Aside from Game 1, the OKC series wasn't awe-inspiring. We struggled to win the other 3 games, looking downright ugly at times. But the Rox did what was required to dispatch the opponent. D'Antoni's strategy and adjustments were effective when they needed to be. It's no accident that when the 4th quarter rolled around in every game, Westbrook decided he needed to take over and do it all himself -- D'Antoni dared him to do that in just about every way, knowing that the odds were that Russ would take his team out of the game more often than win it for them. There were two 1st-round sweeps this year: the Warriors and the Cavs. We sent the Thunder packing in 5. Every other matchup is going at least 6, and some probably 7. By getting the job done quickly like a contender should, the Rockets succeeded in buying themselves a much-needed rest while we wait to see who we've got next. Sure, it would have been great to see us light it up in our wins against the Thunder, like we did regularly in the regular season. If there's one thing I've learned watching NBA playoffs for a few decades, though, it's that a win is a win whether it's beautiful or ugly. The only thing that matters is not getting eliminated. So here's to 12 more ugly wins as these guys keep taking care of business.
Ugly Ws are still Ws. That's what I tell myself when I settle for the brisket-necked linebacker chick around 1:50am
What amazed me about this series against OKC is that we were the worst 3 point shooting team in the entire playoffs at only 28% from downtown , yet we still had the 5th most efficient offense against a team in OKC that ranked 10th in defense during the regular season (we had the 4th most efficient offense before game 5 dragged us down to 5th). We also had some long stretches of really good defense and were able to hang with them on the boards. OKC was the best rebounding team in the NBA during the regular season, and we outrebounded them in 3 out of the 5 games and only lost the rebounding battle by 2 in game 5. I would've liked to see us beat OKC with ease, but that team is no pushover. They have the MVP of the league in Westbrook, and they have some athletes that can defend. We won ugly which is something that many pundits didn't think we'd be able to do. We won even tho we sucked from 3. ****, we were 1 Harden 3 away from sweeping them.
A win is a win Good to great teams are able to win even when they're not playing remotely close to their best.
As long as Grizzlies pull one out tonight, we should be healthy entering the next series. Also Spurs has shown weaknesses in the series against the Grizzlies. They have poor interior defense. I think we can take advantage of that like we did against the Thunder. Their bigs, LMA and Gasol are soft on d. We'll definitely need to shoot better and with a healthy Nene, we can probably take them.
Exactly what I was thinking, until I realised that it may get you to the following paradox: to accept a possible W that is at the same time boring and ugly may require a dose of alcohol that could make it impossible to get Harden, which would result in an L
I actually was impressed of how they took care of business. Never panic and was quite discipline in chipping away the leads. That bold well for the next series... and if their shot start to fall..
D'Antoni's antics are not going to be sufficient for next round for sure. The Rockets need to take it another level to compete against the Spurs or Grizzlies in a PlayOff series.
Appreciate the 4-1 series win but can't help but be reminded of end of 4Q situations where we blew a healthy lead with what seemed to be a lackadaisical attitude towards taking care of the ball, boxing out/rebounding and defensively making silly fouls/and-1 situations that turned a healthy lead into a 1 or 2 possession game. Sure a large percentage of that is attributed to the the greatness of Westbrook but this is the playoffs, every team is full of killers and I 'd prefer to have more confidence in the Rockets of 'taking care of business' while we have the lead going into the end of the 4Q.
