I hope we surprise them by adding to our roster one Leopold "Butters" Stotch. I hope he puts on his tap-dancing shoes in the pre-game ceremony and accidentally knocks one of the rafters down onto the entire Jazz roster but particularly Jerry Sloan. Hey, one can dream.
I would have rather played Phoenix. The series with Utah will be ugly from the start and get progressively uglier as Sloan pushes his players to grab, trip, hold, and set as many illegal screens as humanly possible. I predict Rockets in 7.
I doubt we will be favored but there are two big differences from last year. We are deeper and have a better offense. I doubt we will have a game 3 meltdown where only 4 Rockets score like last year. Its going to be tough but I've got hope that Adelman can make the type of adjustements to get our offense going and that Scola, Landry and Brooks will step up.
I don't know what you mean when you say "why do the rockets get a 4 seed" when they aren't. Unless you meant to ask are they playing against the 4th seed. The Rockets have HCA over the Jazz, regardless of seeding, simply because they have a better record. To be plain and simple, the playoff format is just silly. Where the heck have you been this past week? This issue has been watered and beaten down heavily.
I've been following the rockets, of course....but I just dont want any part of the jazz, I just wanted the rockets to play the suns, thats all. So basically its: 1 lakers 8 nuggets 4 jazz 5 rockets -------------------------- 2 hornets 7 mavs 3 spurs 6 suns I like our chances of getting to the western finals once we get past utah. Bynum won't be back, and gasol is soft, shane will shut kobe down!!
Realistically, Utah is one of the two or three teams out West that I feel like we can hang with...like it or not, there's a reason that we are the most desired team to play--losing your best player will do that to you. But I don't feel like we match up BETTER this year than last year. Yeah, we added more than they did, but we lost FAR more than they did when we lost Yao. Not to say that we CAN'T win this series, but this is going to be VERY difficult. I echo the sentiment that we need to take the first two. Going into Utah tied 1-1 or down 0-2 is going to be death in this series. I hope I'm wrong, but I don't feel great about another series with the team that really seems to get the best of us lately. Oh well. GO ROCKETS.
hopefully Okur gets suspended for game 1 for that Unnecessary flagrant foul on Oberto earlier in the game.
we'll get payback......but it won't be this year. utah is better than us. they start 4 all-stars..... this isn't even going to be close. anyone who thinks we will beat them is out of their mind or a complete homer.
The jazz have been the team I have wanted the rockets to face since yao went out for the season. I felt last year they were a horrible matchup for us because of yaos mobility on defense, but this year without yao i think his absence will actually be missed the least if we play the jazz. On top of that I have wanted redemption against the jazz since last years game 7 elimination. Tmac lethargic game 3 and 4 performances along with his refusal to drive in game 7 are some of the things i hope he redeems himself for.
NEARLY No chance whatsoever....Great season, legendary 22 winning streak, next season please keep your star players healthy.
I feel like it will be tough to start Deke as no way he's gonna guard Okur out at the 3pt line and Boozer will shoot those stupid rainbows from the elbow all day if he doesn't come out to guard him, and if he does, he'll drive it just like he did against Yao last year. I'd say we start Hayes and Scola with Hayes guarding Boozer and Scola on Okur. If Scola jumps the pick and roll he'd better get back to Okur though instead of doing his thing where he follows the guard way out there. I didn't get to see the last Jazz game but who did Battier guard? I'd put him on Ronnie Brewer and put T-mac on AK to lessen his load. Obviously BJ is gonna have to use all his veteran tricks and toughness to try to contain DWill. This will be interesting with the bench matchups too! Landry vs. Millsap. Novak vs Korver. AB vs Ronnie Price. Head vs CJ Miles. Bonzi would be nice for us against Harpring to counter his strength as we have no one else to really do that, but T-Mac was actually able to shut Harpring down w/ his length last year when he put his mind to it. I think if T-Mac plays shutdown D, we will have a great shot. He's gonna get doubled all 48 minutes and we'll need shooters to hit shots or take it to the hole aggressively. Adelman, work your magic. It's Time
