@Ind @Det @NY Phi GS Chi @Mem Min @Mil Sac NJ For next 11 games we only have 1 team that is above .500. As long we can keep it up the effort, we can easily take care at least 9-10 games. even 14 game winning streak(3+11) is not very hard.
While it is nice to see what the schedule looks like, this team just needs to play one game at a time. It looks like they have reached a nice point in the schedule. There have been plenty games where on paper, though, they should have won, but didn't happen. Beat Indy and then move on.
Random comment, but its still amazing that we've played 4 more games than the Hornets, still. Looking at their schedule, it definitely gets harder. But it doesn't get really hard for them till the very end. In the last 11 days of the regular season, they play 7 games, 4 on the road, and the opponents are Utah, Miami and Phoenix in back to back, Dallas, Dallas and Houston in back to back, and San Antonio. And only 4 of their final 12 games are at home. New Orleans could really stumble that final month. As for the Rockets, they've definitely had one of the hardest schedules thus far. It will be nice to play some "easier" teams, with fewer road trips and fewer long road trips. I think once again, record wise, our second half will definitely be better than our first. Winning 22 games in a row again isn't likely, but we should be able to solidly win 3 of 4, then 4 of 5 then 2 of 3, then a nice 7 game win streak...something like that, hopefully. Of the 39 remaining games, we only play 9 against teams that currently have a better record than us. A 30-9 finish is over-simplistic, and optimistic, but that would have the Rockets finish at 57-25, which would be great.
how many threads or comments have been made this season, listening our next 20 some odd games and saying we should go on a 20 game win streak. we have enough talent to legitimately contend with any team in the nba, that being said, every team in the nba is capable of beating each team, the grizz could beat the lakers, the lakers could beat the celtics, the celtics could lose to the rockets...basically stop jinxing us we'll win the games we put the effort in to, the ones we don't play 48 hard min, we will lose
Finally the schedule is in our favour. This is team to make something happen, to catch some wins. And what is important we are getting T-Mac and Ron back.
With the easy sked, I say we rest T-Mac even more.. As nice as it would be getting him integrated into the line-up...we need T-Mac to come back as his old self, 100%, and totally physically and mentally ready... I hope he doesn't come back this road trip and takes extra time
The rest of this month and next are gonna be big for us. It's time for our players to start stepping up, play hard, and win games. No excuses losing to teams under .500. We can make a great move in the positioning for the playoffs, we just have to want it. March and April are going to be tough. In that month and a half of regular season games, we play utah, lakers, hornets, mavs, suns and spurs all twice, not to mention a few other good teams. Lets win some games while it should be easy.
We blew the easy schedule in December. Here is another crack at it. Lets take care of business this time
he's banned because he failed us during the playoffs... (actually, i don't know what happened to him)
there's no excuse losing to any of those teams. the way we are playing now we need to take care of business. maybe the Pistons game on the road I might forgive, but that's still one we can get
Any of these could easily be trap games. If we come out with a mentality of "automatic win" as a lot of you posters think, the result may very well be the opposite. Get out to win, work hard and blow them away.
There are no easy games in the NBA. Each team is a professional basketball team, meaning on any given night you can lose. The focus and determination must stay high if we want to get out of the West.
I see a ton of trap games in this "easy" stretch. Hopefully, the Rockets can use these games to build up even more confidence and incorporate TMac and Artest back into the line up smoothly.
I can see Det and Philly beating us, besides them we SHOULD be able to take care of busniness with the other teams
Be careful predicting big runs just because of easy "on paper" schedules. That Knicks game won't be easy for a short handed team playing it's third road game in four nights. The Knicks are a higher energy competitive team these days. They took out plenty of playoff teams this year: Hornets, Celtics, Pistons, Suns. Memphis and Golden State tend to give us trouble, too. I agree, we've got a winnable stretch ahead of us, but it'll help if we get the good versions of Artest and McGrady and manage to maintain the high level of play we've had the past two weeks. Evan
exactly. i could be totally off-base, but my feel is that the league this year is a lot more evenly matched than in years past. add that on top of the fact that the rockets seem to always play to the level of their competition anyway makes predicting long stretches of games like this futile. the promising thing for me is that they seem to know this too. they know they have something to prove, especially the two guys coming back in a couple games.
