinda banged up lately, and has a matchup against Portland and Houston before seasons end. The last game of the season against OKC will be big. Finishing with the 4th or 5th seed will present a matchup between either OKC or POR I would love for those two to battle it out as the 4th and 5th seeds in the event that we did move up to 3rd. But I'm feeling we will be in a 4/5 first round series.
I would love to play Denver in the playoffs. If healthy, we would absolutely run circles around them. Same with Portland or Utah. None of the teams scare me tbh... OKC is might be okay but they cant shoot as a team and if Westbrick lets his hero mentality kick in, he will shoot them into getting swept.
Agreed. We just need that one season defining win streak that we are due for. Pulling off a 12 plus win streak likely catapults us to 3rd.
We win the tiebreaker in that scenario. 1st tiebreaker for a 3 team scenario is being a division winner.
Historically the Rockets have dominated the Nuggets. Their last loss was more of an aberration in that CP3 and Capela were both out. If I do remember correctly the Rockets came out of gates dropping 40+ in the first quarter before the wheels began to come off and it was a blowout defeat. In the regular season alone though, the Rockets are already 2-1 vs the Nuggs. The only team I'm really concerned with is the Warriors and whoever comes out of the East in the Finals. There are legitimate reasons to believe the top 4 in the East are legitimate enough to take a series from the Rockets especially after being overly celebratory beating the Warriors. I'm personally still hopeful for a 22-3 type of record post all-star break as I think this team is capable of a tear like that.
If we can come out of this next stretch 3-0, that alone would push us to highly likely to attain the 3rd seed. Even 2-1 would be great. The Portland Loss was huge, but we have to keep winning for it to matter. Not only would beating these 3 top seeded teams keep/put Harden atop The MVP race, it would also give us a much needed push to the 3rd seed. The Portland/OKC game will help us either way, and winning the division will help us in tiebreaker scenarios. I have said it before, fully healthy I like this team better than last year's team in the playoffs. Luc and Ryan were basically non factors all playoffs. So basically we replaced Ariza with Rivers, Faried, Shump, Clark....Where the H*** is April at???
I honestly don't sleep on Portland...We can expose most West teams when it comes to matchups, But Portland is Hungry(years or always being good, but just not good enough).... First round, I would hate to see them most out of all potential opponents
So when they play OKC on the 7th who do you want to win? We will probably be facing one of them 1st round if we don't take the 3 spot. Portland has the best chance of overtaking OKC who has a much tougher schedule ahead.
Denver isn’t a threat to us. We have the match up advantage. They can’t stop our PnR. Nor do they have the perimeter defenders to contain Harden or Paul. I like Jokic. But he can’t run with Capela or Faried.
Playing Utah is fine by me in the first round. They don’t have much depth which is good for us. Then Denver in round 2 we can catch them Bc of our experience.
3rd seed is the dream. Harden will likely win MVP off that, we'll avoid the Warriors until WCF, OKC can battle it out on the Warriors bracket side. For that to happen, every game from now on is a must-win.
GSW choking 1st round and not having the refs partial to them winning is a dream too! I hope Philly has the game of their lives tonight.
I hate to say their analysis is wrong but I had Houston at needing 52. It's a real tall order but doable.
