First off, I wish for Westbrook to have a speedy and full recovery after his knee surgery. He is a gifted and talented player. HAVING SAID THAT... Reggie Jackson and (especially) Derek Fisher are terrible terrible PGs. Lin and Beverly will be able to just demolish them. We can now double KD without worrying about another offensive playmaker. We saw how well the 2-3 zone worked last game when we stuck to it in the 2nd half. Harden knows he has an opportunity to really do something special. We can ****ing win this.
can't say i'm as optimistic as you. teams usually responds quite well after an injury to a major player because of the increased intensity and new lineups. even without westbrook, they are still a more talented team than us.
yanno...without RW it could be better for okc...durant gets more touches and better offensive decisions, who knows. Let's just hope for the best, I want a 7 game series cuz the day where it is the last one of the season is gonna be depressing.
I hope I'm wrong, but I voted no, because (1) OKC is up 2-0, (2) OKC has home-court and (3) teams generally find a way to rally for a few games once one of their players go down. Reggie Jackson is pretty solid, too.
The Rockets can just worry about the perimeter shooters/KD now, since the Thunder really have no players who can drive and score.
No, we can't. Durant is still Durant. They only need to win 2 of the next 5 games. And the Rockets are still very young and will likely make some mistakes this series.
I hate hate hate to see this kind of stuff as a fan, because you want the best teams out there. Losing Kobe, Rose, and Westbrook is going to taint this post-season even if everyone expects Miami to win anyway. Having said that, Houston went toe to toe with the Thunder Wednesday, and I still think it'll take a miracle to pull it out, but this evens the playing field somewhat. Feels pretty crappy to benefit from something like this. Hope it doesn't rattle Beverley. He's a great hardnose defender and he did his job.
Um, we have an injured Lin who cannot raise his arm to shoot. Plus Reggie Jackson is damn underrated. He could really shine in his new role now.
The Thunder are up 2-0...and usually a team responds after this kind of bad news...Game 3 could be bad news for OKC...but the truth of the matter is that without Westbrook, OKC is no longer the clear favorites to win the title...They could loose in the 2nd round... The Rockets have a chance because they still have talent, but expect the intensity of this series to pick up and look out for Durant and Ibaka to have monster games... PS. Recall the Bosh situation from last year...it forced James and Wade to play at a much higher level... Just remember...the ill advised shots that Westbrook would usually take is now eliminated, as Durant gets more of the volume... The Rockets need to let Durant go off...but make sure that no one else can contribute... I am sure that the THUNDER mgmt is really kicking themselves for letting Harden go...
It will be pretty demoralizing for the team imo if we can't win at least 1 game (at home) w/o Westbrook and get swept. Gotta win at least one.
I'd say there's a small chance we can still win this. The Thunder's offense relied so heavily on Westbrook running it that we could play a box and one and let everyone else try to beat us via threes and long jumpers.
Hold your horses dude. If anything, OKC has shown how much deeper they are than the Rockets. They are still more talented as a team even without Westbrook. Somebody please make an anti-jinx thread to counter this one.
Westbrook makes the Thunder go. I don't know if Rockets can win the series, but it just got alot more difficult for OKC. Let's hope rockets take advantage.
I still think Thunder will win series because of Durant. Losing Westbrook definitely hurts though. Rox however better make this a competitive series and still not get swept.
