To beat the Celtics, a win against LA is imperative

It's funny there's a lot of Lakers fan that feel the other way around.

 

RR, your point is taken. I have openly wondered how the team will react after (if???) they lose a game, regardless of against whom.

Lakes will be up for the game and I expect the Rox to be up for the game. Let's hope the snoozefest of tonite doesn't carry over to J-Rich et al so that #22 will be the pinata to break open.

Landry should be back, so we have been led to believe. So, too, should the energy which has led his 'mates frequently in the last few weeks.

Now, did anyone hear Worrell mention once (or 13X) that the Hawks' height was killing our (runty) Rox? Anyone notice the altitude of 4 of LAL's starting 5? Anyone notice our matchup breaker is out? C's are nearly as large as Lakers so these games will provide an interesting glimpse of what the play-offs may portend.

I cannot stand the idea the streak might not go on forever.

 

All i know is that kobe will be going for the throat. It would be a perfect opportunity for him to knock us off our pedestals and put the spotlight back on himself. Shane needs to play the game of his life just to contain him. This game could be a statement game for his defensive player of the year campaign

 

Lakers are better than the Celtics. Take em one at a time.

 

I think the Lakers defense is in question. Paul Gasol is soft and the Kings were scoring at will against them. Celtics you know Kg will bring the defensive intensity every night. They are also 2-0 against the Lakers this season.

 

Lakers have inflated their power ranking against playing really crappy teams.

 

Pre-comment: Bobcats first.

I like your post, but I disagree with your logic. A loss to the Lakers and a win against Boston is as possible, as a win against the Lakers and a loss against Boston. Hell, we could loose all five games and the media could get down on us again, and that could feul us to the finals and to the championship.

First choice is always to never loose again. But if we experience a loss, the issue is that we bounce back and maintain a high level of play. These next five games are all against legit teams, and its going to be fun.

By the way, I see our streak as 28 out of 31, not as 20 in a row. A single loss here or there doesn't cancel out our 28 out of 31, it just lessens the enormity of the achievement one game. Whereas a single loss kills the 20 game streak entirely. The 20 game streak is nice, but there is an awful lot of triviality to it. A single loss won't kill us. It won't deflate us. We are legit. We will feed off our newfound legitness (ligitimacy). We are born a new team in a new style, and I want Landry back soon.

Bobcat win first.

 

Lets go after the Lakers 33 game winning streak!! Our next target

 

The Rockets grabbed 34 of the 48 possible rebounds on the defense side (71%).

The Hawks grabbed 38 of the 60 possible rebounds on their defensive side (63%).

We gave up a lot of offensive rebounds for sure, but we were even better on our end of the court coming up with offensive boards. It really extended a couple of possessions towards the end of the 4th quarter and put the Hawks away for good.

It did feel a lot like game 7 of the Jazz series -- except we were reprising the role of the Jazz. We won the game by coming up with key offensive rebounds.

 

I don't think we will lose to the Lakers or the Celtics, IF we can beat the Cats on Friday. Without Bynum, the Lakers doesn't have the inside intimidation which the Rockets fear the most, and our defense will slow down LA's offense to make it a low scoring game, probably around ~90pt.

We match up well with Celtics, their offense will not be able to generate that many points against our defense, we should win a close game against them.

If we shoot the ball reasonably well, we can win those games rather easily.

The game I'm worry about is the Bobcats on Friday, and at NO.

 

Lakers game is a trap game!! If we don't win this game, all of our 20+, 30+, 40+ (I don't care how many wins they had) mean nothing, not a single thing!!

 

lol.

some of us are on good news overload. we're waiting for the other shoe to drop ... on our heads. posters earnestly reminding us 'we will lose a game eventually'. got no idea what the morrow brings but i'm squeezing every bit of pleasure from these good times.

let the future sort itself out.

 

man, you're just thinking to much, just step on the court, and play

 

BrooksBall pt. 2??

 

man, you're just thinking to much, just step on the court, and play

 

Imperative for what?

They should just play and earn chemistry. Get a little run going before playoffs and hope for the best.

 

BrooksBall 1.001

 

not only this BBS,all conference will explode, they are full of fear!

 

Our starting 5 is actually pretty huge:

6'2 Rafer Alston
6'8 Tracy McGrady (some say he's as long as 6'10)
6'8 Shane Battier
6'9 Luis Scola (without shoes! he uses his euroleague height)
7'6 Ming Yao

Now, our bench is absolutely puny:

Regular rotation:
6'1 Bobby Jackson
6'6 Chuck Hayes
6'9 (with shoes; rounded up) Carl Landry
6'3 Luther Head
7'2 Dikembe Mutombo

Others:
6'6 Mike Harris
6'10 Justin Williams
6'10 Steve Novak
6' (lol) Aaron Brooks
6'3 Steve Francis

Average roster height : 6'7 (according to espn.com)

Our starting 5 (healthy roster) is as good as any in the league. The bench plays really well using certain combinations. We have a depth chart of:

Alston - Jackson - Brooks
McGrady - Head - Francis
Battier - Novak
Scola - Landry - Hayes - Harris
Yao - Dikembe - Williams

Ideally, we won't have to dig deep into our bench unless the matchups are in our favor. Unfortunately, with Yao and Landry being out, a lot of our shorter bench players will be seeing more time. The past 8 games, specifically, we've been able to get away with 3 guard set-ups, moving Tracy and Shane to the 3 and 4. The strong passing game, so-so opponents (we dodged Dirk and West; would you even consider Denver a contender?), and hot hands hid the physical and athletic deficiencies.

However, against a tall, tall, young and athletic team like the Lakers...

They have an average height of 6'8. The 1" advantage over our average height doesn't seem much - one thing though, we have Yao Ming. Take 6" off of Yao (and maybe some inches off from Deke too) and we'd get several 6'10 forwards and 6'6 guards who would've went Top 5-8 in the draft easy.

In a team that has a 6'6 Kobe Bryant as their 4th(!) shortest player... I just hope it won't look like bullies beating up a bunch of kids, esp. down low. We don't have Yao to lock the inside. Dikembe's only going to do so much and who will we have inside to defend consecutive 6'10 - 7 footers? Chuck Hayes? Our guards will have to jump, jump just to get their shots against 6'7s who will have the legs to chase them around, as well as the vertical and the wingspan.

I'd be absolutely heartbroken if I watch that game just to see the Rockets get destroyed. EVERYBODY's gonna be on our asses. I'm hoping not. And from the looks of it, this team doesn't look like it'll go down easy. I'm just worried, even with all the "looking at the next game" talk, that they're starting to slack. Seeing Rafer Alston, rather than Rafer Alston <3, out there shooting is really . I'm really counting on Scola's experience with winning to keep the ship straight. For some reason, I'm just reliving Game 7 of last year at the back of my mind: everybody was actually happy in the plane back to Houston.

Anyway, here's what I think's gonna be vital against the Lakers:

Excellent passing game - getting enough space for our dimunitive sharpshooters
DEFENSE
T-Mac - please, Jesus, save yourself. If the Rox lose to LA, kiss your short-lived media love goodbye.

Now, do ya'll miss Gerald Green?

 

Yeah, I was surprised to see that stat. Lots of bricks last night. There were multiple times where we missed our shots and got the rebounds a couple of times in a row.