What bothers me the most is all these people saying a player from the opposing team was missing when we played tehm...yet how quickly they forget we are missing a pretty big piece as well. Let the critics talk...this is the week we shut them up. One game at a time.
Anyone should be surprised. Without Yao, pretty much every analyst was saying that the odds of losing any single game were 50% or higher. So at the minimum, the probability of winning 22 in a row with a 0.5 probability of winning each game is 0.5^22 or 0.0000002384 (~1 in 4 million). Anyone who isn't surprised by this is delusional or just flat out lying.
I've had a few people enlighten me on the fact Kelly Dwyer is a respected columnist. Fair enough. All I know about him is the article that was posted here. Let me try and be a little more specific and enlightening in the ways that I disagree with this article. I disagree first of all with the premise -- that this streak is unsurprising. Secondly, I disagree with the notion that Rockets' streak, while impressive, does not (for whatever reason) reflect the fact that Houston is a good team. The first point I feel is a matter of opinion, and while I believe that anyone is surprised, I will leave alone. The second point is one that the entire media world is making with articles in similar veins as the Dwyer article. I simply don't understand what this team has to do to impress people. If winning games is not the key to success -- however you define that -- I don't know what is. Whether your definition of success is getting out of the first round, going to the conference finals, or winning it all -- it doesn't matter. While there are many things that correlate with success (again, define it as you like) for a sports team, I can guarantee that winning correlates the best with your definition of success. Read that again: Winning correlates best with success. This is not a provocative statement, yet I'm having to make it. I understand that there's subtleties about the sample size of the Rockets' recent streak, and that the playoffs involve playing unusually high-quality teams, but I refuse to let it be a foregone conclusion, as Dwyer does, that the Rockets will fail in the playoffs. I hope this helps clear up my position. I also have to say that the Dwyer piece is far from being the most egregious in denigrating the Rockets (see ESPN circa 2 weeks ago) and also was a good read.
This is getting very common this day. This is a form of apology for the doubters, hating to admit their mistake and feeling the urge to justify their stupidity.
I just saw this thread, so pardon the bump. I have to make the reply quick, but I felt I needed to reply: I'm so stuck in the middle of this season, watching these games, going over things, that context is absolutely out the window. Because I write these game recaps, I'm so focused on what's happening that exact night, that I don't have time to step back and go, "whoa, 22 straight?" So every win that came during that streak, with or without the Big Fella ... they all made sense. The big wins, and the smaller wins, they all made sense. Because I take on each particular game as each particular game, the streak never bowled me over. It was just, "Rockets force CP-3 to be a scorer, get out on shooters, don't send them to the line, T-Mac goes for 41 ... yeah, that makes sense? Why wouldn't it?" I just truly took it game by game, like I do all these teams, and when you remove yourself from the overall context of 22-freakin'-straight (like I had to, not on purpose, it just happens that way in the life I've chosen), it doesn't seem at all surprising. I'll leave it to other scribes to talk about how brilliant the streak was in the context of the current league or NBA history, my job is to tell people why the Rockets beat the Pacers. Simple as that.
Always good to see you hanginging with us, Kelly... I was perfectly happy with the aforesaid article. As satisfying as the streak was, I can appreciate your perspective. What I wonder is can it "make sense" for the Rockets to win game-to-game again in the playoffs? The drop-off since the streak was predictable! My hope is that this is a convenient and essentially necessary swoon in prep for a strong, albeit unlikely, run in the playoffs.
