And that will continue! Dallas playing great (team) basketball. Think they'll go 15-5ish over their first 20.
this is frustrating think of what the rockets could do with a coach that had half the brains of carlisle
Let's look a little deeper yet. Dallas is shooting significantly higher from 10-20 feet than anyone in the league did the last 2 seasons. It's likely that they won't be able to sustain that pace, either. As for the downfall of the Rockets offense, we have gone from 2nd in the league in FG made inside 8 feet to 17th. Basically we have taken some of the shots we used to shoot at the basket last year, and are now shooting them from 3 point range.
Do you remember that the Rockets were without Jones/Howard/Beverly against the Warriors? You seem to be counting that loss and not the Spurs win which is puzzling to me. .500 against playoff teams is a excellent record though, if they keep that up they will be 1-3 seed in the west as long as they continue to beat bad teams (Still undefeated against non-playoff teams) Seems no natter how you try to spin it, the Rockets have more good than bad going on for them throughout the first 11 games.
How does winning half the games against playoffs team make you a 1-3 seed in the West? If you play with a group and win half of the games, that means you are in the middle of the pack. Being in the middle of 16 playoffs teams means about 5-7 seed in the West. Anyway, I am not trying to use the .500 to predict. You are the one who try to use the first 11 games to say that we are good. I am just pointing out that the good record was against weak opponents. And I am not spinning. Do you disagree that it is too early to say whether the 3 bad games were "just a cold stretch" or some kind of a trend?
Last year, going into Feb, the Spurs were 1-10 against playoff teams in the west. What else did they do? They beat up on average and bad teams all year long. That is the key to getting a top seed, it's not a secret. It's very difficult to come out of the year with a really good record against really good teams and considering all the variables of a regular season (whose playing, was it a b2b...) splitting even against playoff teams would give the record a phenomenal record, figuring in if they continued to dominate the lesser teams. I say it is a trend once again because they have played more good games than bad. The bad games they played all come in a stretch of 4 games in 6 nights. You think that has 0 effect?
We will see if the Mavs can stay healthy. Tyson Chandler hasn't missed any games yet, but he has averaged 20.4 missed games per season over the last 5 years. Dirk only missed 2 games last year, but missed 29 the year before and 20 the year before that. Jameer Nelson has averaged 21.66 games missed per season over the last 3 years. A healthy Dallas team is a threat, but recent history suggests that one or more of their starters will miss 20+ games this year.
Dirk only missed 2 games last year, but missed 29 the year before and 4 the year before that. 62 played games in a lockout season doesnt mean he missed 20 games since only 66 have been played. 35 missed games in 3 years, only one injury in that time. Wouldnt call that injury prone.
You are correct, I forgot about the lockout. Even considering the strike year though, Tyson Chandler has been injury prone. 45 games in 08-09, 51 games in 09-10, managed to stay healthy for the Dallas championship season playing 74 games, and his first year with the Knicks playing 62 out 66, then 66 games and 55 games the last 2 years. If he misses significant time again this year their defense will really take a hit.
You are absolutely right, if Chandler misses more than 10 (20 worst case) games Dallas will have problems, if he's out during the playoffs they can basically just stay home. But other than that I dont think they have to be too worried about injuries regarding their other startes (history wise). And although Nelson is the starting point guard Harris gets more playing time and could replace him easily, Barea/Felton would be solid backups as well (Felton if he doesnt play like last year). They can definitely not have any success without Tyson Chandler though.
I can imagine what if things..swapped Couch Carlisle will lead us to a champion Then brilliant Cuban will dismantle the team..he might send Dwight to NY :]
At the same time, Dallas won't be seeing the likes of the Sixers, Jazz, or Hornets in the playoffs. They are a veteran-heavy team, so they are what they are. They will beat easily the teams they are better than, but they won't have that extra gear that young erratic teams do to sometimes pull off the surprise upset. They will perform just as expected, which is about the 8th seed so far this year.
San Antonio can afford to coast in the regular season because they are perennial attendees of Finals/Conference Finals games over the past decade plus. No one else can compares themselves to San Antonio.
Haven't been watching them, but I'll assume this involves a lot of lob passes to Chandler... That's probably the only thing I miss about Parsons. He looked for the lob and was getting good at it with Dwight. There no reason why we can't have a couple every game. Chandler isn't Chris Paul. Papa, Trevor, Harden, etc..they should be looking to fake the three and lob it more often. Our guys should be able to do it too..
