I wouldn't say we choked, rather reality finally caught up with us. We are not as deep a team as the Mavs and they do have more over all talent. Putting McGrady on Dirk was going to catch up with us eventually. Still not sure why Deke didn't play. It's almost like we threw in the towel.
"We beat ourselves, which by my definition is a choke" I agree in the concept that beating yourself can be some form of a choke, however, i don't think the rockets beat themselves yesterday. I think they were defeated and overmatched by a team who is superior in talent and athleticisim. The Mavericks yesterday put the metal to the pedal and attacked and kept attacking and the rockets were no match. And for the rockets to get past the first round, they need better basketball players. All of the questions you asked in the previous post can be answered by having better basketball players who are more likely to sustain a higher level of performance throughout a seven game series. I believe the rockets role players were in over their heads in game 7. You want less unforced errors and missed fastbreak opportunities? Get more saavy basketball players who are athlectic enough to create on the fastbreak. You want less unbelievable defensive lapses? Get more speedy and athlectic players who can stop dribble penetration. The rockets in all reality overachieved, cause their overall talent level beyond Tracy and Yao is really lacking. Tracy McGrady was the best player in this series, which is why the rockets won games 1,2, and 6, and why they were competitve in games 3,4, and 5. However, the likes of Bowen, Padgett, Wesley, Sura, and Barry aren't gonna cut it as starters or playing heavy minutes in high level playoff basketball. They can sustain a high level or a short period but won't over the course of 4 consecutive 7 game series' to win a championship.
okay, for everyone in denial and unable to handle the term "choke", lets just say they "let the game and series get away from them" or had "mental lapses" or "we did not show when it counted" or "we beat ourselves" or "we did not execute" I am down with the notion that Dallas had a deeper team, but look at game 7. We no-showed! They did not do anything differently to us--except play in AAC. If you breakdown the game, we had significant breakdowns in defense and did not play well for 44 minutes. So, did Dallas really beat us or did we beat ourselves or combination...would the outcome had been different if Barry, Wesley and James scored 40 points between them? Dallas did not play defense any differently last night. Contrary to what they said, we got our looks most of the first half! We did not execute when called upon to.
Ok, if we are clearly in the league of winning it all this year while get beat in the 1st round, yeah, we choked. BUT, we werent ready this year to win it all, and if we couldnt match Dallas's speed, how we could match Sun's speed. JVG and players did their best. I just couldnt see we go any further without a real PF and a pure PG. No, we didnt choke, we werent good enough.
I actually agree with most of your analysis bu2002! but, we are really stretching it to say that veteran players like wesley, sura, barry..etc can not finish fast breaks, commit more turnovers..etc. when they have not done so all year....this team won 51 games and probably would have won more with Howard in there.....they were a 55-58 win team in reality. our strategy was better overall....we should have won one more of the 4,.,,,,we all know it...let's not paint it differently.. what suddenly happened in games 3, 4, 5 and 7...they just decided to not play to their level of competetance? you see my point here....they did not play to the level they proved in the season and playoffs...had they done so, then last night might be different or at least a decent game and we would have one 3 or 4....you see they did not show...we did not compete...we did not give ourselves a chance to beat them....what is this called? we are really debating semantics here.....we hate the C word....it reaks of loser, beaten, lowly...etc....I counter that and say it says, "we did not perform to the level we were expected and had done in the past" this is accepting reality to get better mentally.
I am not saying not making it out of round 1 has anything to do with it.... Our unforced errors forced us to a game 7, not their superior talent....breakdown games 3 and 4....look closely at their runs and you will see significant mental errors not physical. Wide open shots with three rockets standing in the paint guarding one or two players.....total lack of communication in significant minutes....this happened on at least 5 possessions where they converted threes. also, the missed free throws in game 4...this had nothing to do with their talent.... When we need stops or had opps to easily convert points, we made unforced errors and poor decisions that had nothing to do with Dallas' talent. you would figure by game 3 or 4, one would learn that you cannot leave finley and terry alone and double howard or daniels or dampier....look at the video...we did this so many times... you guys are making excuses for their poor play. even the players are calling it....sure, dallas is quicker, but we beat ourselves in 3,4 and 7...I will give them 5 and maybe 3, but not 4 and 7 (I say 7 because we laid down in the opening bell)
"would the outcome had been different if Barry, Wesley and James scored 40 points between them" ........You're not looking at the bigger picture...........those guys aren't talented enough to combine for 40 points every single game. They can do it once, maybe twice, but they needed to do it 4 times out of 7 in order to win this series, they can't just flip a switch....... Barry, Wesley, Sura, and Padgett are all older career journeyman who've played on multiple teams.....there's a reason for that.....they all can play a role on a championship team as 9th and 10th guys in your rotation, maybe, however, not as starters and sixth men, which is the roles they were playing for the rockets this year.
We dont have to catgorize a loss, a loss is a loss. We got beat left and right. It's not only the offense, but also the defense. We got beat by Dallas pure and simple. Dallas turned up a notch in game 7, we lost by 40, that's reality, we werent good enough. It's amazing we had our chance to take the series. They have Terry, Stack, Josh Howard, outside their 2 stars, and we have Barry, Sura, Wes outside our 2 stars. Talent levels arent the same, nothing to do with mental toughness. Divion 3 team cant beat Duke if Duke turns up a notch.
You know, just because you lose a 7 game playoff series to a higher seeded team doesn't mean you choked.
Perhaps we can think of it this way: 1 We choked away games 3 & 4 in the 4th quarter. Not much argument. 2 (Maybe) we choked away game 5 because of the missed FTs late. 3 We didn't necessarily choke in game 7 because the Mavs played their best and we played our worst. The team with the better players won the game and the series. IMO, we had the jitters in game 7 and we started losing our poise in the first quarter. Meanwhile, the Mavs were freestroking. This could be construed as a choke job or it could have been caused by fatigue (which is my belief). I would argue we choked the series away because of games 3 & 4. We got body slammed in game 7 because of a poor overall performance, but game 7 shouldn't have happened. If you disagree with me, you aren't a fool, you are just wrong. I know some emotions are running high, but can we keep it civil?
That is a fair summary of the series. What cannot be questioned is that the Rockets did not end up being "Clutch" in this series. Whether because of chemistry, coaching, or whatever, the scrappy, determined underdogs did not defeat their more talented opponent.
cohen...you know I have watched and read your posts over the years and thought you were pretty intelligent and fair.... dropping the ass comment is weak and really exposes your soul. the fool is meant to refer to anyone fooling themselves into believing this argument if they use other words to explain this series.....not attacking anyone's system beyond this topic. ASS is personal and weak and defensive soul. I thought you knew better than that. my comment about denial is opinion not meant to condescend, just point out that we are debating semantics here.....what some call choke, others call it "beating ourselves" among other comments... back off and play fair....quit being defensive...this is a spirited debate and your below the belter is better left to political debates...take a chill pill!
Apolstic3...thank you..I agree to agree to the middle ground on this subject and thank you for taking my points and coming up with the final thesis...this series was a mix of choking and just not having the talent to overcome this. though, i say we did not even get a chance to choke because we no showed...we do not know if we were able to compete really.
Who is primarily responsible for the Rockets going from one of the ten youngest teams to the oldest in the course of eighteen months?
Our loss in this series was, indeed, embarassing. But these losses are not what you'd call a choke. Having a team come back from 8 pts down against you is an unfortunate loss, but happens all the time in the NBA. 20 pts (as happened twice in 1993) is a choke. As for game 5, well that loss is what asterisks were made for. The truth is, we didn't really choke -- we just got beat, plain and simple. I think Games 1 and Game 2 did give us an overinflated sense of how good we were. When you look at the rest of the series, it's not simply that we missed shots that we should make. I give Dallas credit -- they exposed our weaknesses in quickness, rebounding, and athleticism. We've all known about these weaknesses for some time, and swept them under the rug, but they came back and bit us in the end. From the beginning of game 7, it seemed obvious that the Rockets were not going to be able to win the game. Yes, they took a few poor shots (the classic signs of a choke), but the bigger problem was that they had no answers for Jason Terry and Josh Howard. The series had so far been essentially: Terry gets hot = we lose. And he was hot. To compound this, Sura, whose injuries really caught up to him at the end of this series, was pretty much unable to contribute anything. This left the Mavs swingmen free to cause havoc on the boards, which is where Sura usually shores up our lack of rebounding from the 4 and 5. Its hard to call something a choke when the reasons we lost are not simply lack of intensity. Obviously, once the lead got big, we collapsed psychologically. But the reasons we lost were that Dallas turned out to be the better, deeper team (D**n Mark Cuban and his deep wallets!).
deeper wallet definitely helped in this deal..for shooooor man, not one mention was made of that too. how far over the cap were they?
Yes, the Rockets choked. But so what? EVERY champion team has go through this. It's not like our 2 young super star choked. As long as we keep the core, there will always be room of improvements.
