Problem is we beat the Spurs while they were missing a major piece. Kawhi Leonard will negate TJones and Dmo...
This team is young and we all know how Mchale feels about young teams. They're playing basketball, not chopping lumber. If anyone is hoping for rest for our starters heading into the playoffs, regardless of seeding, I wouldn't hold my breath.
I think trying to position the Rockets for certain matchups is a fools errand and overall may achieve minor rewards but at what cost? First, the Rockets most likely position is the 4th. The Clippers aren't letting up because they can gain 2nd round Homecourt by playing hard. And OKC/Spurs at this point is impossible to catch up. Second, no one knows who's going to get the 1st spot or the 5th spot. It's possible we get to 3 spot and get GSW and OKC in the first two rounds. In which case, what would be the point? And finally, and IMO the most important reason, Parsons and Harden have played way too many minutes so far and really can use rest. I'd rather have a rested team regardless of who we play. That's why IMO home court is all I care about. We're not getting 2nd round HC no matter what.
Except chances are come playoff time the Heat and Pacers will flip the switch and become the best 2 teams in the league again.
By the way the Rockets are playing, I'd really like it if they had HC advantage over at least one of the Heat or Pacers in the finals and it's very achievable.
I just want us to win our first round matchup. We have only won one playoff series in the last 15 years. Anything after that is just a bonus.
Please just avoid memphis in the first round! They can jump up to fifth with the way they've been playing. That's not a team anyone wants to face in the playoffs in the first round!
Don't be fooled by just the W-L record. Memphis have a big road to climb to overtake Portland. They have way too many Home Losses (HL) vs Portland and are tied in Road Wins (RW) vs them. Portland has a +10 RW-HL vs Memphis's +5. That's a huge margin to make up this late in the year. At the end of the year, the RW-HL differentiation mathematically match W-L playoff seeding. So, +5 difference is like being 5 games behind right now.
In years past I definitely have fretted about seeding, because getting to at least to the WCF would be definite progress, but with this team I just don't have that kind of mentality. Almost all NBA pundits are still saying the top 6 teams in the west can beat anybody, but we Rox fans overall just seem to be scared. We're scared of OKC & LAC since we're 0-6, but we're not afraid of the Spurs because we've really kicked their butts. The best way to look at it is just to beat everybody and win the whole damn thing. It would be a shock, but this team is really scary from the outside looking in.
other than memphis, golden state is hard to deal with too...their defense actually is pretty good, their offense can turn on at any moment with the splash brothers
