we should have 7 more wins if we had tmac and yao at 100% for the season: DEC 14 @GSW - 2 point loss. no tmac. DEC 15 @ LAL - double OT loss, no tmac. DEC 20 @ POR - 2 point loss, no tmac. DEC 23 VS LAC - 5 point loss. no tmac or yao. DEC 26 @ IND - 5 point loss. no yao. JAN 7 @ MIN - 4 point loss. no yao. JAN 20 VS DEN - OT loss. no yao. 7 more wins would put us at 34-9 going into tonights game VS PHI. we would be trailing the suns by a game and a half, and dallas by just a game. most importantly, we would be on top of the spurs by 3.5 games. of course, tmac will never play a whole season again, but 4 more wins with yao would put us ahead of the spurs by a half game. now making up "what if's" doesn't mean much, but "if" healthy in the playoffs... lets just say we are the rightfull 3rd seed and will act that way
The other side of the coin is this - Yao will be fresher come April, May and June. With what we are doing now, we will likely be #3 in the West by Next Monday. This is big. I pray we stay relatively healthy from here on out. If we can add another athletic defender by trade deadline (for Phoenix and Dallas possible playoffs matchups) that will be gravy. The Houston Rockets are coming!!!
I don't think it's fair to say something like that. How do you know for sure we wouldn't have lost by more. What about all those rebounds Deke got. Would Yao have been able to keep us in the game in the first place? He's not perfect you know. We did lose 6 or so games with him in the lineup..
the lakers have an easy schedule though but all in the road, new york, then some other team (i don't remember) , and then at boston.
i see your point but for some reason i'll have to insist that the rockets would not have done worse with yao.
why not? those were all 2 possession games. having either tmac or yao back in the lineup couldn've really helped down the stretch of those games. of course i don't think that the team should be undefeated when pairing yao and tmac, but these games were very winable. i know we won't have tmac healthy for a whole season and so i'm willing to accept the losses for the game in which he was injured, but the 4 games w/o yao we should've won. also, these aren't all of our losses since losing tmac then yao. there was the lakers game (which was almost a great comeback), and then the recent losses to dallas and phoenix. i don't think pairing yao and tmac would've made a difference in those games. overall i guess i should've called the thread 4-7 wins. lol
I've heard both Morey and CD say that they are interested in picking up a backup 5/4. Having Chuck Hayes as the 3rd string (currently 2nd string) center is just plain silly. We have lots of guards on the team but we're one more injury away from a complete disaster at 4 or 5.
That's only cause tmac was playing like tcrap back then. With the tmac now and yao playing the whole season together, we would have 40 wins right now.
