If Yao hadn't went down would we be playing in the Western Conference Finals tonight?

"maybe" is not a conclusion, maybe. lol. intriguing question though and i believe many have wondered (myself included).

can't really speculate what-if's such as what if we snatched one more rebound or loose ball in game 7 of the utah series. but one thing is for sure though. with both or either of healthy yao and deke, the lakers wouldn't have enjoyed their height advantage that much.

 

Well YAO cant stay healthy so we need to find other options to go to next level

 

There is nothing like a good what if question. I personally think we have a great nucleus. It would have been a lot easier to control tempo with Yao, but it would also cause Brooks to be less effective. He would have less room to work. Tempo would have been much slower in the last four games.

I can say this if Yao was healthy the Rockets don't go 0-12 to start game 7 and rebounding would be easier, but chuck hayes would have gotten significantly less playing time, and our defence would get a little worse.

So Maybe...

 

i'd say no way, with yao playing we'd be finished around game 5 or 6.

like kobe said and i quote:" we just didn't adjust well that's it. "
lakers are great at defending yao and exploring his weakness on both ends of the floor. to beat the lakers you need tough-minded bigs with good mobility and rebounding abilities and yao doesn't qualify either of the two.

 

No. with Yao they were 1-2 against the Lakers. With Yao, the Lakers would have won in 5

 

Maybe, maybe not. Unanswerable question

 

answerable question

answer is yes.

problem is guys have short memories. it's kind of unfair to ask what would have happened without Yao most of these guys cant even remember past game 5.

game 3 Rockets were up. game 2 slipped away after some calls/ejections in the 4th quarter. Rockets were never blown out with Yao in the game as they were games 5 and 7.

with Yao in there, the defense is just as strong but the tempo in those games never get away from the Rockets. instead of wasting games those 2 blowout games Rockets have a shot in each game. 3 chances to take 1 game from LA... Houston would have done it

 

wow. I just realized that we lost both of our centers in two different playoff series (call me captain obvious). I mean that never happens to other teams. Its just amazing.

 

The team was really feeling the game alltoghether, and they had established themselves on each ones roles, i think we would have been able to beat la.

 

yes we would. we'd be playing a good denver team in the conference finals, everyone except us would have been surprised.

 

even if no Yao, with Mutombo we would have.....we just had no big bodies to bang with Gasol Odom and bynum.....Mutombo def would of left his mark on those guys and intimidated them

 

Basketball is like chess. You lose your queen you have to play with rooks, bishops, horses and pawns. Your whole strategy changes and you hope to catch the other guy make a mistake (i.e. game 4 and 6). But having your queen gives you a lot more options and allows you to dictate the pace of the game a bit more. Phil simply had more matchups he could exploit in game 7. It was pretty obvious that we were simply too small down low w/o Yao or Deke. That we stole Games 4 & 6 is amazing w/o them. But their height really bothered us in LA in 5 & 7. Having no height down low meant that we really had to be hitting 3s--a big if.

 

If yao was still playing, we wouldn't win anymore games for the rest of the series. So we would lose in 5

 

Ok, you caught me.

We played games before game 5? Go figure.

I also wasn't aware that the future is entirely definable by the past.

 

Rockets were in the game in game 3, but Yao was not 100% in the 2nd half of game 3, playing off his "fractured" foot.

All games with Yao were competitive, including stealing game 1. That can't be said of game 5 and 7, when Gasol and Bynum looked like they were playing with midgets (especially in game 5).

IMO, the series was for the Lakers to lose after game 3. We don't match up with the Laker's front court, providing their front court plays up to their expectations. Bynum and Gasol didn't play up to their expectations in game 4 and 6, while our front court exceeded their expectations in those games.

Bottom line is, you need size to counter their size. It doesn't even have to be Yao - a healthy Deke could have controlled Bynum/Gasol/Odom in games 5 and 7. But not having Yao and Deke hurt us in games 5 and 7 and the Lakers front court finally met their expectations.

Kudos to our front court for exceeding their expectations. We couldn't have asked anything more from Scola, Landry, and Hayes.

 

Yes we would. and we will beat Denver in the WCF.

 

If Yao was healthy they would hand us The Trophy for 2009 thru 2012 right away.

 

What are you trying to say?

Call me crazy, but I think losing Deke was worse than losing Yao. Deke had fresh legs and was primed to have a great playoff run.

And as far as 'what ifs' I think the most important one is what if we would've beat dallass in game 82. A game we had a double-digit lead in in the 2nd half. That one still knaws at me. I don't think we would have had ANY trouble with dallass or NO in the 1st 2 rounds. It would've been a cakewalk right into the Conference Finals.

 

I agree 100% with this. Landry, Scola, and Chuck, played with so much heart and effort, but they just didnt have the size to deal with the Lakers. If we had Deke, I think we would have won.

 

Yes Yes we would