EXPERTS PICKS Abbott Portland In 7 Adande Portland In 7 Broussard Portland In 7 Ford Portland In 7 Hollinger Portland In 6 Legler Portland In 6 Sheridan Houston In 7 Thorpe Houston In 6 http://proxy.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs/2009/matchup/_/teams/rockets-trailblazers# not looking good
what im thinking right now is, who even cares if we beat portland ? what good is that ? this team sucks is nowhere near a contender... maybe we can beat up on an unexperienced team just so we can say we got out of the first round, but what good is that ? but damn i dont even want to think about if we cant even beat portland.. OMG we'd all be on suicide watch.
Man... I really disagree with those picks. If there is anyone Brandon Roy does not want to see it is Ron Artest and Shane Battier. If their is anyone Joel Pryzbilla and Greg Oden do not want to see its Yao Ming. If there is someone Aldridge does not want to see its Chuck Hayes (I am serious). And we get the only other team with a PG situation as weak as ours.
It never helped for them to pick us anyway... http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/playoffs2007/series?series=houuth
Well it's a huge psychological advantage to overcome the first round barrier. I mean you always hear about playoff experience as a big factor in the chances of a team doing well in the postseason. Well if we never gain positive playoff experience in rounds beyond the first then we'll never have the experience necessary to win a championship. Especially since our two highest paid players are such 2nd round virgins.
Losing HCA might have been critical. The Blazers are good enough to beat the Lakers in their house. It's understandable that most of the ESPN analysts favor the Blazers after that loss in Dallas. The formula to beat the Rox is pretty simple, Front Yao = shut down Yao= Rox loss.
That's more of the formula for keeping it competitive. As you can see in this thread, Yao was terrible offensively in the first 2 games, yet one went to OT in Portland and the Rockets won the other at Toyota Center. The one game Yao played well was an easy Rockets win. In other words, I think Portland has to do more than just stop Yao if they're going to win the series.
What the experts say means nothing at all. One thing that they will consider when they write these articles is the remuneration.
I don't think many of the experts want to go out on a limb for Houston nowadays. Their mind is processing the following dilemma: "Hmm, perennial first round fodder or up-and-coming young streaking team with HCA?" The answer is pretty obvious, at least as far as predictions go.
I am happy rockets is underdog now. Our players will ONLY play better when media look them as underdog.
Who cares? Guys, are you damn suprised? We have blown two straight HCA past two years so don't expect everybody to love us. We gotta show something, we gotta prove everybody wronbg because so far, every year we have been better than opponents but we just couldn't show it on the court. SHOW ME THIS TEAM CAN WIN.
Who gives a ****? Now we are facing the Lakers in round 2. Winning the first round was the objective TWO YEARS AGO!!