Playoff chances/success?

2 round

 

I'm not putting my hopes too high cause if yall remember last year when the we had the 22 game win streak everyone thought we would make it out the first round (JVG and me too) that wasn't the case. I don't think we have enough.

 

2nd round at worst...with this healthy team. I don't see why this team can't get out of the 1st round, only health can stop them.

 

One and done. I just think we needed to add another piece to make it any further.

 

1. Lakers
2. Spurs
3. Jazz
4. Nuggets
5. Suns
6. New Orleans

Between us, Dallas, and Portland for the 7th and 8th spot. I think Dallas makes it, because they have the most consistency (cant believe I just said that) and are the most stable of the 3. Portland probably wants it more, so I could easily see us being the 9th team.


We have an inexperienced pointguard, lack of athleticism, and 0 leadership.

Portland has a plethora of athleticism, not much leadership, and inexperience as a whole.

The good news? At the 8th spot, I think we have the best chance to upsetting the lakers. Their front court might abuse ours, but Battier always has Kobe's number, and when Battier goes out, Artest's physical style will abuse Kobe as well. Both of hte Gasol's do a solid job on Yao, but our defense on Kobe will make up for it.




These are all the potential playoff teams, and here how I think we matchup against them:
1. Lakers- Pretty well, best shot outside of the spurs to beat them.
2. Spurs- No chance
3. Jazz-No chance
4. Nuggets- Decent, althought Billups will abuse us, I think we could squeeze one out.
5. Suns- Shaq run suns- we have a chance- fast paced suns? Haha... we will lose by 40 every game.
6. New Orleans- Matchup Well, they will have nothing outside of paul, hopefully brooks quickness will wear him out so he can only put up 25 points, if he scores more than that we are done.
7. Portland- Don't Matchup very well
8. Dallas- Dont Matchup very well


All depends on who we play.

To answer your question- one and done, or not even in the playoffs 60% chance. 39% chance we will enter the second round. 1% chance WCF. and yes, 0% chance we will go to the finals.

 

ur kidding

 

where is the win-it-all option?

 

If TSlack plays, we don't make the playoffs. Period.

 

As long as Yao stays healthy we definatly should make the playoffs. How far we go will probably depend on where we finish. With this current lineup I only consider the Spurs(if Giniboli is playing) and Lakers better teams at present. I would probably want to avoid Utah too... just because. Denver, Portland and Hornets would be who I would like to get first round.

 

I think the rockets can still go far... It seems w/o McGrady that everyone plays w/ more confidence.... whereas when t-mac had the ball the players seemed to defer to him a bit too much. I think Artest should play better now, and should be a good 2nd scorer next to Yao. Brooks now has an opportunity to get a lot of playing time. Landry should be able to step up his scoring. We'll see what happens, but I wouldn't write us off... let's wait for a couple of weeks.

 

By far the WORST analysis I have seen.

Let me break it down for you.

1) Lakers - I agree, this would be HARD, but with Battier/Ron-Ron chasing Kobe for 48 min, and IF scolandry can slow down Gasol I don't see why we don't have a shot.
2) Spurs - Again hard, but again we have 2 guys in Battier and Ron-Ron that could play a key role on defense slowing down Gino, Parker we gotta hope our PGs can stay with him and again Scolandry has to stop Duncan. BUT remember they have NO ONE that can stop Yao. LOL @ BONNER STARTING CENTER.
3) I see no reason Rockets can't become the 3 seed IF we can start beating the horrible teams, this team is freaking 21-10 vs. the west and 11-11 vs the east (or something around that) and we have lost 6 games to LAST PLACE TEAMS, if we even turn that into 4 wins outta 6, we are 2nd place in the conference.
4) Nuggets - very underrated team because of freaking Billups. We though have shown to matchup fairly well. This could be a fun 7 game series.
5) NOs - If they pickup the pace, they could easily be 2nd or 3rd in the conference, but they are hurting without Tyson. If they don't have Tyson, I think Yao can dominate this team, but CP3 is Godly good at PG, so this will be tough also.
6) Dallas - Ugh I hate that I think Dallas will make the playoff, but if we don't get cheated again by Refs, Dallas has been completely unable to stop Yao for the last 3 years, and the time we beat them this year we had him, time we lost we didn't. Coincidence? I think not.
7) Portland - So overrated, youth is gonna play a huge role in this matchup. They are a VERY GOOD team don't get me wrong, but fact is they have no playoff experience and they should've given up Raef + draft picks for VC. The playoff experience is really important IMO.
8) Jazz - Jazz have all sorts of injuries this year and all sorts of problems with Boozer. I think this regular season will be tough for them just because of that. They are damn solid and if they come back fully healthy, they are a sleeper at playoff time, but hopefully they finish in 8th and either them or lakers are gone 1st round.

9) Suns - You rated Suns 5 because of what? 2 blowout wins vs. the Clippers who looks AWFUL this year (yes the rockets lost to them, but that was stated earlier in the last place teams...sigh). Suns are going nowhere fast. Shaq is not gonna play every game, Nash and Amare are good, but they are missing that key piece (Marion) who made them have a defensive wing who could shoot. JRich is good, but he doesn't defend and this team is not going to do well. If they make playoffs great, but they aren't going anywhere.

I'd say if Rockets get top 4 seed, they have high likelyhood of getting outta 1st round, if we get seeded 5-8, it becomes a hell of a lot tougher. I hope we don't play Jazz in 1st round, I'd prefer Dallas or Portland personally, but I think we play pretty well vs. Nuggets also.

That's my analysis, I'm not putting a % on getting out of 1st round because I don't wanna jinx, but I think this team with or without T-Slack can get out.

 

lol you're joking right? how do you say we have a good chance of beating the lakers and NOT matchup well with dallas, utah, and portland? if you think artest and battier can guard kobe or contain him, why can they not stop/contain brandon roy and dirk?

ill give you the spurs...i mean i think we can HANG with them...won't be a TERRIBLE matchup. artest and battier on ginobili (coming off injury) and parker. duncan might hurt us, but yao can hurt them just as much. artest might be too physical for bowen, and wafer can be free from bowen to light it up! it sounds optimistic i know...but thats what im HOPING for. dont think our matchup vs spurs is in our favor...but not THAT bad...

for the rest...we matchup ok..if not WELL vs them

jazz- battier or artest can guard d will now! with a big pg in lowry who can guard their sg. (cj miles?) still no answer for boozer, maybe battier on d will and artest on boozer? no one else on utah that can pour it on.

dallas- terry scares me the most, cause we can have artest guard dirk and battier guard howard. wafer's speed/and lowry's physical stature can probably bother terry a bit and not allow him to explode on us like always...hopefully...but thats the only problem i see with dallas. on offense, they dont have good defenders. erica dampier will get destroyed by yao, and artest is too physical for any of their defenders. wafer and scola aren't going to be easy for dallas to guard either.

portland- why is this team playing so good? ive been wondering all season. i guess they move the ball well and play good team ball or something. but who on this team is anyone scared of besides roy? and we have two guys who can alternate on him. they dont have anyone as physical to guard artest OR yao...so how do we NOT match up with them? wafer landry artest and lowry are athletic enough...and yao is good enough to keep up with old man oden.

 

I think we'll make the playoffs by the skin of our teeth. The room between seeds 6 through 9 won't be more than few games. I've been running Magic Number calculations, and I like our chances to get in. Of course, we'll have to see how we play without Rafter and TMac.

If we get in at 6 or 7, we have a chance to draw the Nuggets or Blazers which are the most favorable matchups. If we're 8, we'll play the Lakers and get killed. I think if we play the Spurs, Jazz, or Hornets, we'll lose. I can handle losing to the Spurs or Hornets, but I want no part of the Jazz. Losing to them three years in a row would test my loyalty as a Rockets fan.

I think that's as good as it gets. Probably make the playoffs and maybe an upset if we face Portland or Denver. No way we make it past the second round.

 

Probably pass the first round of the playoffs but it really depends who we get and if we are a high seed