With the loss, SA is barely in the playoffs. I am amazed at how "close" the elite eight are this year.
I remember how i used to stay up at night just to go to the clutchfans chat to follow the pbp from some members (i think codell did them often). Of was the only wat for me to follow the games live.
Okay, now that I've come off my high from the win, a couple of issues I had with this game: * PJ is blameless in my eyes. Stellar defense, and he was working overtime to clean up the mistakes of our perimeter defenders. He went to the back to check on his foot, came back and played like Ultron down the stretch. He and Harden saved this game for us. Anytime they came off the floor our defense and offense respectively suffered. - For me, Clint will get some partial blame, though he redeemed himself in the end. When we were struggling to keep the Spurs at bay he made some costly mistakes on the offensive end that helped to swing the momentum in favor of the Spurs. Capela has been very good all year around the basket. He was making too many mental mistakes last night. He just needed to be patient, let the defender fly by, then go up, or draw contact when going up instead of being cleanly stripped/blocked. His rebounding was crucial though, so I'm relatively content with his performance. -Gordon: .... Between him and Chris I don't know who I was more sour on. EG has been typically very productive in games where he's coming off rest. I don't know what happened to him. He made some important shots when we were trying to keep the Spurs at bay, but he disappeared when we lost the lead and desperately needed to come back. Like everyone else, though, he locked in on defense in those last couple of minutes... but only after Harden had gifted them a comfortable lead. -Chris: he had 18, but I barely felt his imprint on this game. He came out kind of hot in the beginning of the third quarter, but quickly vanished from there. The team as a whole only had 12 assists in the game. I get that you won't receive an assist if your teammate doesn't hit the shot, but I've always looked to Chris as our guy that gets everyone else hot. And he failed. 5 assists will not cut it. House: Every player will have that game where they can't hit anything from behind the arc, and that's ok. This was that game for House. The problem with his play tonight is that we didn't see any of the usual things that dazzle us about him. His ability to create his own shot, drive to the hole and score or draw the foul, drive and kick out to an open player. He played really shaky last night. I fell off my couch with that pass that he fumbled to James that became a turnover late in the 4th. I hope he can collect himself soon, these last couple of games of the season are only going to be more difficult and mentally taxing. I think I agree with @adw- if I'm James's teammate I'm feeling like a d***, and not happy with the way we had to get that win. One game of hero-ball this late in the season... ok, I'll call that a glitch. But 2 games in a row? We are way too close to playoff time to be relying on a one-man show to get us wins. Like Kobe said, we can't win a ring that way. Also, CF told me I didn't have anything to worry about if we faced the Spurs in the first round. CF lied to me. Everytime @ him if you're real. @BasketMAD Thirst trappin'.
Not really wanting to face the Spurs in the 1st round. They are too robotic and their system will always keep them in the game no matter the scoreboard.
Harden was averaging 24 points against the Spurs until this unbelievable 61 point game. A couple of the 3 points were worth 4 points. The rest of the guys definitely need to step up. We are missing Faried's energy imho.
What an awe inspiring game from James Harden last night. Incredible. Kudos to PJ Tucker on defense, particularly late. Disappointed in the supporting cast in this HOME game. C'mon guys.
You must have overseen the 39 pt game. Harden was averaging 29 ppg. And his low game of 23 was a 31 pt blowout, only 27 minutes, and a blazing +33 +/-...in other words, more that +1 per minute. and note: Against SAS/Popovich, Pops will alter defense vs Harden, and the effect is often Capela will be the recipient of many oops in games Pops sticks to the perimeter, and Harden/Capela will have lessor FGA games when he clogs the lane and plays zone. The 23 point game on 27minutes and 31 pt blowout, indeed, Capela was 12-16 and 27 points in 29 minutes. Our one loss was a very weird statistical game. We had 16 more FGAs (90 to 74) and 2 more FTA, yet lost. Amazing game of low TOs vs forcing SAS turnovers, winning the rebounding battle, yet we lost. Those stats of significantly more FGAs on same FTAs very rarely produces a Rockets loss. The entire team just had a shockingly poor shooting night. In fact, it's the only loss in 8 YEARS by the Rockets with 16+ FGA net and 2+ FTA net. If you drop the FTA desparity down to -4 NET, there is just one more game in 8yrs Due to our prolific 3pt shooting, you just can't let us have that many more shots
Rockets rested Eric Gordon in the MEM game. Hemorrhaged a loss in their quest for the 3 seed to elevate their chances in the playoffs. *Rested* Gordon was pretty meh in the SAS game. 4-13 from the floor in 38 minutes. Rest doesn't guarantee anything.
@Deuce Is Faried injured again? Rivers needs to shoot a lot better, but his defense is important. I too was very disappointed in everyone else apart from CP3.
Faried is ok. Apparently MDA is just tinkering with rotations and Rivers and Faried didn't get minutes. MDA wants a 9 Man rotation and some guys won't get to play. Looks like the guys at the end of the rotation will see minutes on a "matchup basis" nightly.
I think rest is misunderstood. People have this arcane belief in it like the coaches know best and its good to just do it arbitrarily. BS. These are world class athletes that practically have PhDs at this point when it comes to conditioning and knowing their body. I think you need to let the player let you know how they feel and move from there with regards to fitness and appropriate rest. CP3 may need low minutes on a B2B but he needs to keep playing to protect his hamstrings. It's a catch 22. Harden doesn't handle rest well. He gets rusty and because he doesn't practice and uses off time to rest and work out to maintain stamina I think that proves that they have their motors dialed in properly. When you play a grueling 82 game season practice is kind of BS. It's like warming up in baseball with 162 games where you have a shootaround before the game. It's just playing by feel. You play so much you know every variation of a play and you love the game you watch so much of it that you know what everyone does and how to counter.
Rest doesn't guarantee you'll play well.... it guarantees fatigue isn't the excuse you didn't play well.
