This will determine the series. I know Griffin / Jordan and Duncan / Splitter/Baynes/Diaw are going to be trouble up front, but we don't have **** at point guard (unless Bev comes back during the latter part of this series). So.....who would you want to face that would give us a fighting chance in the series?
Much rather take Parker..We do not match up well against the Clippers at all..Cliff always murders us..
Regardless of PG, I'd rather play the Clips because Pops is going to hack-the-hell out of Howard the entire series if what he is doing to the Clips is any indication.
Parker. Paul is a Rocket-killer on his own, and he plays like a man possessed. He'll do whatever he needs to take us apart. Towards the end of the game last night, he ran that Clippers offense back to within a hair's width of winning, whereas the Spurs simply endured like they always do. Also, the scariest guy on the Spurs is freakin' Diaw, not any of the others, in my opinion. Go look at that shot he made last night where he saw the shot clock at the OTHER end of the floor with one second left, turns 180, and drains it. We should be more worried about him killing us at the end of games than Parker.
Any team going forward is going to employ that strategy against us. Now, the Spurs have proven that they can make it actually work against us, but on any particular night, it may not work if our bigs make their free throws. The Clips being an equally-bad free throw shooting team doesn't take the hack method off the table, because it does more than just potentially chip away at leads and get the ball out of certain hands. It destroys momentum, kills the crowd, and gets in our guys' heads, and I'm sure every team is aware that the Rockets live and die by their emotions on the court. No matter who we play, we're going to get hacked, so our bigs need to just go to their happy place and make their free throws.
Emoji gun to my head, Parker. CP3 is just too, too good, and Parker still looks kinda gimpy. Then again, Patty Mills is a Thing. We're very likely in trouble either way.
I'd rather face the known playoff choker in Chris Paul, but that seems unlikely because he is gonna lose in the playoffs again
Parker has not been playing well at all. Mills on the other hand.... But still, I would much rather face that tandem than CP3. He's doing everything possible to keep the Clips in this series
Rivers can/would hack also. They just have DJ to worry about. We have 3 players that can be really bad from the line on a given night.
The hack a Shaq scheme will stop us from beating the spurs. Better to beat the Clippers in a fair game.
