I didn't see this posted. I thought i would share this with everyone.... 3. HOUSTON (48-23) Scouting report: They won 22 straight games thanks to great chemistry, great defense, great ball movement, a super-easy schedule, a couple of breaks (like Nowitzki's one-game suspension) and some inspired play from T-Mac and Rafer Alston ... in the big scheme of things, it's not going to matter because any team with size (like Phoenix) or superior team defense (like San Antonio or Boston) is going to beat them ... whatever happens in the playoffs, it's absolutely astonishing how much they don't miss Yao Ming. Biggest strength: Chemistry and defense. That's how you win 22 straight. And by the way, that was freaking amazing. I still can't get over that streak. No matter how easy their schedule was, for a team without superior talent to get by 22 straight teams without getting derailed by one bad break, one bad call, one white-hot shooting performance, one injury or one off-night is absolutely unfathomable. That was like watching someone catch fire at a craps table for two solid hours without crapping out. Biggest weaknesses: Lack of size; lack of anyone who can create scoring opportunities other than T-Mac; lack of playoff success for their best player; lack of overall talent. Other than that, they're in good shape. Biggest X-Factor: Rafer Alston. Just look at his month-by-month splits and throw in the fact that he's been playing fantastic defense. Where did these last two months come from? Frankly, I'm a little frightened. I like things to make sense and this makes absolutely no sense. Unsung Hero: According to John Hollinger's PER ratings, Shane Battier is the 45th best small forward in the league right now. I give up. Uncle. I can't fight the good fight anymore. Somebody else needs to take over. Best-case opponent: Golden State or Denver. Worst-case opponent: Everyone else. Prediction: The sixth seed and a thrashing from San Antonio in round one. Eventual 2007-08 Legacy: For the rest of eternity, they'll show that "Longest NBA Winning Streaks" graphic during an NBA game and viewers will say, "'72 Lakers, '08 Rockets, '00 Lakers, '71 Bucks ... wait a second, what????" http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story?page=simmons/080326
That happened the other night in Shreveport. about 4 guys at the table made over $14,000 in that 2 hour period. I only made like 1000 but man that was fun.
Rockets could sweep SA in round 1, winning by scores of...120-78, 111-72, 100-80 and 102-65 and ppl would say "SA was old, they got an easy opponent".
We've had success against SA, but that was with Yao. Without Yao Duncan will really be able to abuse us in the paint, not to mention that you should never count out SA in the post season. I still like our chances against SA, but they aren't my first choice for the first round. Give me Denver, Golden State, New Orleans, Dallas, or Utah before San Antonio - but I'd rather see SA than Phoenix or the Lakers.
What a douche, that's why I don't pay any attention to ESPN. They get paid to jump on bandwagons and talk out of their A$$es in the process.
I think the rockets believe or not (after winning 22 straight games) are going to surprise everyone, which shouldnt be a surprise. Trust me, San Antonio would not want to play the rockets in the 1st round. Deke and Scola could really hurt the Spurs.
another national writer who does not comprehend the streak. the rockets won 22 games, 24 of 25. 16 in a row with yao ming. it was not luck, houston was the best team in the league destroying people if anything houston was the victim of bad luck, terrible luck, catastrophical luck, losing yao for 10 games of the streak and landry for 5 that slowly sapped the team and eventually slowed down the streak then finally killed it. if anyone is lucky it's the rest of the league, houston would be tearing up people if the team was whole. the dude is right about the playoffs that anyone with elite big men will demolish us over 7 games. houston can take NO and GS. Denver could be tough, they have an athletic veteran team. Dallas is questionable. LA is probably a loss. Suns and Spurs will be anal rapage it'd take a miracle for the rockets to win those series
I don't think the winning streak was lucky but as we saw in Phoneix any team big inside can work us hard. And compound that in a playoff 7 game series they will definetly work us out by game 5 its going to be hard against the big teams. I think we can beat teams like SA but Lakers, Suns, Utah and NO are hard to beat up front.
Phoenix got a lot of free throws and other type of whistles in that game. We play defense and I don't think we properly prepared for that game, we get some practice time and we will be able to play with tem and anybody else simply because we DEFEND and we play together. We had the hornets by 15 points in the last game, we play them with one day rest in between games like in the playoffs we easily run the score up against the hornets, we just ran out of gas. We match up pychologicaly well with or without Yao against the spurs We should have swept the hornets,We had them down 15 points after playing boston the previous day and we gave one away in the final seconds at the toyota center. We always will have a chance against the lakers because adelman out-coaches phil jackson if the refs leave us alone and then we have a history of upsets playing the lakers 81,86. We have to beat the jazz with or without Yao simply because of revenge
his analysis absolutely makes sense. we are going to have trouble to handle superior D teams and teams with big and good players. however, one thing i don't understand. based on what, he think we will be 6th seed? he has no clue at all on this evaluation. we have four games against playoff contenders, spurs, suns, jazz, nuggets. according to his logic, we should lose games vs spurs (superior D), suns (big and good players), and jazz (superior D). i agree. but we will be able to win the denver game coz we have superior D and denver doesn't play D at all also according to his logic. Other 7 games, we shouldn't have any problem. none of teams are good either at D or at big man play. that means we will have 8-3 in the remaining season. so our record will be 56-26. now lets look at other top teams, spurs, suns, hornets. they are going to play against each other. you won't expect them win all rest games. it's impossible coz they are going to play against each others. their remaining schedules could very well be same as rox, 8-3 or even worst coz all of them have more tough games left than rox. there is no way rox drops to 6th seed unless rox lose games against weak teams.
"super-easy schedule" my god so beating new orleans TWICE is easy? beating a mavs team without dirk on the road is easy? getting up every night to beat teams you're supposed to beat is easy? if it was easy, it doesn't take 30 years to have this happen again. what do you want them to do? face playoff teams EVERY NIGHT? we just need to prove this in the playoffs. we're a great team without yao. we're a ridiculously great team with yao (assuming tmac is healthy also along with everybody else). man i just wish we stay healthy one year and destroy everyone *******.
I can see how some of you guys took exception to the article. And felt a little disrespected. But I thought he gave us plenty of credit and summed things up nicely. Its accurate. And more importantly I just loved the way it was written. Awesome piece IMO.
