Beat Clippers: Home court in first round (likely) !

in all likelihood, we are locked to play utah. the only difference would be the home court.

assuming both we and the suns win the last game (likely), no matter who wins the utah-sa game, we're either #5 (hca) or #6 (no hca) and will draw utah (#3 or #4) in the 1st round - if i'm reading all the rules correctly.

there is no way sa has already locked the #3 seed. that's just bs from espn.

of course, if we lose to the clippers, it's likely the worst scenario. let's not go there.

 

Are we even trying to get homecourt? I don't see how we are really giving it a shot if we sat two starters for the Denver game. That was the key game to really control our own destiny....

Would anyone be surprised to see folks resting vs the Clips?

 

If Adelman benches key players against the Clips, he should be fired on the spot. You don't piss away a gimme home game that could clinch home court.

 

http://blogs.chron.com/nba/2008/04/pick_your_poison_rockets_to_pl.html

 

I hear ya. I'm just not convinced that we care about HCA when we had a chance to control our destiny against Denver and we sat people.

 

There is a difference between getting HCA and not having healthy players to play.

What good is HCA if you play Battier and B Jackson hurt and they get hurt furhter? You may or may not win that game but now you don't have either for the playoffs.

You do not play people who are hurt, not if it could mean further injury. Battier havn't sat out a game for a long time so he is sitting for a very good reason. He's hurt.

If the Rockets take care of business against the Clippers and SA does at home, then the Rockets have HCA anyways. If not, then they don't. But in no way they force a injured player to play.

 

ESPN changed the Spurs as "close to locking up the 3rd seed"

ha its funny that ESPN is even confused about this crazy playoff scenario.

 

right on.

fire adelman for not playing players nursing nagging injuries in games we played so poorly in we probably would've lost anyway? give me a break.

battier and jackson both came back for the utah game, likely because adelman WAS trying to secure HCA. but we played like ass so we lost anyway. the denver game nobody showed up to play anyway, so adelman might as well have sat all the starters.

 

Hollinger (aka Mr. stats) mentioned this, if everyone beats the non-playoff teams and utah beats san antonio there is 4-way tie. Because of tie-breakers it would go utah, phx, hou, sa.

I don't think any team is easy but i think we matchup better against phoenix because they'll allow us to keep our most productive offense on the court with less Harris on the court. They aren't too big on the perimeter. I also think we have the best single coverage of shaq with Deke in the middle.

There could also be a 5 way tie if the hornets loose both of their last 2, one of which is against Dallas who might play hard knowing they might play them in the playoffs.

 

That's how I've got it in my scenarios from up top (I believe!).

To bring this in from another thread on the first page, I think if we beat the Clippers, we win HCA in three out of the four possible scenarios.

Rox Win + Spurs Loss + Suns Loss = no HCA vs. Spurs
Rox Win + Spurs Loss + Suns Win = HCA vs. Suns (scenario discussed by Hollinger)
Rox Win + Spurs Win + Suns Loss = HCA vs. Jazz
Rox Win + Spurs Win + Suns Win = HCA vs. Jazz

 

I've stated this in all the other threads talking about this and figured I should add it here as well.

I, ScriboErgoSum, was wrong about the seeding of the 4 team tie break.

DD was correct.

I am having a big slice of crow pie. Luckily my wife is a cook, so it tastes pretty good.

 

So there is a 75% chance that the Rockets will have HCA?
Just double checking...

Edit: NVM...I just read this: http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=146737

 

So I will be rooting of the Suns against Blazers and for the Utah game, I dont care who wins cuz both Utah and Phoenix are same thing. The important thing is to have the homecourt.

 

Thanks for summing this up so succinctly. It was giving me a headache. Right now, I'm thinking I'd like to see Rox vs. Suns with the Rox having HCA. But I'll take HCA over any other match-up.

 

Why do I think we're going to play Suns and be eliminated 4-2?

 

So, if we win, we're locked to play either Utah or the Suns.

Now the following question bears: Who would we rather face? We win, Utah wins, we get home court against the Suns.

We win, Spurs win, we get home court against the Jazz.

My gut tells me Phoenix (because of their lack of interior D), but... I... just don't know.

 

I don't see what the big deal is with home court. It only comes in handy if it goes 7 games, and look how much it helped us last year. In fact, I find it better to start on the road, cause if you can steal one game, then the pressure shifts to the other team and now you're coming home tied 1-1. Plus if you start on the road, there's more focus because you know you're on the road and don't rely on the home crowd to get you going. Just my 2 cents...By the way, I think we would be better off playing the Spurs. For some reason, I think we're less scared of them than the Jazz. And we won't have to deal with those mormons in Utah...

 

In a four way tie, UTA is guaranteed the 3 or 4 spot because they are a division winner.
The other three teams do a tie breaker to determine seeding, in which case, based upon head to head amongst the three teams, the order would be PHX, HOU, SAS.
UTA is the 3 seed because they have the tie breaker over PHX.

So the seeding from 3 to 6 would be UTA, PHX, HOU, SAS.

However, HOU has home court advantage over PHX due to a better conference record than PHX.

 

I wonder how we would fare against the Jazz with Rafer playing, either way atleast we know we can score some points on the Suns........