it seems you are very interested in doing reseach. i remember you started a thread named like Portland Houston head to head matchup (i can't remember clearly) as soon as we finish our regular season. you are more like a expert than those who write boring articles all day.
Don't stop at '89, go back to '87, when the Rockets beat Portland as the 5th seed in the first round. Of course in '96 they punked the Lakers as the 5 seed with an old Magic playing power forward. I think they would have swept them had the refs not fouled out Hakeem in the third quarter of the second game.
They are a great home team but the playoffs are a different animal. They are horrible on the road against teams over .500 so if we can win Game 1 or 2 we have a great chance. It would be Great to win Game 1 just to see how a young team like Portland would react in Game 2. As far as the Brooks thing, I think Lowry will get the majority of the minutes unless Brooks is playing lights out in the game. Over the last few weeks we have seen Lowry getting key minutes down the stretch over Brooks.
basically, all this really means is that the better team usually wins. there's a much bigger difference between the 1st, 2nd, 3rd teams and the 8th, 7th, and 6th teams than between the 4th and 5th teams. homecourt is overrated and really doesn't mean too much even when the series goes 7 games, which it usually doesn't. in the end it's going to come down to matchups... again.
Since there has been a 5th seed (70's or so) the number is 50% win-loss record for first round. The bad news is since there has been a 5th seed, no 5th seed has ever won it all. 5th is second worst to 8th IMHO.
i'm ready to roll, let's do this. we can beat portland, if we keep roy and aldridge under control, they can't beat us.
Obviously the teams are usually pretty evenly matched between the 4 and 5 spots, but one still wouldn't expect the team without home court advantage to have WON 58% of the match ups over the last 20 years. That is shocking, in my opinion.
Ignoring matchups for the moment. Blazers have the second best home court in the western conference. Most professional basketball writers/analysts would laugh at you for ignoring that.
No matter how many games have been simulated, the games are not played on computers or by experts. In fact, the result of a 7-game series is much less predictable than a 160-game series simulation. Don't be too obsessive guys. Enjoy the games!
