Breaking Down The Schedule

smoothie · Aug 4, 2006

NOV
Home games:7
Away Games:8
Playoff Teams From '06:10
Longest Home Stretch:3
Longest Road Stretch:3
NOTE: one home game between 2 road games happens twice which will cause those games to feel like road games. this makes our first 7 games feel like one long road trip.

DEC
Home games:6
Away Games:10
Playoff Teams From '06:10
Longest Home Stretch:2 (twice)
Longest Road Stretch:5
NOTE: one home game between 2 road games happens twice which will cause those games to feel like road games. this happens first between a 3 game trip and a 5 game trip, then again betweeen the 5 game trip and a 2 game trip. this will create the feeling of a whopping 12 game trip.

JAN
Home games:8
Away Games:6
Playoff Teams From '06:8
Longest Home Stretch:4 (last 2 of December, frist 2 of January)
Longest Road Stretch:3
NOTE: one home game between 2 road games happens once which will cause that game to feel like a road game. this happens between a 2 and a 3 game trip making the whole thing feel like a 6 game trip.

FEB
Home games:8
Away Games:4
Playoff Teams From '06:5
Longest Home Stretch:5 (last 3 in January, and first 2 in February), 4 (middle of the month)
Longest Road Stretch:2

MAR
Home games:7
Away Games:9
Playoff Teams From '06:11
Longest Home Stretch:2
Longest Road Stretch:2
NOTE: one home game between 2 road games happens twice which will cause those games to feel like road games. this happens between a 1 game trip and a 2 game trip making it feel like a 4 game trip, and then again later in the month the same situation repeats.

APR
Home games:5
Away Games:4
Playoff Teams From '06:2
Longest Home Stretch:3
Longest Road Stretch:3

Tb-Cain · Aug 8, 2006

http://blogs.chron.com/nba/2006/08/ready_to_hit_the_road.html

August 06, 2006
Ready to hit the road on schedule with Rockets
Now that I'm back from vacation, it seemed like time to check out where the next 25 trips will take me.

The Rockets' schedule, released last week, is most remarkable for what it is not.

It is not last season's schedule or anything like it, which could be a good thing for the Rockets.

NBA schedules generally do not have the impact on success of college football or NFL schedules. Unlikely to be better that the third-best team in the league's best division, the Rockets are bound to have about as tough a schedule as any team. But look closer and it looks pretty good.

The quality that jumps out even at a glance (well, after we all noticed that we'll be home on all the holidays) is that the Rockets are going back to one of those middle of the country schedules with lots of little trips and few long ones. Last season, they had two six-game trips and one five-game trip. This season, there is just one five-game trip and that includes consecutive games in LA.

An argument can be made that a few longer trips are preferable than a bunch of short ones. Bill Fitch made that case when he moved from the east coast to the Rockets. Jeff Van Gundy was stunned with his first schedule as Rockets coach. But these days, with charter flights and the best travel conditions, a schedule with a few extra trips is better than the wear and tear of staying on the road for five or six games.

Next, check out the back-to-backs. The Rockets have 18, though they can't be happy that three of the four times they play the Suns, they will face them on the second night of a back-to-back. But 18 is not bad. More to the point, while the Rockets will play the second game in as many nights 18 times, their opponents will be finishing back-to-backs 21 times.

The season starts tough -- Dallas, San Antonio and Miami in the first two weeks -- but it's not so brutal through the first five weeks that they must accept falling into another early-season hole. Unlike last season, it does not finish with killer road trips.

About the only bad luck in the schedule is selection of the four Western Conference teams -- Sacramento, Seattle, Golden State and Denver -- they play only three times. Two missed the playoffs; the other two were in the bottom half of the Conference. They must play every division opponent four times so they could not have expected much of a break there, but if they get to skip a game against the Kings or Nuggets, they would have liked to have missed a trip to their tough home courts.

Still, the Rockets can't complain.

Instead, they can think about getting that young backcourt ready.

Posted by Jonathan Feigen at August 6, 2006 04:50 PM
Click to expand...

LFE171 · Aug 8, 2006

God I just hope we don't pull that one win within our division again. The schedule should be easier than last year though, right?

WhoMikeJames · Aug 8, 2006

Lets hope San Antonio or Memphis blow it this year. This leaves us 2nd behind Dallas and a good NOK team 3rd.

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