It’s a 5 game homestand against: - a Jeckyl and Hyde puppy Wolves team - barely over .500 Heat team - a Lukaless Mavs team - a Celtics team who might be in a small dip - a Lakers team who might be finding their stride We’re pretty good lately so we need to prove this every single night, home court to mean something and defend it with all our might and can accept one slip-up against Celtics, maybe even Lakers / Mavs, but definitely against more than 1 of them.
The Lakers game is what I'm seeing as an inevitable loss. Not because of their play, but because I think the officiating will be leaned heavily against us.
4-1 seems correct. Rockets should be favored in every game except the Celtics. I am an optimist and see 3-2 or 4-1. They may stumble once when they shouldn't, but I think the Rocket's defense is legit and the offense good enough to be in or win every game. The Fakers are poor on the road - and more importantly, its not a nationally televised game, so hopefully no shenanigans by the Refs.
Luka's injury is a big opportunity for us. I think Minnesota is going to surge, but we could still get them this game. Ant and their frontcourt is a real challenge for us. Boston being on a back to back might help, but man I think they are still way, way better. Heat is a toss-up if Jimmy is playing. LA will always get the calls whether on TV or not. It is much more in the interest of the NBA for the Lakers to make the playoffs than the Rockets. I could see 4-1 or 3-2 if FVV and Jalen play decent. If not we could easily lose all, although I think odds are we beat Dallas and LA.
I think we can do it, but the boys have overachieved so far and we're starting to confuse a pleasant start with an expected standard. I can't consider it a disappointment if we "only" get 6th seed for example. The team is not pursuing any trades and veteran teams tend to do better and play their vets more in the second half. Let's not raise the bar arbitrarily and treat their exceptional success as though it's the minimum. I'm happy as long as they keep fighting and clawing and out-hustling damn near everyone. I do think we can go 4-1 during that stretch.
They "should" go 4-1, but as the saying goes, "You have to play the games". Celtics seem to be the toughest opponent but they have lost 3/4 while DB's former UO teammate Peyton Pritchard (one of my favorite players in the NBA) has cooled off considerably. Beating the Lakers means the most to me.
The Rockets dont play well against solid teams on the second night of a b2b. So Im WORRIED ABOUT TONIGHT TO BE HONEST.
Sometimes the Mavs play more fluidly without Luka and with Kyrie at his best so I am leaving it out there.
Losing tonight goes to show a couple of things: playing the 2nd night of a back-to-back against a decent team like the Timberwolves shows how hard it is to play your best. I really hope that Eason and/or Brooks (would be really nice if both of them) would be able to play against the Heat. We need them badly.
I don't know if it's so much about the schedule. In the final 5 minutes Green, FVV, Amen/Tate, Jabari and Sengun all made really dumb plays on both sides. Could be they just ran out of gas with 5 minutes left but every single one of them?? I wish the team had managed their minutes better in that case, not going with an EXTRA short rotation on the 2nd night of a back to back. If you combine all the minutes each bench player played, they played 29 minutes collectively lol. Basically the whole bench played less than Amen plays on a good night. It's tighter than any typical 7-man rotation even in playoff elimination games. Even just for injury prevention, chill the F out Ime. He needs to get off this JVG vibe, it has never worked in any coach's favor. Wolves are not an exceptional offensive team, for this game we could have traded a smidgen of defense for more minutes and shooting from Holiday/UncleGreen/Landale/McVeigh on the back 2 back. That means slightly more rest for FVV, Jabari, Tate and Sengun. We lost by a point anyone can point to anything I get it, but from a big picture perspective this was stupid and it was the first mistake that set the foundation for everyone else to make typical fatigue-related mistakes. That's a bigger setback than one possession here or there. It results in multiple bad possessions throughout.
