A realistic view of what this loss means for the series

Rust was not the only factor. As pointed out earlier there were other factors.

 

Will, your points in the thread's original post are SPOT ON! As much as it was painful to see the turnovers and dumb play, I think the thing that is MOST painful, that is most impactful, is the lack of leadership from this team when the tides were turning. That was SOOOO distressing! I can only hope it was a blip in the road, but it leaves me wondering.

There was a lot of talk about Harden stepping up his leadership over the summer with Team USA. I didn't see that tonight and it pains me.


P.S. On a side note, I almost feel the Rockets should set up a TV in the locker room and run the following footage on a loop
1) Doc talking to the crowd. "You're not crying now"
2) Clippers running around nailing 3's in the last 2 minutes sucking the life out of us.
3) The Clippers bench laughing at the end at the "pantsing" they gave us.

If that does not get your blood boiling...then you have no pulse.

 

Jordan Hamilton having the bench celebration of his life was especially awful.

 

If I am Doc Rivers, I don't play Chris Paul. In Doc's mind, he is thinking "we will win this series, and I need Chris Paul for the LONG VIEW." There is the Western Conference finals and the NBA Finals to contend with and I can't have Paul laboring against those GOOD teams. If Doc is confident in his team, he won't risk Paul when he already has pocket aces in Austin Rivers and Baby Davis....:-(

 

It would be real disappointing if they rest CP3 again and we lose game 2 .....

 

One small positive note. 9 of the last 10 NBA champions have lost a game by 19 points or more during the playoffs. Granted none of them were a game 1 at home with the other team's best player missing. But it is possible to overcome a bad loss.

 

I can't just accept this on its face. Hamstring's aren't daily injuries. They might result in someone being listed as day-to-day but what's the marginal improvement in 6 days rest vs 4 days rest? I've asked that a few times now. It just seems like conjecture to me. Is it "better" to have 6 vs 4, yes unequivocally it is. But if I'm Doc, I have to weigh it against how much better my odds are in game two with CP3 and the implications of what 2-0 does to this series. I can't just accept it on blind faith that it's a better risk/reward to rest him without any data to validate or substantiate whatsoever.

But the Rox can't. That has (IMO and subjective to be fair) to be a factor. 2-0 is the death-nail. It's the playoffs, why let your foot off an opponents throat? There are no second chances to go up 2-0. None. Those who can, slit throats; those who can't, pray that homecourt saves them.

Again, not trying to be a dick. How does 6 days make him "truly" recovered vs what 4 days would do. If it's anything like a serious hamstring injury then either 6 or 4 are both trivial. And, if it's not, then how much better is 6 vs 4?

I think this is a key issue at the heart of this. I don't think there's any way Doc takes a team which claimed #2 in the west - with half its starting lineup out (inclusive 1 superstar) - lightly. I don't think there's any way he figures the 2 extra days of rest for CP3 = we can move on to just thinking about the Warriors now. I'm not buying it. I might well be wrong. But it's statistically just not the right thing to do to look past #2 in the west who only needs to win 1/3 on your floor to reclaim homecourt.

Unfortunately, my reasoning is riddled with assumptions and subjective assessments. However I've seen nothing to counter which isn't built on a similar house of cards.

 

PBT Extra: Will Doc Rivers sit Chris Paul in Game 2?

After a surprising Game 1 win, it feels like the Clippers are playing with house money. Los Angeles earned at least a split on the road to start its second round series against Houston; the Clippers showed the toughness from the Spurs series that the Rockets were unprepared for (the Clippers are not the Mavericks).

So should Doc Rivers sit Chris Paul in Game 2? Should he give CP3’s strained hamstring more time to heal, as those are tricky injuries that can be easy to aggravate?

That’s what Jenna Corrado and I discuss in this latest PBT Extra. Personally, if he’s not 100 percent I would rest him again — make the Rockets prove they can stop the offense going through Blake Griffin first.

More than 24 hours before the game, CP3’s status remains a coin flip.

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Chris Paul's gonna play. They know they can basically end this series if they go up 2-0 on the road.

 

I still believe the Rockets can win the series but one thing has to happen. They have to stop hyperventilating and believe they can. That's what was went wrong in the first game. The Rockets were mesmerized the play of LA on TV in shock and they couldn't breathe. They sit around for 7 days watching the Clipper and Spurs go at it like Mayweather and Pacquio wish they could have.

They kept hearing this should be the championship series and that the winner would easily beat the Rockets. They tried to convince themselves that wasn't true and then the heard CP3 is out and they thought we got this.

Then the lights turned on. And the lights were too bright and as much as they all wanted to shine all they could not breathe. All the could do is hyperventilate. They all wanted to be heroes and none more than Harden who wanted to show he was robbed of MVP.

Unfortunately the opposite happened because winning in the playoffs is about confidence and breathing slowly. The more Harder harden tried the more Harden stopped breathing. 9 turnovers, and a whole lot of heroball.

So they hyperventilated on the sideline while Griffen find his mojo. And it didn't help that their coach was hyperventilating on the sideline. I never was a fan of McHale. Coaching is like anything else you need on the job experience to really be good at it. Some guys get it much quicker than others. McHale wa a little bit slower at it than some but he absolutely has improved. But now it's the playoffs and that takes a calming effect. When the team is hyperventilating it your job to be the rock on the sideline but McHale was hyperventilating too. As opposed to Doc Rivers who looked as calm as could be.

The Rockets can still win this but it won't happen if they keep hyperventilating and that starts with McHale. Smore a reefer Kevin, pop a qualoid , take some xanyx do whatever it takes to chill a bit and understand it's not always about energy the Rockets had too much of it in the first half and then used it all up by the second. You need to coach when to turn up the energy at the right times and put the players in there that can help the team calm done when they are hyperventilating

 

I thought the Clippers not playing Paul on one leg in Game 1 was a smart move. If you wanted to throw a game, you throw Game 1 on the road. I honestly thought they kind of gave up last night's game after a tough series and their engine banged up.

Well, what do you know. I guess the Clippers were as surprised as we did by how easily they not only won the game by utterly crushed us.

So I agree with you that they probably won't play Paul in Game 2 for similar reason they didn't play him last night only this time they feel even more secure.

 

Losing the first game at home is a very bad sign. But losing it without having faced Chris Paul is scary.

No one is betting on the Rockets. Maybe we have more than a 10% chance of winning this series, but it's not very high. We have to at least win once in LA and we have to win all 3 of our remaining home games. Is it doable? Yes. But not unless we play drastically differently.

 

Rust wasn't a factor. It's just a fan excuse. The Greyhounds came out running as always.

Not respecting an NBA defense and thinking you can make all those "Home Run" passes is what happened in the first quarter. Also can't believe how many dangerous skip passes they tried in half court.

It was like they were overconfident in that first Q and thought they could run the Clips off the court (and almost did), but had 7 first Q TOs, with several in transition for 4-pt turnarounds, to kill any energy they came out with.

Rust...smh. Just an excuse. In the first half, it was about going for Home Run passes and not respecting their opponents -- 11 TOs. And the 2nd half was about what Will said, this team has no Leader to settle down the wildness of the greyhounds.

 

I agree with this. I read it earlier and glad someone said it, but didn't respond. Idon't see the significant improvement, either I love Will's narratives, but this sounds like a superstitious fan to me trying to surround himself in the comfort of shared anger from all of us, and adding fire to the roast of the Rockets by scaring us with a Paul theory which really has no foundation in reality...just a speculating narrative

As Another Brother tells us before the Mavs series: You are not alone Will. I'm as pissed as I've been after a game in quite awhile. But like dream2clips says, the Paul rest thing sounds weird to me. Hamstrings don't work that way.

He'll likely be hobbling all series like Cassell did in 2004.

 

This part could very well be true. The part about how 2 more days of rest while fix Paul and he'll be 100%...not so true. If he can't be 100% by Wed, then this hamstring is likely something that won't be 100% in any playoff game this year.

 

The fact that he did not play Monday is a bad sign for him. Usually if you can't walk around the day after without pain you're in for a few weeks of recovery before putting much weight on it at least. If that's not the case, why did they hold him out of game 1, right?

 

LOL no he is not..

JJ is so much more efficient..47% FG compared to 39% for craw...

Also JJ is a better defender and just as good of a passer.

Jamal is a better ball handler no doubt, but other than that JJ is better in just about every aspect of the game including youth.

 

Yep x2 !!! What I watched last night made me sick in the stomach as the game went along and they kept doing the same stupid low BBIQ things over and over, the unforced errors and TO's were nauseating and A#1 at the head of that line was Harden. A number of times he didn't even bother trying to get back on D after turning the ball over with a careless stupid nonchalant pass, forced pass, and worst of all when he looked to give the ball up for a low % jumper vs taking the ball to the hoop and at least looking to make someone foul him.

Quite frankly I don't think as the OP stated that the Clippers took Harden out of the game, he did it to him self from what I saw all night. Just piss poor effort and focus and virtually NO heart or leadership from the guy last night period end of story.

 

Obviously, we have a different definitions of rust. You think that rust come from 6 days of sitting home and doing nothing. My definition of rust as I mentioned earlier comes from not competing on a high level for a while. I am sure that the Rockets practiced against each other to keep in shape but did not play against real competition and intense playoff situation like the Clippers did. So in that regard the Clippers had an advantage.