Three reasons Rockets can catch Warriors in Western Conference play-in race, and three reasons they

Good article, thanks for posting. I didn't realize we had the 5th hardest remaining schedule, and the warriors have the 5th easiest. It's gonna be tough but I still think we can do it. If Jalen keeps playing like this we can beat anybody. Also, lol at this part -

 

Sengun will not be able to play like we’ve been playing very recently. It’s just too fast. But if he can speed up his actions a little, I think it’ll still work well. Sengun tends to be “too” patient with the ball. He catches it on the block and reads the defense a few seconds before even starting to back down his man. We need quick moves. Go right into your post or move the ball. Some of this can’t be avoided because he forces defenses to focus on him. But that’s when the other guys need to make hard cuts. They turn to look at Sengun, CUT! He willl find you.

 

Houston's playing style has changed drastically since Sengun went down. They jumped from 14th in pace for the season to fifth in the games they've played since his injury.
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Unpossible.

 

This article was published before the OKC game though. Yes, the Rockets have one of the hardest remaining schedules, but they also just won the toughest game in that schedule.

On the flipside, the Warriors just beat the Magic, so it's still gonna be tough to catch them.

 

I just think we're all gearing up to be disappointed, not that that is a really bad thing. It's nice to care about games for a change and have a chance.

I think the Rockets win 42 games and GSW wins 44. And that's with us beating them in our h to h coming up. We have a small chance if the good teams we are playing rest players before the playoffs but the playoff seedings seem pretty tight to me so I don't think we can count on that at all.

 

Hate to disagree with my fellow 03er, but I think we're all gearing up to be appointed!!

Spoiler

Go Rockets!!!
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Man, I hope so! It's fun again. I just don't want people to lose their minds if we come up short. The chance of making it looks long to me but I'd be happy to be wrong.

 

I know we all want to make the Play in, but ending the season over 0.500 was no where close to most people's realistic expectations for this year, and that is easily achievable now.

Plus no team over 0.500 has ever missed the play in, so there is no way anyone could have expected them to finish over 0.500 but still be the 11th team in the conference.

The season would be a success even if the Rockets are the first team over 0.500 to miss the play in.

Also I would point out that 2017-18 Nuggets are one of the most recent best team to miss the playoffs at 46-36 and also had a similar path with reasonable hot start, playing middling through the middle third of the season and then getting hot to end the year.

And that team model appears to be the one the Rockets are emulating.

 

Hmm... I guess that trio would be Jokic, Jamal, and Murray.

That means we have a foursome: Alperen, Jalen, Green, and Sengun.

 

Play-in or not, there is no reason to be disappointed in this season.

The future is bright.

 

That game against the Warriors on the 4th of April is for all the marbles.

 

I wish Adam Silver would ****ing focus on the issues that are broken. Any team that's over .500 that misses the play-in is absolute horseshit. I would argue that the play-in round should instead be the best bottom 4 teams that did not make the playoffs, this way we avoid these BS teams that shouldn't even be in the play-in. We need to get rid of this Eastern/Western conference idea. If starting times are the worry, then just have scheduler's worry about that ****.

 

Weirdly enough, the Dallas Mavericks may determine Houston's fate.

The Details: It's a tough schedule for the Mavs

They have won five in a row, dispatching Sacramento yesterday. They play the Kings again tomorrow on the road. Nothing like being stuck on Sacramento for multiple days.

After that miniseries concludes, the Mavs next game is at Houston on 3/31. Then they travel to GS on 4/2, Later that week on 4/5, the Mavs play GS again on Friday night in the second half of a back-to-back. (Atlanta comes to town for the Thursday game. At least both games are home for the Mavs); Houston, then, is their next opponent on April 7 (Sunday in Dallas).​

That stretch of games may determine everything.

I'm certain Mark Cuban has no interest in doing the Rockets any favors, but he's also committed to winning and blocking Golden State. What if the Mavericks throw their whole roster at GS and rehab a player or two against the Rockets? They will have a couple of chances.

It's happened once already. OKC had a back-to-back and 38 minutes by SGA, and we didn't want him mixing up with our young team.

 

And you couldn't do it just for the play in teams. It would need to be all playoff teams are reseeded no matter conference.

The issue is that it completely changes the landscape of the NBA and makes it hard/ impossible to compare current/future NBA playoffs to the past. Sure they have done that in the past, e.g. the 3 point line or the 24 second clock. I just don't know if it is that easy to do when flaws happen so infrequently (like once every 4-5 seasons) and never to one of the NBA's media darlings. Especially, when that is not a playoff model for any other major professional sports league in North America at this time.

The other alternative would be to make the play in tourney conference-agnostic, but then the No 1 and 2 seeds in both conferences choose their opponent based on record, and it can be any of the 4 teams that qualify.

I think that could be a neat way to balance things out without completely getting rid of conferences. But it also makes figuring out playoff match ups way too complicated for the average sports fan who doesn't really pay attention to the sport.

 

I think play in is just a bonus at this point I'm just happy Green popped off and Stone apparently drafted the 2 best players from 2021 draft.

It might arguably even be better to miss the playin we can end up with 2 lotto picks in the draft.

 

Yes the East/West thing is so dumb esp since East always ends up weak AF compared to the West. Like Rox only faced Wizards 2 times but faced Denver 4 times. What the heck is up with that?

 

This would be a start. It's not just because I'm a Rockets fan, but it's because it's a damn shame that we are going to miss out a good team play one extra game. The playoffs should be about competition and we should allow the best teams in. I wasn't a fan of the play-in, and honestly, I'm still not, but if we are going to have this bonus round, at least lets make sure the most competitive team makes it in.

 

5th Pro and Con:
Pro: Draymond Green can self-implode and cause GSW a game any given night.
Con: On paper we are a game behind, in reality we are two games behind since GSW already clinched the tie-breaker.