hahaha stern helping out the rockets. that's a good one. what's next ? Mobster Bud Selig saying he no longer wants the astros to relocate?
Could it simply be that during the win streak we were shooting close to 40% from 3 point range and slumped to 20% in the last two losses. Occam's Razor my friends look it up. This is professional sports, anyone can beat anyone on a nightly basis.
Well, I think it's mutually exclusive if comparing them to the other teams in that No. 6 to No. 10 range in the West. Our '09 Rockets/Lakers discussion was a bit of a different issue, I'll admit. But to the OP's original point, I don't think we're at a distinct disadvantage (when playing "hard") relative to Utah, Phoenix, Denver, etc. I don't think the Rockets' record is any more misleading than those teams. Yeah, I think we're on the same page given your final statement. Of course your team will perform better when it shoots well, but it's especially the case with this Rockets group, and that's what I was trying to point out. Unlike, say, the Jazz... there's no Al Jefferson for us to dump it down to when everyone is struggling and we desperately need one basket to stop momentum. Thus, things can spiral out of control fairly quickly (third quarter against Phoenix). Of course, the reverse can be true as well. In the end, I just think the Rockets' style leads to a lot more volatility in their performance than the typical team.
The same thing happened in game 1 and 2 of the 2007 playoffs.The Rockets shot 29 to 31% from the field against the Jazz who shot over 40% and the Rockets won those games because of the defense and energy in the arena. In the regular season players don't always contest every shot, or get back on defense in transition every time. In the playoffs they do. The Rockets don't have the talent to make difficult, or contested jumpers. They don't have someone who can quickly burn his man and get inside if he wanted to, or the someone who can out muscle anyone they throw at him in the post. This is why they are a likely candidate to get swept in the playoffs. It's why the Rockets lose so many games in crunch time.
well our expected W/L record based on points scored vs points allowed as compared to the rest of the league has us at 31-28. 1 game worse than our actuall record. Funny thing is I actually feel like this is the best team we have had in the past few years, but the last 2 years we ended the season with a better expected record than actual record.
Our Pythagorean record is about 30-29 so statistically we're barely worse than what our real W/L record indicates. I just checked that we're 14-8 in overtime games and all other games decided by 6 points or less. Could be an indicator of luck, but also we're a really good FT shooting team.
DD illuded earlier to the Rockets living & dieing by the jumpshot, and in a way hes right. However, its a little more complex than just that. The main thing that I see however, is a team that can run its offensive sets to near perfection, but they still dont have an offensive identity that works consistently. When Lowry went down, the Rockets really thrived in the Dragic pick and roll. Since Lowry came back they have played Dragic off the ball alot more, and its made this team back into more of a jumpshooting team in their offensive sets. Rule of thumb is, if you have an undersized jump shooting team, you need to push the ball as much as possible to get shots before a team sets in on defense. Yet, when they go small-ball, they often have a more halfcourt minded approach to getting into their offense. I think alot of that has to do with the Rockets going small in the 4th quarter when the game naturally slows down anyways. Needless to say, you still have a team without an offensive identity. I believe they need to go with the Dragic P&R as much as possible throughout the remainder of the season. Lowry can run the P&R pretty good off the bench, but the ball needs to be in Dragic's hands the majority of the time. Come summer, the Rockets need to figure out what they want to build their offense around going into next year. Most likely they need to work on aquiring or developing better low post players that make life easier for your outside shooters. This brand of basketball can grind out wins, but longterm, its not consistent enough to be championship basketball. -Their defense on the other hand, has its own issues. If Scola is still going to be a focal point of this team going forward, they need to seriously look at better defensive pieces to surround him with.
I think you are over thinking a bad shooting streak. We were running our sets, getting open shots, we just weren't hitting them. This was magified by us coming off an insane shooting streak just before. As for the "worse than our record", its just part of the game. The Yao/McGrady era were much better than the numerous first round exits, this is just the opposite.
Right, and the Hornets games will not be easy wins. They have Gordon back and are playing pretty good as of lately. Nobody knows what to expect from the Miami game, and Dallas just creams the Rockets with their size and length inside. They cannot beat the Mavericks. Terrible matchup. Its going to take a prayer, and some luck for them to make the playoffs now. Good job Rockets.
Three of the most important games of the season and we get manhandled by our opponents. The Rockets are making this thread irrelevant. Soon our record will be exactly who we are. I am back on the side of wanting to keep our lottery pick? Yes I would love to make the playoffs but does anyone think we can beat LA, OKC or SA in a 7 game series?
No, but getting the NJ pick obligation out of the way is important to making future deals involving a 1st round pick we have to move, and the development experience for young players like Parsons could be paramount.
We are soft, have no inside game besides Scola and rely on our outside shots to fall so we can play some defense. Do or die is not the mo of this team. It's rather choke city and losing out on the playoffs when we were in doesn't deserve my respect. I do respect Adelman even more now with what he did with our team last year, from the outside looking in trying to make the playoffs with the roster he had.
I still don't think it's mutually exclusive...I think both can be and actually are true. I also think it's somewhat telling that we don't own a tiebreaker against anyone of note.
