We beat Utah this season for 3 reasons. 1. Healthy Yao 2. Ron Artest 3. Von Wafer All 3 make us a much better team......let's strap em up boys and go to war !!! DD
I don't like how everyone automatically thinks we will lose against the Jazz. Yeah, they are probably our toughest matchup, but the more we focus on that, the better chance we will lose if we play them. Keep a positive attitude. It may make 7 games, but we will finally beat the Jazz this year, if we play them.
Now we can play Landry and Scola together......we can beat the Jazz....it is a close series, but we got this one. DD
I really don't care if we face Utah or not and when. The most important thing right now is to try to win the division! Having the 2 or 3 seed is more important than not playing the Jazz. If we get the two or three seed and have to face the Jazz in the first round, so be it. I would be more worried about facing the Lakers in the second round, than playing the Jazz in the first round. If we win two playoff rounds and have to face the Lakers in the conference finals, I like our chances against them with out increased confidence from winning two rounds! This team has passion and desire. Give them to playoff wins and we will take LA to a 7 game series. Anything is possible then.
Me neither, but I think the Jazz are going to stay in 7th seed. Hornets are a game up above them and both have a fairly difficult schedule, but I think Hornets can win the next 3 (suns, mavs and then mavs). Then the Jazz play Mavs away, Spurs away, and then warriors at home. I hope the jazz lose 2 of those 3, while hornets keep winning. And if we can move up to the 3rd seed.. That would be great for us. Denver matches up pretty well with utah, and Denver would have homecourt advantage. I think Denver can beat Utah in a 7 game series at home. We would have to beat the hornets at home, Which I think we can do fairly easily.
The rockets can beat anyone except Utah or La. They could play 20 times on the moon and they wouldn't win a series vs those 2. Other than that, they can beat the rest.
SA's injuries are breaking the doors wide open. While I don't wish injuries on anyone, I can't say I exactly feel sorry considering our recent history. Let's be honest. Utah is our worst match up, save LA. We absolutely must protect home court (Utah's major weakness this season) if/whenever we face them. Ideally we get 2nd and Utah gets 8th, but a lot of things need to fall into place for that. Tonight's Utah/Dallas game is huge.
You can't stop EVERYONE on EVERY team..geeezz..it is deron williams afterall. no one has someone who can stop him...
jazz is just a bad omen. With all the improvement that rox have, and the injury problems that jazz have, the season record still shows 2-2. December 27, 2008 Rox win 120-115. No Okur, boozer and no tmac. January 21, 2009 Rox win 108-99. No Boozer and no tmac and artest. March 4, 2009 Jazz win 101-94. No tmac. March 24, 2009 Jazz win 99-86. No tmac. Say what you want, i just do not like our chances with the Jazz.
I think we should Attack Okur on the offensive end. Force him to play D . .and foul out Pick with Yao to force the switch . . and luis and landry take it right to him Rocket River
fixed above the jazz matchup is really an issue of one in Utah and the refs. its the same story every year for the past 20 years but if the rockets can somehow get 1 one of the 3 games in utah (presuming we have HCA) i dont see how they would lose this series.
Yao and Scola just need to learn to FLOP more when playing the Jazz. Then all of our problems would be solved!
Likely, we will get the seed #3 or #4, the chance to play the jazz is pretty low. We do not want to deal with those floppers.
I don't want the Rockets to be the champs if they avoid teams they don't match up well with. Don't want anyone to to discount our teams ability. I really think we have a team that can make it to the Conference finals, where I think we'll meet L.A(if the matchups fall this way), now I don't think we are good enough to take them down, but it would be a good series.
If we just want to win a playoff series, then falling to the #4 slot and playing Portland or New Orleans is probably our best bet. But, Ginobili's injury opens up the door to getting to the WCF. The best way to get there is to be the 2/3 seed because I'm pretty confident in our guys vs. Denver, even if that means facing Utah in the 1st round. I think the 3 seed is a real possibility, which would give us home court in the 1st round. I know we've lost to Utah the last 2 years with home-court, but this Rockets team plays much better at home than teh teams from the last 2 years.
But we also lost to the Jazz twice on the road this year for those very same reasons. Not really seeing your point. I'm at a point (ever since the Rockets lost to Lakers and Jazz on the road recently) that the Rockets are not as good as I thought they were. Hope I'm wrong, but I really expected this team to bring its 'A' game against the Lakers and Jazz and they really disappointed with the inability to execute throughout the game (esp. down the stretch). Anyone else feel this way?
