Face it, folks, the Clippers are just better at NBA than the Rockets are

I agree with this post.

I'm also not sold on the narrative that we basically lulled the Clippers to sleep by quitting for three games in the series. So when we decided to "stop quitting" they weren't prepared for it and crumbled in game 6.

The Rockets at their best are a very dangerous team.

 

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Emergency Clips-themed Lowe Post podcast w/ <a href="https://twitter.com/ramonashelburne">@ramonashelburne</a> aka &quot;Mo-Mo&quot; <a href="http://t.co/75VfSOxowB">http://t.co/75VfSOxowB</a></p>&mdash; Zach Lowe (@ZachLowe_NBA) <a href="https://twitter.com/ZachLowe_NBA/status/600375631415791618">May 18, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

Lowe: I think the Clippers are better than the Rockets. They're a better team.

Ramona: I still do Zach! I still think the Clippers are better. If you polled people, we're not in the minority there. The Clippers should have won the series. They were more talented and better. Not deeper.

Lowe: The Clippers played like a weary and tired team. Maybe so disappointed with themselves. If you bring up the fact, game two against the Spurs where Blake had the turnover late, they said Blake was tired and he has to do so much. Yesterday, it was you can't use fatigue as an excuse because they were up 19 in game six. All can be true: Houston played fantastic after game four and the Clippers played horribly and choked under pressure. The fact they were exhausted has some percentage of blame they choked under pressure. You tweeted the word exhaustion was being bandied about.

Ramona: A lot of guys were saying that privately. You see it. Griffin and Paul had to be awesome every minute to beat the Spurs. It took a toll on them. When Blake had his turnovers in the 4th, it's because he's tired. He's trying too hard. When you're carrying a team on your back... I caight Blake & DeAndre after the game. Blake won't make excuses but I said "You guys look exhausted." He said "I've never been so tired in my whole life." They didn't lose because they were tired but it was a contributing factor. When you look at it, that's the roster. Your backup bigs are Big Baby and Hawes. That won't work in a series like this. Two seven-game series wears on you. ... Every game you don't close out gets harder. It weighs on you. So does fatigue. No coincidence it looks like they hit a wall in game 7.

Lowe: A lot fired back at me "Everyone is tired." Right. If everyone is tired, that's why you need more than 6 players. The Clippers don't have guys. That doesn't mean they also didn't quake under pressure in game six. That doesn't mean they also didn't take game seven with dead legs. I love Redick but how many dumb ass plays did he make? It's a running joke, Pablo Prigioni tries to steal every inbound pass. That's his best NBA skill.

Ramona: ... When you're fatigued mentally and physically, you don't react the way you want to react. Things like that happen. Redick had 5 turnovers. He's a smart player. His shots? Way short.

...

Lowe: They're well prepared and knew Prigioni's habits. .... They came out flat yesterday. I can't remember a playoff series that is more shocking to me, and I picked Rockets in 7. When it was 3-1, it wasn't so much about the Clippers, it looked like the Rockets had given up. Never in a million years did I see this coming.

Ramona: ... Pressure & fatigued mounted. ... Harden hadn't had a good game. First 4 games, I didn't see James Harden. He looked passive. He would not drive in with DeAndre. He'd kick it out. Plus having Redick as a defender, ...he looked off his game. He eventually found it. Rockets hung in there and extended the series. You let a team breathe, they wake up.

Lowe: Glad you credited Harden. Clippers normally play a hyperactive defense where the big jumps out far on PnR and they dialed that back specifically for Harden. The guy guarding the screener would hang around the elbow. Harden didn't seem comfortable attacking that. Game 5, he started to put his head down and saw if he could get to the rim and foul shots. He was able to find a better balance. He played a brilliant last 3 games. The irony is he was on the bench in the 4th Q when they rallied. ... HCA is huge. The only reason Houston had it is because they won a fake division that shouldn't exist. This will come up.

Ramona: ... If we didn't have division champions getting artificial advantages, we would have had a better and more balanced first round. It all would have been different.

 

How does this Herrera dude have so much rep with garbage threads like this???

 

unlike football, bball playoffs are all 7-game series as opposed to a single game. this takes most of the randomness out of the competition. so whoever wins in the end and in whatever fashion, the victor is proven t/b a better team - for the series at least.

so no, i dont buy the notion that a losing team can be considered better. on paper, maybe. in the real world, heck no. and this doesnt only apply to the rockets-clips series.

 

I like what you said. I like how we have constantly morphed during the regular season and in the playoffs. This means that we are not a static team. Mchale may not call plays but definitely adjusts with the lineup. We are built for the long-haul and there is still a long way to go to the championship.

 

I'm sorry. This is so incredibly dumb.

Rockets had the exact same record as the Clippers. Whatever deciding factor you have towards defining one playoff seed over the other is always going to be arbitrary to some extent.

It's never going to be a perfect criterion.

Additionally, the Rockets won arguably the best division in basketball history to get to the top of their division.

I usually like Lowe, but that is one of the dumbest things he's said. It's not going to come up whatsoever, you schmuck. All 5 teams in that division made the playoffs. To be at the top of it is a feat in itself. Give the Rockets some credit and move on with your life.

 

Will ... c'mon man
I thought you were against name-calling and all that
I'm not making fun of your reading comprehension skills or anything personal like that ... just asking why you still insist 1 NBA team is better than the team that just embarrassed them 3 straight games

I'm trying to understand what you wrote, but sometimes it's hard:
doesn't 'play harder' mean the exact same thing as 'stop quitting'?
Maybe I misunderstood, but those are your words, and you seem to be equating them as opposing when I understand them to be similar

 

I feel like people forget that the Rockets won their division and are the 2 seed in an awesome Western Conference in a year that they had key players out a huge number of games via injuries (and have two starters still out).

 

I like how Ramona pointed out that the Clippers were more talented AND better.

Wow. I mean, it's one thing to be more talented, but to be BETTER?

 

LOL at "we."

All of the Lakers fans becoming Clippers fans.

Wah wah wah. That's what I got from that.

 

he is (was) a very knowledgeable and witty poster before Patrick Patterson was traded

he's still good at times, but he's becoming a bitter meme that hates Morey and Harden

 

Did my post from around 12:30pm get deleted or am I going crazy? I could have sworn I posted something here today.

::EDIT::

nvm i am dum

 

That Zach Lowe podcast was the most ridiculous discussion I've ever heard. Waa, waa, Clippers only lost because they were tired from two 7 game series. But they are clearly better but only lost because Rockets got homecourt due to playing in a "fake" division (where all the teams are playoff teams).

It's like LA-related topics makes rational people dumb.

 

Balmer.

 

Exactly. What stupid criterion do those fools think the Clippers deserved home court over the Rockets based on?

Honestly one of the dumbest discussions I've ever seen.

 

It's still there, post 330. I'm just a moron.

My bad fellas. Continue on...

 

Dude weird enough, I created a thread yesterday and randomly the entire second page of it along with half the first page are gone.

Weird stuff.

 

Haymitch probably needs to get some sleep, like me.

 

Conference record. The Clippers and Rockets tied for the same record and were tied head to head. The Rockets won their division with that record while the Clippers finished 2nd. In the Western conference, the Clippers actually finished with 4 more wins.

Now, my argument would be that since teams don't play a balanced schedule overall, it's ridiculous to assert that the Clippers should hold an edge because of that.

 

If Clippers media are bringing out the tired reasoning now, following that logic, no way would the Clippers advance past the WCF. The Rockets started shooting better as the series went along. It wasn't that the Clippers weren't closing out anymore either; it was Josh Smith and Brew coming alive. It was the surprisingly genius coaching decisions by McHale from game 5 and on. And if being tired got the Clippers to miss more open 3's (which did happen in the last 3 games), then as the Rockets got more tired, they shot better on their 3's.

If you break it down from play to play, there are times when both teams execute perfectly on offense and defense. When that happens, both teams can still score on each other because they're both super talented. And it's hard to definitively argue that when both teams are firing perfect passes and finishing their plays that the other can stop them. So it's really just about consistent fockass. The Rockets got stronger there as a team and the Clippers got weaker. Depth matter and being tired can be a contributing factor. But to say the Clippers are "better" without defining exactly what that means is weak by the media. I can point to numerous plays w/in the Clippers blowout where the Rockets moved the ball beautifully on offense and scored. But they just got selfish with the ball 2 out of 3 times. It was weird, and it wasn't about the Clippers because the Rockets were offensively ugly vs. the Mavs too.