Here's the standing of Western Conference 2001/02 1 Sacramento 61-21 2 San Antonio 58-24 3 LA Lakers 58-24 4 Dallas 57-25 5 Minnesota 50-32 6 Portland 49-33 7 Seattle 45-37 8 Utah 44-38 2002/03 Dallas 31-7 Sacramento 29-10 San Antonio 25-14 Portland 23-14 Phoenix 25-16 Utah 23-15 Houston 23-15 Minnesota 21-18 LA Lakers 18-21 Seattle 17-21 We are on the pace to win 49.6 games. Although i dont think the remaining schedule will be in our favour, we can be no. 5 or no.6 seed in the playoff if we can fight hard enough. It means we would face SA, portland, phoenix or LA. I think we can be very competitive in these series except LA (if LA can fight back to take the No.3/4 seed, i think they will win the title again). So do you think we can keep the pace? Or what's the most important factors that we can keep the pace? I think it's a great success if we can proceed to the second round. GO ROCKETS
You are right. It s going to be interesting to see if we will keep up the pace. My heart says we can actually be better...though the head...well..I start scratching it. I agree that the schedule will get tougher (fewer games against East, where we are doing okay!!!, more away games where we are doing well again). We have far more weight on road games from now on..actually the next 6 weeks are brutal (with our key players wasting their energy in the ALL STAR stuff). We are also getting thinner on our bench, which means Boki could be playing soon!! Yao is looking more and more visibly tired. We need to slow his and Cat and Franchise's minutes. But the good news should be that our chemistry should be up. I am pleased with the way Posey trade is turning out. We are thin at PF, but barring a major injury to Eddie or MoT, we may last the season. Most importantly, we seem to be doing better against good teams.......so the tougher schedule will only get us better. The key challenges for us are winning aginst crappy teams (we have like lost some 4-5 games like that - LAC(2), MEM, ATL.) and hold good teams out in the WEST to .500 on road (which is real tough). I think we will also get some help from some other teams, like Sonics kinda of made it easiers for others to get ahead last few games. SO, in summary, while it will appear to be tougher for us from no0w on, I think we may have several ways to stay in the middle of the PLAYOFF hunt. Cheers.