ClutchFans Game Thread: Rockets @ Warriors 5/21/2015 (Western Conference Finals, Game 2)

Oh and what happened to Yao again?

 

You're giving Dwight a hard time because he wanted to see if he can play through an injury in the WCF? He doesn't have x-ray vision. It's not like he knew the extent of his injury and wanted to see if he could play on it.

You're reading into this way too much IMO.

 

FWIW --

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">.<a href="https://twitter.com/HoustonRockets">@HoustonRockets</a> still hoping <a href="https://twitter.com/DwightHoward">@DwightHoward</a> can play in Game 2 tonight

<a href="http://t.co/sjdpiUrSfc">http://t.co/sjdpiUrSfc</a> (via <a href="https://twitter.com/franblinebury">@franblinebury</a>) <a href="http://t.co/By1A6HzRNN">pic.twitter.com/By1A6HzRNN</a></p>&mdash; NBA.com (@NBAcom) <a href="https://twitter.com/NBAcom/status/601425506047668224">May 21, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

But then turned around and said he SHOULD have played through it b/c Yao would have. I'm waiting for him to keep it 100 and just admit Dwight will be wrong to him, no matter what he does.

 

You know it's possible to have favorite players and still root for other players for the good of the team right? It doesn't have to be an either/or thing. My favorites are DMO and Capela as well but that doesn't mean I root against other players, especially when those other players dominate in the playoffs.

 

smh.....

 

To be fair, anybody saying Dwight has been demanding postups has not been watching the playoffs. LOL.

 

"They played exactly half the 82-game regular season schedule without Dwight Howard and still were able to secure the No. 2 seed in the Western Conference playoffs. So the Rockets will not feel overwhelmed or over matched against if they have to take the court Thursday night without their eight-time All-Star center."

 

You can say this about Capela: He would certainly make a moral victory a little more fun to watch.

Spoiler

 

Care free nothing to lose. Playing with house money. Rockets will take this tonight, going back to H-Town 1 - 1. Go Rockets!!

 

I always wonder why people say this. The Rockets have a chance at an NBA championship to lose. Nobody who is still playing ever has "nothing to lose".

 

What else would you expect them to say? That gold koolaid is some powerful stuff!

 

on 21 free throws and it will be glorious

 

Man, I still believe. This team can do some incredible things.

We are going to win.

 

Man it's crazy how a close game with Dwight hobbled early is being talked about by the media. You'd think that the Warriors blew the Rockets out. In reality, they barely held on and were helped by a few timely Brewer brain farts.

I felt that the Rockets were right there and that they just couldn't get over the hump. Credit to the Warriors for playing well - especially Livingston - but that was not a dominant win. Not in the least.

Additionally, Harden gets so much less attention for playing Curry equally at the very least. To my biased homer mind, he outperformed that toothpick. He nearly recorded a triple double and roasted the best 2 way guard in the game. Where's the love?

 

Versus Warriors small-ball, we should include Papa as a 4 in the rotation. Also wold like to see how Johnson can defend Curry in spot miinutes

 

Time to drop the Swiss hammer on these punks.
Rockets win by 9

 

You already know why there's no love....

 

Game 1 seems to indicate that each game in this series will be about confidence as much as it is about talent.

The Rockets confidence is derived from a season of struggling through a lot of injured players and changing lineups/rotations. That confidence was strengthened by their comeback in the Clipper series. Unfortunately, they don't seem to get religion about limiting TO's until they've squandered the gains from their energy and effort based on this confidence. They make things harder on themselves by doing so.

The Warriors, on the other hand, derive their confidence from their 67-win season performance. That confidence keeps being affirmed by their performance in the playoffs.

At this point in the playoffs, it becomes a test of wills, as well as confidence and talent. Matchups can never be minimized, but can sometimes be equalized through sheer will, energy and effort.

I don't know if anyone saw Inside the NBA last night after the Hawks/Cavs game. After dissecting that game they turned their attention to Game 1 of this series. Kenny Smith's analysis was that "you can't win a championship when you have to take your players off the floor because they can't hit their FT's." That very well could become a major factor if the games are all as close as Game 1. As a matter of fact, it can keep a game close by throttling the Rockets chances at separation.

We might be able to read between the lines about Howard's condition by whether or not he starts. If he starts, it will most likely be to test whether he can really be effective or not. If he doesn't then it is bad enough not to even try the knee. In the first case, that could be a mistake in the same way as it was in Game 1. If he isn't close to 100% it could hurt the team more than help. Also, during Inside the NBA last night they played a video with comments by both coaches and some players and McHale in a short segment said (paraphrased from memory), "Clint Capela is not going to become a Dwight Howard overnight..." which implied he might get a significant amount of the minutes allotted to Howard, if Howard doesn't start. (And for those who think Howard only wants to play because of Capela's positive minutes, what I saw on his face as he sat on the bench in Game 1 was a player who was just distraught with the shock of not being able to play at this point in the season, 4 wins away from the Finals. He struggled through so much this season hoping to have this chance. No. I think he is just genuinely hurt to have a fluke injury possibly ruin his shot at helping the team advance to the Finals.)

I think it will be interesting to see if the Rockets confidence and will, derived more from adversity can overcome the confidence and will of GS derived from stability and consistency. I don't know that there will be any blowout wins in this series, but if there are any, it would be more likely that the victim would be the Rockets, just based on their history of TO's. Despite their confidence, they have more of a needle to thread than the Warriors do.

 

Agree with this, I've been hearing it since the clippers series and I just don't see it that way. The Rockets put this team together to win a championship, not to get to the WCF. We finished as the 2 seed, even if our seed was a result of tie breaker, your at the least still tied for the 2nd best record in the brutal western conference.

People talk as if we are the 8th seed and have nothing but rookies and 2-3 year veterans on the team.