i think beating either team is a longshot without yao but utah is probably a bit more likely. the lakers are much bigger upfront and while utah has boozer, he's not a tall pf and chuck has the ability to atleast pester him while scola can stick on okur. it'll probably come down to how much t-mac dominates or how well rafer can play williams. now that i think about it beating utah with our new bench isn't as daunting as it seems.
I want Lakers w/ Rockets having homecourt. Deke can guard their center better whether he would be matched up on Okur or Boozer vs Utah. I like the Gasol vs Scola matchup. Kobe is a sear pain. I want the Lakers early as the longer they are in the playoffs, the better they'll get.
Alston is not good enough for Williams....W is more stonger and more tough compare to Alston...this point is our weekness.... Scola is not good defender....can not stop Boozer.... I still cannot believe T-m....sorry for that...... if we match....Utah....4-2....is the best score we can get....or worse... i do like to match with Lakers.....however the Center comes back.... they do not have chemistry...and look the lakers' defence....too bad.... so there is a chance for us to beat them....
It seems like everyone is assuming we would have home court advantage against Utah. Last time I checked, we were only 0.5 game in front of them.
I think we could actually beat both teams, at same time both could really put us out of our misery. People complained last year about Yao being liability on defense against Boozer or having to guard Okur away from the basket......Mutombo won't be much more effective against the Boozer's athleticism or Okur's shooting range. Thing is we have Hayes/Scola/Landry, so those matchups are not a problem. Lakers are very questionable matchup, if they're healthy....probably would like to see them end up with Phoenix. If we have to play them, it may be a series they win fairly easy. If they're limping into the playoffs and look very sluggish down stretch....we've got a great shot against them. But you got Kobe out there though, that is something we don't have worry about against Utah. It's hard to go deep into playoffs without one of your best players....it almost never happens, because somewhere....you're losing 20-28 ppg and 10 rebs or 10 ast or presence down in the post or a great scorer out on the wing. Our team is going to have to play their A+ game every single night, unlike last year.....where we won a few games and we didn't play particularly well.
You want to know what's ironic? Many clutchfans members are afraid of playing the Lakers. However, many Lakers fans wanted us to fall down in the rankings from 6th to 7th in order for the Lakers to match up with Dallas who they feel that they can beat easily. Well I am not afraid of the Lakers nor am I afraid of the Jazz. But I voted for the Lakers just because it would be sweet to beat them in a 3-6 match up. Sure if we advance and beat the Jazz in a 4-5 match up it would be revenge from last year but the Jazz suck away from home. Moreover, I feel like it wouldn't count as much as beating the LA Lakers who are favored this year to win a championship. But if we beat Utah there would be a good chance that we would face New Orleans in round two and we have a good chance of beating them. Still beating the Lakers would be sweet as hell!
1. I think for Laker fans, they know if they are not at full strength....they are going to struggle against Houston. Possiblity of no Fisher, limping Gasol, and possibly out of shape Bynum might be disaster against a focus, hungry (something prove), and discipline Rockets team who can play great defense in tight moments. And probably would have slight easier ride against a Dallas team that has yet to beat a team over .500, struggling with Jason Kidd, a new system, not getting along with Avery, and a team that look absolutely lost sometimes. 2. Another good thing is right now we are on pace not play Phoenix or San Antonio until the Conference Finals....I doubt Lakers catch SA or even the HOrnets, because of injuries. In this case, I would much rather play the Lakers than SA, because they look to be rounding in shape for championship mode. Both Lakers and Jazz are much more flawed than the Spurs are at least at this point.
I wouldn't mind seeing the Rockets shove it to Utah. I hate them. But they are slowly being replaced on my hate list by New Orleans.
even though I would pick Utah in a heartbeat, I don't see why everyone is so high on the Lakers again. the whole caveat all year long with them is "once they get Bynum back" or "once a healthy Bynum returns", etc... well, newsflash, there's 7 games left in the season and Bynum isn't healthy. he's running on some anti-gravity treadmill right now at 65% of his bodyweight. so it looks like he isnt going to be as big of a factor that everyone is prepared for. not to mention he's a kid with no playoff experience and a couple of good months at the beginning of a very long NBA season. Uncle Mutombo would eat Bynum for lunch. there I said it.
If we play Utah I dunno how much time Deke would see on the floor. He definitely would not guard Okur, more like Boozer in limited minutes since his offensive game is so limited. But we saw last night that he can still make people pay for leaving him open. Personally I think we actually match up pretty well with Utah without Yao because we have Scola, Hayes, and Landry who can all go outside to defend Okur pretty handily. The problem will be whether or not we are willing to sacrifice offense again to have Hayes playing major minutes guarding Boozer. I really really hope Landry is healthy by the time playoffs come. We have little chance without him. And I mean the real him, not this shadow of a man we've seen with Landry's jersey on since he returned from his knee injury.
With both of the matchups, rest assured both Jackson and Sloan will work their brains out to scout the Rockets and to drill it into their teams how to defend each Rockets player and the Rockets as a team. I highly doubt there will be any more easy buckets for players like Scolandry or Brooks. That said, I believe we match up better with the Jazz, even without Yao. Against the Lakers, Gasol and Bynum opens up driving lanes for Bryant (because the post defence has to pay attention to either of those big men and whoever is blasting down the lane). With the Jazz, we could afford to let Boozer go off for a big night (remember Game 2 win? Boozer netted 41 points but Jazz sitll lost) but defend everybody else.
Utah, We would probably have HC again but we wouldn't have Yao for offense but we wouldn't have Yao on boozer either. No LA, big frontlines kill us.
Funny you should mention that, if we get past the Lakers or Utah. We have great chance of playing NO in the second round.
