Basically, Yao must catch fire, not flame out as he is doing know. TMac MUST raise his shooting percentage, and the role players have to elevate their game into unknown territory, OR one of the elite has to stumble. Basically, the Rockets have "feasted on the least," which is what they are supposed to do, but, they have struggled against the elite and very athletic teams. In someways this is actually more exciting, because there is no expectation that the Rockets are going to roll into the playoffs and push people around. Any success will be hard fought and greatly appreciated. The main problem is this team does not have a Bob Sura.
WCF would be amazing, seeing as how we'd have to go through dallas to get there. if that happens, i'd love to see the spurs in the WCF, bc a) we just can't beat the suns, they'd run us to death in a 7 game series and b) i just want to beat dallas and san antonio after sitting at the bottom of the Texas totem pole for so long. our record is worrisome against the west, but that 0-6 vs two teams that we probably wont see changes a lot, as well as the losses by a point or two in several other games. besides, once playoffs roll around, it's all about matchups with that round's opponent anyway, so the regular season's record is somewhat moot by then. the only games i really care about are the two against utah we have left...jvg better figure out what works and what doesn't in those two games, bc you can be sure as hell that sloan will have his boys ready to attack our weaknesses.
Very important stat. This, along with other strong warning indicators, should sober us. I believe we'll go 7 games against Utah, and at our present level of performance, it's a coin flip whether we could pull it out, followed by certain death in the 2nd round. What we must have to go further is the Yao we had early in the season. Nothing else will make enough of a difference.
Urgh. Have you even watched any games lately? I would hardly call it "winning ugly." I have no problem with constructive criticism of the coach, but you will have to do better than mindless bashing using the tired old cliche of "uglyball."
That disturbing trend is because JVG overplays the first string rather than resting them when the game is in the bag in the fourth quarter. By the time the playoffs arrive, I fear the first string won't have any legs left and the second string will have no experience playing together as a team.
And here I thought the disturbing trend was blowing leads in the 4th Q, which tends to make any coach want to keeps his starters out there.
So when Tim Thomas rolled on Yao, Yao should have been on the bench? When Chuck has gotten injured both times this year, it was because it was garbage time? When Snyder broke his hand? All of the above the answer is no, they got injured during the course of the game.
as long as we are above .500 against the west thats all it takes. because thats all it will take to get out of the 1st round....4-3
I think equally important is if McGrady can once again up his play in the playoffs. It may almost all be related to the fact that in the playoffs, McGrady basically plays the entire game, but he is his awesome self the entire game. The level of play he's demonstrated in the playoffs, despite yet to win a series, is unbelievable. Can he play 42+mpg throughout. If so, we have a shot against anyone, regardless of whether or not Yao is averaging 26/10 as oppossed to 19/9. That said, I expect Yao's minutes to also go up, and both are best when playing with each other, so his stats should improve, too. Stamina and health will continue to be the msot important factors for this team. Yao at 38 mpg and Tracy at 42 mpg would be an extra 12 minutes of the game where they are both on the court at the same time. Anyway, I think Tracy's play will be more important than Yao's come playoff time.
chuck hayes must make incredible cuts to the basket and convert every layup. and get every offensive rebound.
I' am not really going to dwell at our record against the West's playoff teams. Realistically, for us to compete against those teams we need both Yao and Tracy and how many games against those teams did we have them both? There were a few close games like against the likes of the Suns and San Antonio that we lost that we could of won if we had both. This stretch of games will be important but I won't be worried if they go .500 for the last 11 games. This team will be well prepared come playoff time regardless. If I remember correctly we didn't close the season that well 2 years ago when we faced the Mavs in the first round and the team came out with a bang. I' m mostly worried about health (Hayes, McGrady and Yao). I see JVG starting to rest T-Mac a bit more especially in the 2nd qtr.
Should he take every charge, make every steal, and cure cancer too? LOL No one person on this team is good enough to single handedly beat the Jazz, or any other team in the NBA, with the exception of maybe Tmac. And you can see from the NOK game even when he's on his tear, with out his teammates performing well defensively even he can't do it alone. The "killer instinct" that everyone is looking for is either going to show up in the next couple of weeks or we won't see it at all. Yes Chuck has to do all those things... just like Rafer has to recover around picks and make his top of the key shots, Shane has to play defense on whoever happens to be the hot shot for the game and hit those corner threes, Yao has to post up deep and take it hard to the basket with less of those fade away jumpers and Tmac has to do what he does... push and attack. Trends don't bother me in the regular season... they bother me when they are allowed to follow you into the post season. Rox need to step on the throat of every opponent that they get up on from here on out... until it becomes a habit. I wanna see Vmac and Novak in the last 5 minutes of each and every game from now until the end of the season!! Wow this post ended up long! LOL
