Obviously this series is far from over so I've been ignoring the knee-jerk reactions from angry Rockets fans (not that I'm not angry myself). I believe there are losses that cut so deep that the wound will always be there. The best of us use that wound to remind us how strong we need to be to survive our losses and come back and win. Our loss to the Mavs was not one of those games. But I think our loss to the Clippers might have been. It was such a letdown with the CP hammy narrative (which the TNT commentators mentioned seemingly on every Clippers possession) and so many taking the Clippers immediately after their G7 win but flipping their choices when finding out CP3 would miss G1 of our series. What I'm trying to say is some people get back up after a hard fall. They learn, adjust and come back with a different attitude. The question is are our leaders good enough to lift this team back up and change their attitude? I believe so. Bit if I'm wrong, I don't think it will take too many more losses for this core group to learn. Unfortunately, you're only allowed so many losses in one postseason. But again, I think this may have been the loss we needed to get back up from.
Eh. Idk. When I see our three stars playing with mental toughness and not complaining after calls when things don't go their way, then I'll know they truly got stronger. Otherwise, just same old young and inconsistent and/or mentally weak Rox.
This is about the same pressure and hate LeBron got when he was down 3-2 against the the Celtics in 2012. Series is over. Bron is a choker. Hell never win a chip. If this doesn't cause Harden to have a legendary game tomorrow then we are truly ****ed. Harden is a mental midget. We need to win. And no more of this 1st half dominance and 2nd half disappearance bs. We need a dominant full game.
It was a wake up call, plain and simple. They got an easy opponent in the first round, who they could toy with because of their athletic advantage. that made them believe they were playing better than they were. The fact that they didn't sweep Dallas, should of worried people some, but i guess we were just happy to win a series again. Clippers just beat a historic team..you dont do that with just CP, so rockets should have known the rest of the guys were coming in rolling and with a ton of confidence. Horrible job of knowing your opponent and what they've done recently.
This! This kind of game can only go in two directions. But you have to want to use it as fuel instead of just calling it a day.
Getting kicked in the teeth can make you stronger. In fact, it's necessary for most players to learn how to win. I wish I could say that last night will help this team, but they full-on quit. When Jordan was getting beat by the Celtics and Pistons early in his career, I don't remember any of his teams just plain quitting. Harden has a pattern now of letting things get in head and letting it affect his play. If he's truly an MVP candidate and if he's truly the lead dog to win a title, he needs to figure out how to overcome that. Not sure if he has the mental makeup to do it, but he is not yet in his prime. But so far....his track record of disappearing in big games is not good. If Dwight is supposed to be the lead dog, then we all need to get comfortable not winning title. While he's big and athletic, his overall basketball skills are subpar. For this team as constructed, it has to be Harden. It's on him to lead the team.
Harden's teammates didn't exactly pick him up. LA was doubling him pretty hard. It's going to be up the rest of the guys to take and make the open shots Harden sets up.
How many "wake up calls" does one team need? The biggest issue with this team is NOTHING ever changes. I don't know if its because they don't care, dont have the ability to adjust ( highly doubtful) or they are just really stupid. Starting to think it's the later. Just like we have all season we turn the ball over way to much, come out extremely flat in games, have Harden completeley dissapear, have terrible rotations and awful transition D. If we didn't fix the problem after the Dallas series we never will. We are a good regular season team but just don't have the smarts or effort to be a legit team on the playoffs.
Dear God, Sephkane, you will fart anything out of your mouth. It was a terrible loss. And, Blake Griffin is the best player in the NBA right now. The outlook is rather bleak.
