Face it, folks, the Clippers are just better at NBA than the Rockets are

From Reddit...

Why don't you ever see Chris Paul take three shots in a row?

His Clips only have two rounds in them.

 

Will is a 99er and your master.

 

or, From Redick

Let me decide the win.

btw that Reddit joke is stupid. I now feel more sorry for Clips sorry after reading that. so sad


Which reminds me...how many Clippers does it take to screw in a light bulb?

We still don't know, they keep flopping at it.

 

Seriously not going to acknowledge you were wrong and we were clearly the better and deeper TEAM?

 

I never turned my back on them and kept the faith. I was worried though. I loved seeing the look on Matt Barnes face at the end of the game. CP3 is a good dude though. Shouldve brought his ass to Houston.

 

I'm just happy that you are wrong. And I wont be seeing the statement in maybe atleast a season "The Clips are better than us or Clips is a bad match-up against the Rockets. So many fans here are afraid of the Clippers its ridiculous. I can understand the fear against the SPURS because they are a championship team and very disciplined but the CLIPS??

 

Rocks123/you are right. I always back the team if they are.up or down.

 

never liked the clips as a team over the years.

and, the only thing i know is, if we beat a team in a 7-game series, it only proves we're a better team not the other way around. anything else only exists on paper.

there's a reason why it has to be decided by actually playing the games. and for the very same reason we fans watch every bit of these games.

 

How was I incredibly quiet?!?! I could barely sleep last night because I was reading articles and posting so late :grin:

I called him out on one of the first few pages of the thread, IBTL's disrespect towards Will was uncalled for is what I took offense to.

Very true, I'll leave this topic, everybody needs to enjoy this amazing ****ing team!!

 

Nailed it rockbox

Carl -
You started off wrong with your very first words - "It is not heart or desire"
Clearly it is ALL about heart and desire
The Clips won 3 when they had more, and the Rockets won 4 when they had more
Since neither team made any roster changes mid-series, how can you possibly still cling to the hollow farce "more talent = better team" after 7 straight head-to-head games proved conclusively who is best?
And when the overwhelming deciding factor in all 7 games was clearly HEART & DESIRE, and not TALENT???

Will -
Your line about "at their best" doesn't even really apply to this Rockets team
When, throughout this entire season, has this team ever been healthy/stable enough to even define "their best" level of play for a 10+ game stretch?
Even now, we are still down 2 starters, so unfortunately, we will never truly be able to see this team at it's best
Isn't it possible that, even after 2 rounds, this team has still not peaked?
Couldn't their best still be ahead of them?
Just the internal growth we witnessed this team make from the end of GM4 until the end of GM7 should be enough to at least make this a possibility


The fact that the Rockets and Clips had the same reg season record, including a 2-2 split head-to-head, clearly shows they were very evenly matched on talent
You can argue that CP3 is better than Harden or that Griffin is better than Howard ... the FACT is both our guys have been past 2nd round multiple times, while neither Clip ever has

How does PLAYOFF SUCCESS not factor into your definition of "better" (for a team or a player)?
To me, playoff success is the ONLY way to delineate "better" when comparing elite teams or players
At some point for all great players, their rank among the all-time greats is no longer about stats/AllStar games/reg season wins/ind awards
Playoff Success (or failure) of their team comes to define great players more in the end than anything else

PLAYOFF SUCCESS (NOT TALENT) is the MAIN reason:
- TMac will never be "better" than Kobe
- Durant hasn't surpassed LeBron as the league's "best" player
- Duncan has surpassed other like Malone and Barkley to become the best PF of all time
- Magic is still regarded as the "best" PG of all time
- Jordan is still the "best" player of all time

The fact we just earned a 4-3 playoff series victory over them DEFINES this Rockets team as "better" than that Clippers team
If head-to-head results on the court over 7 consecutive games are not enough to declare a superior team for either of you ....
maybe more subjectively-scored athletic competitions such as Figure Skating would suit you better

As many pointed out already, even MAVS OWNER Mark Cuban had the decency to admit he was wrong about the talent level of this team ... you would think 2 die-hard Rockets fans on a Rockets fan message board could muster the integrity to do the same

 

Who cares if the Clippers are "more talented"* than the Rockets (minus two starters)? The Rockets just beat them in a playoff series and that's the only thing that matters.

*clearly a subjective opinion without meaningful definition, so it is an empty comment.

 

I never understood why Herrera has so many reputation points. He's one of the worst users on this board, whether he's trolling or not... Unless his gimmick is to try to be a reverse jinx I guess?

 

I think he used to have good takes? Can't quite remember because it's been so long. Then he picked up this contrarian, troll schtick of his and he's kept that up forever.

 

OK, let's start with the basketball question. Do you believe it's possible for one team to be better than another (as measured by talent, IQ, consistency of execution, or some other standard) and still lose a series? I do. There are lots of ways to measure "better," and we could argue all day about them. I looked at us and the Clippers, in our head-to-heads and in the first round, and I concluded that the Clippers at their best would beat us at our best. That's why I wanted to play the Spurs, not the Clippers, until Paul injured his hamstring in their Game 7.

Then we managed to go 1-3 even with Paul sitting out 2 games and then playing limited minutes. So there was lots more evidence for this assessment.

And then the Clippers lost their intensity. They relinquished Game 5, tightened up at the end of Game 6, and walked into Game 7 looking dazed and scared. If they had played Game 7 with the confidence they showed early in the series, they would have stayed with us, with a good chance of winning.

Is that kind of mental strength, or weakness, a basketball factor? Yes. Does it make us better than them? As measured by a 7-game series, yes. But that's a separate question from the others (talent, execution, IQ, adjustments, etc.). There are many kinds of "better." The series tells you which ones are decisive.

So ultimately this is a semantic question. There's no point in going around demanding that sports writers, Rockets haters, or even Rockets fans acknowledge that we're "better" than this or that team. And that kind of oversimplification makes life less interesting. It's AWESOME to beat teams that are "better" than you. All of us should LOVE it when we take down a team that is, on paper, or even on the court most of the time, better than us.

Personally, I'm shocked that we won this series. Almost everyone on this board, if honest, is shocked that we won it. We watched the games and saw our team totally outclassed. There's no shame in that. Fan loyalty is that much more admirable when you think your team is the underdog.

You can spin your own theory about what happened. Mine is not that the Rockets played harder or smarter. Mine is that we stopped quitting and decided to keep fighting, and the Clippers were not prepared for that. I think that's what happened in Game 6. They thought we would curl up and die, as we had in Games 3 and 4. They never thought we would fight for our lives. When we did, they didn't believe what was happening. They were mentally unprepared to fight to the death against us, as they had against the Spurs.

And then they failed to come back in Game 7 with a "new series" mindset. That was incredibly weak on their part. It showed that they were not a new, more mature Clippers team. Inside, they still felt like chokers. They exposed a fragility I hadn't expected, particularly after they gutted out the Spurs series.

Does that make us a better team than they are? Depends on your definition, and frankly, I don't care. I don't even care, above all, that we won the series, though I'm ecstatic about that. What I care about most is the sheer grit of our guys pulling together and taking all those punches and staying on their feet until the Clippers fell. I admire that kind of fortitude and teamwork more than I admire talent.

So, to return to the question posed in the title of this thread: Are the Clippers better than us at NBA? I would say that this is an empirical question, and the answer is no. NBA is measured by winning a 7-game series -- a grueling standard. We outlasted them. We outgutted them. We beat them at NBA.

As for the name-calling in this thread ... Look, I have never believed in banning people. I admire dissent, and will always fight to protect it. I just really really hate the kind of loyalty policing I'm seeing from some people after this amazing comeback. I think it's ugly, and misdirected, and corrosive. It's what spoiled, fractious, sorry-*** fan bases like the Lakers do. Let's not descend to that. Our team is the most amazing story in sports right now. Be magnanimous to your fellow fans who doubted us, especially if you're one of the 95% who doubted. We're brothers. The world is still against us. Fockass, and fight on.

 

New rallying cry (and I can hear it in Dream's voice too ).

 

Firstly, your highlighted comment above doesn't even make sense, unless I'm misreading it ... doesn't 'play harder' mean the exact same thing as 'stop quitting'?
Maybe I misunderstood ... if not, it sounds like you are actually agreeing with me that effort/heart/will decided this series, and not 'talent'


I felt before series began we would barely win in 7 by winning all 4 home games
Then, after GMs 3&4, like you, Carl and most everyone else, I thought we were done
Then after GM6, I again felt confident about winning the series

Just within these 7 games, my personal perception of the 'better' team in this series changes 3 times, as I'm sure it did for many others
Better is fluid, and defined by most-recent on-court results first and foremost
Otherwise, we have the CFB debacle we endured forever until this past year, where the Natl Champ is decided in much the same way American Idol champion is determined

You, Carl and others seem locked into a static perception of this Rockets team that I shared with you after G4 ... but it's ok to allow for new data to change your opinion
Evolving through learning doesn't make a fool ... in fact, learning is a fool's only hope for a cure
Why are you so resistant to change?
I hope I never reach an age where I no longer have the capacity or desire to learn something new and adjust my thinking accordingly

After the past 3 games, I cannot fathom how you, Carl or anyone else can still see these 2 teams the same way you viewed them a week/month ago???

To me, you are all proclaiming the main factor in us winning this series is that the Clippers played below their peak level after G4, which allowed the Rockets at 'maxed-out' level to barely eek out 3 straight wins

My point is that this Rockets team is growing, maturing, and improving on a nearly game-to-game basis right before our eyes
I don't think we've even see the best this team can play, as each game offers Dwight, Josh, Brewer, Prig, Capella, Ariza and TJ more time to learn how to play together ... something injuries and roster moves prohibited throughout the entire season up to this point

The Rockets heading to face GS in the WCF are better than the team that left LA disgraced a week ago down 3-1
They are now miles beyond the team that lost 2 straight to the Spurs in the last week of reg season to almost choke away the #2 seed and homecourt
They are light-years beyond the team that couldn't get out of the first round only a year ago

Things can change rapidly in sports ... even over the course of a few days
Just roll with it and don't worry so much about validating an out-dated, ill-informed preconception to save face
We were ALL wrong about this team after G4 ... nothing wrong with admitting it
It's like when Christians still try earnestly to defend biblical creationism against scientific evolution ... it's not really a debate when you are disputing proven factual evidence with personal opinions and beliefs


Won't you at least entertain the idea that OUR team is still getting better with each passing game, and that our 'BEST' has yet to be defined?

Now we are playing a GS team that is truly 'better' in every/any objective sense of the word
If the Rockets keep improving, and find yet another new level of greatness in this series, and pull off the improbable upset ... will the Clippers still be 'better'?

In your mind, at what point will the Rockets on-court success this postseason no longer be a result of a greater opponent failing to meet expectations?
At what point do you give the Rockets credit for what they are becoming ... a more dangerous, more resilient, more mentally-tough, BETTER team with each passing game?

It's certainly not a sudden jump in talent that explains the complete 180 in results from games 1-4 as compared to games 5-7

 

If a team fails to meet expectations, doesn't that mean that... they're not as good as the expectations indicated?

 

Will,

The Clippers did not beat us at our Best, Will. And our best took them out of their game. It's about defense.

Call it a game of semantics, but I won't. I love defense too much, and clearly give it much more respect than you do. We are clearly the better defensive team and we have the better bench and role players. We took them out of their game. You can't say "At their best, the Clippers can XYZ" when a team doesn't let them play at their best.

Defense does that.

Think about the football analogy to this. You can't say the best offensive team is the best. That offense has to beat the defense. Clippers might have a better offense, but they can't beat our best defense.

This isn't semantics. This is basketball.

GO ROCKETS!

 

I hope you reach an age where you actually read and understand what the other person just wrote, before you piously misrepresent it.

 

So, you're cherry picking one instance or iteration? We are all playing the exact number of games during the regular season and we played 1 more game better than they did in the playoffs. There is no such thing as luck and variance... that will all disappear in the future because the Rockets won't be remembered for them. They will be remembered for closing out a favorite Clippers team down 3-1.