win some, lose some, part of the game. But limping into the playoffs is NOT the how to win championships. (rust sucks)
It works fine if you have an inside game you can also rely on and if you have quality 3-point shooters on your team. Unfortunately Dwight is inconsistent in the post, T-Jones and D-Mo are raw, and the 3-point shooting has been up and down all year. Some of that will improve over the next year or two as Morey completes the roster and the players gain more experience. What they need more than anything is a commitment to defense. That's how you win games on nights where you don't have it offensively.
That's flawed right there. You see, when we won championships, we had three-point shooters surrounding Hakeem the Dream Olajuwon. Now we have three-point jackers (CLANK!...THUD!....WHIFFFFF!) surrounding....well, Asik and DH12 (when he returns).
People really should not be freaking out over the Brooklyn loss. The Rockets were missing 3/5 of their starting lineup, including their best two defenders and both of their regular starting bigs. Not to mention they were playing the team that has been playing the best in the East for the last several months, and were doing so on the road. All that combined, and, if you ask me, I think they still would have won the game if DMo would have stopped picking up fouls. TJones will be back by the OKC game, Howard should be back before the Playoffs (and rested for them) and Beverley should be back for the 2nd round (also rested). The Rockets are not getting the 3rd seed, but I think they should hold onto the 4th seed, have homecourt against a relatively shaky Trailblazers team, and then be, hopefully, healthy going into the 2nd round against either the Spurs (who they match up well with) or some team that upset the Spurs in the 1st round (which would be freaking awesome). Overall, I still really like our chances of getting to the WCF, and from there, anything can happen.
The 3rd seed ain't happening and that's fine. But the 4th seed is what's now in doubt. It would be great if the Rockets could lock it up within the next couple weeks so they can rest their players and not have to rush Dwight or Bev back. But now it's starting to look like this could go down to the final week of the season which would be disastrous. And rest assured, the Rockets NEED home court advantage. No way do they wanna go on the road against Portland. They'd be the underdogs in that scenario and a first round loss would result in a wasted season.
We have the tie breaker and are 3 up in the loss column. There is no way we lose 4 more games than the Blazers the rest of the season. I am knocking on wood while typing this one handed (eww, sorry, that sounded gross), but there is no way we are going to lose the 4 seed.
Portland is on a 4-game hot streak against mostly mediocre and crappy teams, with Memphis the exception. Apart from that, they've been crap most of 2014. And even if they somehow pull off a miracle and pass us to grab the 4th spot, they're not going to beat us in a series, despite the home court advantage. Let's get our starters healthy in time for the playoffs. I couldn't care less if we hit a flat streak between now and then. This team, at full strength, will be dangerous when the time comes.
I hope you're right. Portland could very well not lose again this season. They have 3 tough opponents remaining, all at home: Phoenix, Golden State, and the LA Clippers. And those last 2 games could be meaningless for the Warriors and Clippers if their playoff seedings have already been determined, so don't assume the Blazers will have to try hard in order to win. As for the Rockets, if the Blazers go undefeated the rest of the way, you're telling me we can't lose tonight, at home against OKC, at either Denver or Minnesota next week, and at home against the Spurs or at New Orleans to close out the season? Especially with the players they're missing.
Portland has 6 games remaining, I'm 95% sure they wont win all of them. Even if they do worst case scenario we end up 5th, we should still be able to beat Portland in the first round. As for GSW they have 4 losses more than us, they got 9 games remaining n will probably lose at least 3, starting in SA. So all we need to do is win 5 games n no worries
Injury bug bit at the worst possible time. I just hope everybody is 100% for the playoffs and not too rusty. Also hope we hold onto 4th seed but it's going to be hard with as hot as Portland has been recently.
Man, a loss tonight makes us too snug with POR. Tough backend of 2 and we don't normally play well in TOR. Rockets need to raise up.
The rockets do not NEED homecourt advantage to beat the Blazers. It would help, but they should be able to beat them whether it's 3 games on the road or 4.
This team? They're gonna have a hard time winning in the first round if they have to go on the road. They're too young and inexperienced. Can you imagine relying on Lin, Casspi, or D-Mo to make plays in a Game 7 at Portland? It would be Dallas in 2005 all over again.
POR beating us to the 4th seed? So you're saying POR is going to sweep their last 6 games, notable games being against PHX, GSW and LAC...and then not only that, but HOU will then continue to lose 4 games (we own the head to head vs POR) out of our remaining 9, of which notable games only being OKC and SAS?
Just don't see the 1 game being that big of a deal. If it is then they aren't really contenders anyway and the 2nd round doesn't matter because they'll just get crushed anyway. If you were talking about jockeying for team matchups, then yeah that is a big deal. Much more important than that 1 game advantage is getting healthy and getting some sort of momentum and motivation going into the playoffs. if that results in home court advantage, then great.
