ClutchFans Game Thread: Rockets @ Kings 12/15/2013

These are the losses that will haunt this team at playoff time. You absolutely have to take care of business. You beat the lessor teams, with regularity, you just do it. No excuses.

 

working at 2AM. And it's Sunday of course.

 

Not according to some of these posters. It's OK to lose these games because the Heat does too

Keep this up and we're going to 2-peat like Miami

 

I would trust hardenisaboss here. He has little to do every day except cyberstalk possible Lin fans from mom's basement.

 

Prior to the season I pegged the Rockets as a 52-57 win team barring significant injury. 52-57 wins means you're going to have your fair share of losses. Some from upper echelon teams, some from middling and poor teams due to inconsistency. Given our 45 win season last year, similar to Morey I believed we would see an increase of 5ish wins just from age and experience. Adding Dwight bumps that number up around another 5-6 wins.

However, I believed they wouldn't hit their stride until post ASB since it simply takes time to learn all the offensive and defensive sets, as well as to build reasonable chemistry with your team mates. Especially when you have significant changes in the starting line up (like Dwight) and multiple role players added to the Roster (like Casspi and Aaron Brooks). This takes away from the win column a bit.

Let's also remember that this team is still quite young. Most of the roster is still growing and developing in terms of skill set and experience. Parsons today is not who Parsons will be next year. The same applies to TJones, Lin and pretty much every other player on the roster under the age of 27.

I also pegged them as most likely to be a 3-6 seed. The Rockets lack the institutional and individual experience of teams like the Spurs and OKC, as well as less talent than teams like Miami.

The original plan was always to get 3 All-star level players and build the roster around them. Asik was always going to be on the trade block to get an additional All Star or near All Star caliber player once we signed Dwight.

Since we do NOT have that 3rd player yet, and we're still building towards the final iteration of our truly competitive roster, I did not expect this to be a legitimate Championship contender. At best I would consider the Rockets to be a Dark horse.

Perhaps we'll trade for that 3rd player. Perhaps one of our existing players like Parsons, Lin or Tjones will develop into that player. However, until then this roster is far from ready or complete to compete consistently at the highest levels.

In other words, I expect the Rockets to flirt and possibly get Home Court Advantage. Depending on the match up I think they have a good chance of getting to the 2nd round, and an okay chance of getting to the WCF depending on their opponent. I put them at a smallish chance of getting out of the West, and a very small chance of them winning the Championship.

Just too many things would have to click to win a Championship. Very hard to do when the roster is young, inexperienced, and relatively new in key positions.

 

No. The biggest problem is H&H are both ISO players. I just don't understand if 1 ISO player bad for team, what makes 2 ISO players good for team? Has there any team with players who just ISO able to get to conference final?

 

Considering our injuries and the road trip and coaching situation I am not that disappointed.

Kings have some damn nice players actually and are tough at home. I thought we would go 1-2 on this trip but this would have been the win.

 

i'm 16, so yes from my mom's basement

:'(

 

This. And this wasn't even the kind of loss you can feel OK about, IMO. The excessive turnovers and abysmal FT shooting are pretty inexcusable. Those are two huge issues that have plagued us all season and can quickly send our record into the toilet.

I could be looking back through rose-colored glasses, but I don't recall us being so crap from the line last season.

ETA: I expected poor FT shooting from our bigs, but it seems like Harden/Lin/Bev/Chandler have all gotten worse since last year.

 

Lol! Sorry kid.

 

Exactly. I don't even mind losing at home to the Suns or on the road to the Kings if we can at least beat two of the others Utah and Philly on the road.

 

So a player must have the exact same to be considered injury prone? You're smarter than that... hopefully.

You conveniently bypassed the fact Lin got hurt last year and the year before. No surprise.

Parsons and Harden have been pretty stable their few years in the league, but if they continue to have injuries (regardless if it's recurring) I'll likely suggest they're injury prone too.

Oh my bad, I'm just a "2013er" so I can't say anything that can be construed as negative. Get real.

 

It is sad but by early in the game I know if they are going to lose. Same here. These are the loses that hurt.

 

Nobody is saying it is okay, we are looking at the bigger picture. The Champs have lost to lesser competition, it happens.

You are the problem, you lose your **** when the season doesn't go perfectly.

I reiterate this stat, we are 2-1 against the Spurs and Blazers (all on the road) and 1-2 against the Jazz and Kings (all on the road).

Also this game was the 3rd game in 4 nights and we know Sampson overplayed the starters in Portland. Lin is hurt again, Asik is sitting and the entire teams know a trade is going down.

The Western Conference is a tough conference, anybody can beat anybody on any given night.

Oh, and Mchale wasn't coaching. It is established that Sampson is much worse.

The team has basic flaws, that can beat us regardless of the opponent. Issues usually overlooked because our shooting overshadows them, at Harden bails us out. When it costs us we do the whole, well if we shot better thing.

The team is going to win games they should lose on paper and lose games they should win.

4th seed was always the ceiling this season and we are competing for it. If the playoffs started today the 6th seed and the 3rd seed will have the same chance at advancing. There isn't that much between the teams in our class out West.

 

Cant say I was surprised we lost, disappointed, but not surprised. It almost comical at time how easily the opposing teams gets to the basket when Dwight isn't in. Even when we had Chuck Hayes as our starter it didn't feel like teams were just waltzing to the basket.

 

In athletic terms, it has to be related injuries, IE in the same area of original injury, or directly/indirectly caused by the primary injury to be considered injury prone.

If you have a degenerative knee condition in the left knee, and you suffer reinjury to that same knee, that's a red flag.

If you have multiple injuries to the same knee, and that leads to right knee injury through overcompensation, that's a red flag.

If you have a stress injury to the left knee but an impact contusion to the shoulder, that's completely unrelated and considered random chance.

If you have a rotator cuff problem and suffer a meniscus tear from someone under cutting you, that's considered unrelated and random chance.

So, looking at Lin's injuries...

Left knee meniscus (surgery)
Chest contusion (impact injury)
Right knee grade 1 sprain and contusion (impact related, highly common)
Back spasms (impact injury)

All of the above are not directly related to each other.

The sprain occurred during a high impact knee on thigh collision with Paul Millsap. If the sprain had occurred without impact, it would be more concerning. That could point to the possibility of overcompensation on the non-surgical joint.

The chest contusion happened because someone hit his chest at high velocity with blunt force trauma. That injury will happen to anyone when they take an impact of that nature.

The back spasms are due to a high impact muscle injury from the Andrew Bogut screen -- a highly common injury in basketball.

The injuries are pretty much non-related in terms of there's no way to point to one injury and say it was a result of another injury.

If you were to argue a knee problem, it wouldn't be meniscus in one knee and ligament in the other knee unless it was due to compensation. That kind of injury would be more likely to be non-contact, ala Derrick Rose and his most recent meniscus tear when recovering from ACL surgery.

If it were a degenerative condition it would either be ligaments in both knees, or meniscus in both knees.

You're entitled to say things that are negative. Just don't be surprised if people challenge you if what you say doesn't make a lot of sense to them.

 

Too many irrelevant points, and things I wasn't disputing in this post. Not sure where to begin.

1) I never said it was a problem to lose games to lesser teams. It's a problem when you justify it by comparing yourself to proven teams. You're a new team trying to prove yourself - you don't get to point to happy endings and say that'll be us. A trend of losing to lottery teams is a problem

2) I never expected the season to go perfectly. Can you reference my post saying such a thing, and then define "perfectly" for me

3) 2-1 vs Spurs and Blazers. "All on the road?" You mean the entire two wins? Have to heard of sample sizes? I also told you 6-4 vs. winning teams

4) Western Conference tougher - very original. It seems you're generalizing to justify the loss. Are the Jazz and Kings also very tough?

5) McHale v. Sampson - I wasn't aware this was fact. Did the Rockets lose all other games that McHale wasn't coaching? Is McHale the difference between beating and losing to the Kings?

6) Teams have basic flows - no idea where this comes from. This isn't a profound insight that requires a scholar to conclude. Not sure what this has to do with anything.

7) Teams win and lose games. Yeah, so? Rockets are losing games they need to be winning and it's more important for them than it is for elite teams. As you can see, other long-time Rockets fans are concerned too.

8) 4th seed was "always the ceiling" - where did you come up with this? Who said I disagreed? What are you rambling about?

Please don't make another stupid post. Are you making up things to argue with yourself?

 

Houston v Chicago might be a bench wars game, 1 starter allowed handicap

 

I'm starting to despise Asik more and more since we could've used him but he's acting a pouty baby on the bench. You're going to get traded anyway you baby, just play ball like you're paid to.

 

You guys are just speaking from a recurring stand point. If a player is consistently injuried, they're injury prove. It's really isn't that difficult a concept.

Btw: I welcome all challenges

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And for everyone who wants to use MIA'S 1st season for the Rockets (lack of) chemistry justification, remember they introduced 2 main cogs, one of which was a primary ball handler (LeBron) in their mix... MUCH different than merely adding 1 big. We're simply losing games we should win. The fact there's multiple teams with much better records than us makes things look even worse. We KNOW we're behind yet STILL have lackluster efforts. It's not over yet , but damn. Leadership is highly questionable.