But it is. I guarantee if you went to Vegas and wanted odds on the clips sweeping after the game 1 results, even if Paul were coming back, that it would have been very long odds. Rockets are a top team. Didn't lose 4 games in a row all season. 1 game is 1 game.
I was absolutely disgusted with the performance in Game 1. And I wasn't too happy with the 2nd quarter and beginning of the 3rd in Game 2. But teams can recover from embarrassing losses and even learn from them. The Clippers in their last series had one of the most pathetic outputs I've ever seen in the Game 3 loss. They literally did nothing right. And that was a night BTW where the Spurs' Big Three scored a total of 12 points combined, and LA was still down close to 40 points during the 2nd half! Yet they managed to bounce back and win in San Antonio less than 48 hours later in Game 4. There is nothing wrong with venting after the Game 1 loss. But I think at the same time a little perspective is important. That loss didn't mean the series was over. What it meant was that this Rockets team still has some maturing to do before they can truly be considered title contenders. I just hope that maturation occurs during this series and we're not stuck waiting another year for them to grow up and take that next step.
Playoff series are by definition small sample sizes of discrete points. There's no time for the law of averages to kick in. If Trevor Ariza shoots 7 games in a row poorly and 7 games in a row well in the season, it's probably okay over 82 games. In a playoff series, if he's in a slump and doesn't adjust to something more effective, he and the rest of aren't getting 7 games. If your team blows a playoff game due to circumstances entirely within their control, it's totally legitimate to get pissed off, because they just gave themselves a massive disadvantage towards winning 4 out of only 7 , now 6 remaining, games. Now it's not the end of the world, but this is the Rockets here. This isn't a team that occasionally has a collective brain fart for one game, then comes back and kills it in all the remaining games. I bet 95% of Clutchfans, even including the most positive ones, are at least a bit nervous at the beginning of ANY Rockets game wondering who is actually going to step for us that game so we can secure the win. A little fear and anger on the fans' part when the teams loses the most gimme game in a tough series is legitimate.
Wait, what? How is that irrational? How one loses a playoff game absolutely matters. Losing a close game with no injuries where it just came down to making a shot or not (i.e., Spurs vs. Clips Game 7), and using that as a reason why Rockets would lose the series is...irrational. Seeing how we got decimated by a team without CP3, playing terrible defense with no effort or energy after we had a lot of time off AND the team just seeming to lay down and quit? Then worrying about the series being over (as a sweep)? That's rational. It means you are ignoring defensive schemes, coaching, effort, focus, sheer talent of the other team vs. yours, plus a bunch of other factors. I feel people are confusing the words rational/irrational with probable/not probable...
