[ESPN] Playoff Scenarios - Rockets have the most far-reaching

Depressio · Apr 15, 2009

Yet another article on playoff scenarios, but oddly enough, this one on ESPN has a lot of focus on the Rockets: http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/news/story?id=4070001

Rockets-related passages:

The Houston Rockets can finish as the No. 2 seed in the NBA's Western Conference with a win tonight, plus a Denver loss. The Rockets can also finish as the No. 5 seed in the West with a loss, and wins by Portland and San Antonio.

That's the most far-reaching playoff scenario facing an NBA team heading into tonight's season finales, which find six of the eight Western Conference seeds still up for grabs.
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No team had more to gain -- or lose -- going into the final day than Houston, which could end up as high as the No. 2 seed, or fall all the way to fifth and have to open the playoffs on the road.

"I would rather have it secured because then we could start our preparation," Rockets coach Rick Adelman said. "Right now, we're going to have to wait until Thursday morning to see who we're going to play. The way this is set up now, depending on what the league decides, if you play on the road and you have to play Saturday, that's tough, that really puts you at a disadvantage."
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Houston certainly wasn't taking any chances. The Rockets still could meet anyone other than the Lakers or Nuggets, though general manager Daryl Morey, with a background in statistics, said they had a 61 percent chance of facing the Hornets or Trail Blazers.

Morey said any team downplaying scouting at this time was "trying to throw people off the scent." The Rockets dispatched advance scout Pat Zipfel to Los Angeles on Tuesday night to watch the Lakers-Jazz, and they planned to be at both the Blazers' and Hornets' finales Wednesday.

"The Lakers with (Andrew) Bynum. (Manu) Ginobili (injured) for the Spurs. New Orleans getting Chandler back. Portland's got (Greg) Oden rolling," Morey said. "All these teams, every team is going to look a little bit different."

The Rockets tried to clear things up for their players Tuesday, giving them a two-sided sheet of paper with all the various playoff scenarios. With so much left to sort out, at least one player planned to ignore the handout.

"I'm going to go home and have a paper-airplane fight with my wife. That's what I'm going to do with that piece of paper. It means nothing," forward Shane Battier said. "We've got to go to Dallas, we've got to play well and we've got to win."
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Htown57 · Apr 15, 2009

Interesting stuff, most of it covered but the Morey stuff of some interest. I like shane's quote.

Tha TC · Apr 15, 2009

Htown57 said:

Interesting stuff, most of it covered but the Morey stuff of some interest. I like shane's quote.
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Same here to me Shanes mentality is what the rest of the team should have we have to beat Allas first then worry about Portland or New Orleans overlooking Allas might be a big mistake on our part.

Depressio · Apr 15, 2009

I agree with Morey. NBA teams are lying if they're saying they're not scouting anyone; it would be stupid not to scout all potential first round match-ups, even if it's undecided at this point. Morey's honest!

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[ESPN] Playoff Scenarios - Rockets have the most far-reaching

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