I agree. We need to prove Barkley right (never thought I'd say that). The Clippers won game 1 of the 2nd round in OKC last year before losing the series 4-2.
what bonafide "true" superstar would let a meaningless MVP vote bring him down? If anything, it should fire them up...ala Hakeem.
What evidence do we have that we'll regroup? After a bad game 3 where we barely eeked out a win, the Rockets continued to play the same lazy, uninspired, undisciplined basketball. We lost game 4, and luckily the Mavs were too depleted to continue the series. 4 games in a row have been bad. None of the problems in those 4 games have been fixed. This team is not growing up in the playoffs and making adjustments. The effort tonight, and the fact that they can't make simple adjustments, goes to show that we will not make it out of the second round.
I hate it when ariza gets the ball and jack up a quick 3 or a dribble inside the arc for a quick 2 with 17 seconds on the clock left. Who does he think he is? Curry wanna be
Keys to game 2 - Harden needs to be more assertive if his team mates are not making shots - Cut down on turnovers, these weren't forced by the Clippers, they were just careless plays - Allow Blake to get his and be a one man show, too many guys went off against us. Matt Barnes, JJ Redick, Crawford and even Austin Rivers, all of them had excellent shooting games because they had open looks from downtown. - This all assumes CP3 doesn't play, if he does, we have a whole another set of problems.
This is our first home loss of the post season How many home losses do the Clippers have???? Rocket River Concerned but not worried
Rockets will win the series. Now they know they can't coast in the playoffs. This team thought they were the Warriors and started coasting. -_-
Gee I don't know, looks like we regrouped after the Spurs loss in nabbing the 2 seed. Looks like we regrouped after Dwight went down early. Looks like we regrouped when Bev got hurt. Looks like we regrouped when TJones and DMO went down. You can't look at this season in a vacuum, or let one game define the season. Was last night's game bad, demoralizing even? Sure. Absolutely. But to say this team has not regrouped post-adversity is simply ignorant. Whether we can regroup against a team like the LAC is a wholly separate question, but to imply this team has failed to regroup is LAUGHABLE.
Rockets had an ugly loss in the first round. Similar lackadaisical effort in that game as last nights. They responded well vs. the Mav's the next game, lets see how they respond vs LA. Or some of you can petition the league to make one bad loss equal 4 losses...
It is just one loss though. Let's wait and see how they respond the next game and the next next game.
it's reasonable for anyone who watched the game to think that. the question then becomes...was it an anomaly? or, we're we truly exposed for what we are? in the end, it's all a balancing act between good and bad. what was disheartening to me was inability to stop blake at all. he did whatever he wanted to do out there. so, we're supposed to not be able to stop cp and blake...and win? i don't think so! better hope those guys are off their games when they play.
Actually they didn't. Sure, they won Game 5 vs Dallas, but a lot of the issues that plagued the Rockets last night were also prevalent in the series clincher. They were careless with the ball. They bricked a lot of free throws. And Harden was passive and shot poorly. The reason we didn't see a similar collapse in that game was because T-Jones finally showed up in the last half of the 4th quarter, Harden made that last second 3 over Aminu, and the Rockets were going up against a tired, washed up Dirk at the PF instead of a dominating Blake Griffin. If you wanna cling to hope, the last time the Rockets played with so little heart was that game at New Orleans right after New Year's. McHale was similarly disgusted with his players in that one as he pulled all the starters early in the 3rd. And the Rockets responded the following night at home against Miami(back when they were still respectable before Bosh went down) and absolutely demolished them. We'll see if they can bounce back in similar fashion tomorrow in Game 2.
Retaking the 2 seed required help from the Spurs. Had they won against the Pelicans, we'd face a tougher opponent and likely get bounced in round 1 again. Can't use that as an example. The only 1st round teams we were favorites over were Dallas, Portland, and New Orleans. We regrouped when Dwight went down by focusing on defense. That defense is gone. We haven't really regrouped after Bev got hurt, it's just not as much a dropoff as other flaws we have. When TJones went down, DMo stepped up. When DMo went down, TJones has regressed. I'm not looking at one game. I'm looking at 4 games in the playoffs where our defense is lazy and the turnovers are unbearable. In the playoffs, problems have to be addressed by the next game or those problems will be taken advantage of. Dallas wasn't good enough to take advantage of it to win a series. A depleted Clippers team did last night.
What game was it in the Clips/Spurs series where absolutely everything went wrong for the Clips -- game 3? I mean, literally everything that could go wrong went wrong for them, and the Spurs dusted them. I wrote them off at that point and figured their Game 1 performance had been an anomaly, but they bounced back next game and never looked back. We are obviously two different teams, but my point is that I think we can regroup. Whether we will is a whole different story. I never doubted that the Clips really wanted it, and that's not something I can say about most of our guys after last night. ETA: I agree that we haven't been playing good basketball for like 4 games now.
This was a huge loss. Now CP3 doesn't have to play game 2 and they can go back home 1-1 with a rested CP3.
Duncan nailed it. Some of this is not a 'one game' issue. Some of this goes back to the Dallas series. Played 6 games so far. If you're saying 4 out of the 6 games, you're seeing [some of] the same things... If not now, when? Bad defense & 20+ turnover games, 1) that's inexcusable 2) tough to win that way.
