This is very understandable, but I want those teams to be more scared of my team. If you want to be the best, then you have to beat the best. While certain teams I wouldn't mind avoiding, we have to deal with the cards we were handed. I still remember the Jazz days (recent ones) with Boozer and Okur.. We were the better team, but had the unfavorable matchup. Still.. I believe we can beat any team when we play like we're supposed to play.
It's not about fearing anyone it's about reality. I don't want to play Memphis or OKC any sooner than we have to
There are a few teams I wouldn't want to face in the first round. The Spurs - Play off and regular season Spurs are completely different beasts. Peak Spurs offense is essentially impossible to defend. Memphis - Brutally physical match up. Even if you win, you lose as you're exhausted in the next series. Just ask OKC. Clippers - Worst of the roster match ups. OKC - Worst of the potential low seeds. Home court level talent that will make someone's first round a living hell. The rest of the West is tough, but I'll take my chances against them in a first round match up. GSW is the toughest of them right now, but we've historically done well against them. The Rockets always play Dallas tough. Portland and Phoenix don't scare me in the slightest. Neither are guaranteed wins but neither are deep or very play off experienced. Our best bet is get a top 4 seed, try to avoid OKC, and let the chips fall where they may.
eventually in the playoffs we would have to play teams like okc, clippers and memphis. i would rather play them later than earlier. if some of them gets knocked out earlier then the better for us. i do not wanna face okc or the clippers in first round. ill take spurs, grizzlies, warriors, mavs, blazers or suns in the first round. and i think this year it seems like we want it more than we did last year
Yes. Get the top seed and send them home early. But I don't think we'll get the top spot and I don't think okc makes it in.
I've always believed that by avoiding a certain matchup in the playoffs, you've already accepted that you're the 2nd,3rd,8th best team in the tournament! Playing b-ball at the NBA level is all about confidence, it's called a "Winning Mentality"! You can have the best players on you team, but if you don't have that winning mentality, you will eventually find ways to lose! This Rockets team IMO has shown a winning mentality! In spite of all the injuries, they've bought into the next man up concept , which has translated to a stellar 16-4 record in the western conference!...:grin: GO ROCKETS!!! ....... ....... .......
IF we're strong enough to be one at the end of the season, it almost doesn't matter who we play...That's a healthy Rockets team we're talking about ...likely with additions.
But being the first seed could give the Rockets the benefit of playing weaker competition in the first 2 rounds. If they got the Suns or Kings in Round 1, they'd have to try to lose that series. Then in Round 2, what if they faced Portland or Dallas? You'd favor them in those matchups. Then all that's left is one really good team standing between them and the Finals(where I'd pick them over anyone from the East).
I prefer to think of the play offs as a marathon. To do well in a Marathon you have to pace yourself. You need to conserve energy at the right times and push yourself to the limits at others. Given a choice, I would rather expend less energy early and more energy late especially if its going to work against opposition down the road. For example, the Clippers and OKC's main advantages over the Rockets are their speed, jump shooting and athleticism. Let's think about this as if we were about to engage in an actual fight. If you were going to fight someone who is speedy and athletic, what is your best strategy? You would want them to expend much of that energy early. You would want to grapple them, keep them on the ground, and have them expend their energy up front so that your conditioning and skill would be more of a factor. You would want them to punch themselves out of the game or expend their energy trying to keep you off their back. The NBA equivalent of this would be to let them take on tough match ups early. Let OKC and the Clippers fight Memphis in a bruising series, or GSW in a track meet, or chase the Spurs ball movement for rotation after rotation. Then, even if OKC or the Clippers make it out of the first round you've reduced their innate physical advantages and made your physicality, defense and endurance more valuable. I look at it this way. We aren't going to beat OKC or the Clippers in a sprint, but we can beat them in a marathon. The longer the series and the deeper in the play offs that we go the greater our advantage when playing against OKC or the Clippers. That's assuming they don't get eliminated completely and have us facing a better match up. Lions who take on the healthy aren't strong, they're stupid and starving. Lions who pick off the stragglers aren't losers, they're well fed.
yeah thats what i meant. i have no problem being 1st seed but if that means facing okc then i would rather be 2nd seed. just because you want to prove you are the best team in the league doesnt mean you have to face the second best team in the first round. but yeah i agree with you... i want rockets to be first seed if they are playing suns or kings first round and play mavs or blazers second round. just saying we should avoid okc and clippers for as long as we could. but being 1st seed is more of a pipe dream for us lol
If you think the Clippers advantage is speed and athleticism, i'm not sure what to tell you, we are athletically better than them at 4 of the 5 positions. Their lack of athleticism is precisely why they struggle against San Antonio (and why we don't), where we struggled is they, or should i say chris paul put bev in foul trouble every single time, and griffin does whatever the hell he likes, so they're able to leverage their positional advantages a lot better than we are.
At some point this organization needs to truly exorcise the first round demons. Beating OKC would definitely do that.
