Lakers without Bynum/Gasol = Garbage Dallas without Dirk = Garbage Atlanta = Garbage. They were 26-38. New Orleans without West = Mediocre.
It's more important to beat the teams that you'll likely face in the playoffs. For instance, in 07, Dallas had the league's best record yet the Warriors swept them in the season series. And then GSW eliminated them in the playoffs. So in retrospect, which do you think was more important to Dallas...beating scrub teams in the regular season or losing the season series to GSW?
Winning 10 times even against scrubs is hard. There is one team in the history of the nba to win more games in a row then us. In that time teams had easy schedules.
No, its not. I'm sure it'd happen more often if good teams were scheduled to play scrub teams 10 games in a row. But there are usually solid teams peppered in there. Our streak after Yao went down was a perfect storm of scrub teams and solid teams missing key players.
So it had nothing to do with the team playing hard??? It was all luck??? But let me edit this.... If Yao was on the team then the team won with hard work and skill and not luck???? I get it now...
Obviously the Rockets played hard and earned those wins. But it was lucky that the scheduling allowed for them to play against inferior teams for so long. To me, that 22 game streak is more attributable to a lucky, weak schedule than it is to the Rockets playing hard. With yao, we were championship contenders, but if he were playing and the streak was still stopped by Boston, i'd still think the streak was primarily the product of a weak schedule.
So b/c I'm able to logically support my assertions, I'm a YOF? How about instead of name calling, you focus your energies on coming up with arguments that aren't full of holes?
everyone has the same schedule with stretches of 'scrub' teams. nobody else did it. it's phenomenal, esp. considering the rox history of losing to scrub teams and beating playoff teams.
But it wasnt just a schedule of scrub teams. It also included good teams that were missing key players. Dirk was suspended for one game and it happened to be the game against the Rockets. Gasol got injured in the game before playing the Rockets. And Yao was there for the most difficult games (Cleveland X 2, fully healthy NOH). It was like the stars were aligned for the Rockets.
LOL!!!!! So we did this with out Yao, but it was due to a weak schedule... Last I checked all those guys are professionals and as you stated we were without Yao so that should have made the feat impossible according to your theory... Those last 10 games with out Yao was not an entirely weak schedule... 4 out of the 10 games were teams with an above 500 record. The only team that I would call a Scrub team was the Memphis Grizzlies. They had on back to back game They only had 2 games with a 2 day rest.... The rest were with a 1 day rest. In most cases when ever you have a winning streak it's not the upper teams you have to worry about, it's the lower teams. So in reality this made it a harder task. games with out Yao 2/26 Wizards 27 - 30 2/29 Memphis Grizzlies 14 - 44 3/2 Denver Nuggets 35 -24 3/5 Indiana Pacers 24 - 37 3/6 Dallas Mavericks 39 -23 3/8 New Orleans Hornets 42 -20 3/10 New Jersey Nets 26 - 38 3/12 Atlanta Hawks 26 - 38 3/14 Charlotte Bobcats 24 - 41 3/16 Los Angeles Lakers 45 - 21
How about the fact that it was the 2nd longest win streak in NBA history? The league has been in existence since 1946. Teams have been playing games since that time, and I'm sure teams played a stretch of "scrub teams" since that time. The whole "luck" thing doesn't apply when you have succesive repetitions of the event. Winning a game may be lucky, but winning 22 consecutive games is somehow all due to luck and key injuries against great teams? LOL what kind of luck is it when the standard is 22 straight? If anything, the streak showed that performance in the league is different from performance in the playoffs. You can get away with more in the regular season as you don't face the same team again and again and they have less chances to expose your weaknesses. But to say that winning 22 straight games was due to luck...LOL!
Ah... But we were without Yao and if i'm not mistaken T-Mac was not at full strength... We are giving you facts, but you don't want to accept them.... The feat that the Rockets accomplished was very special, but because YAO was hurt, you want to discredit what they accomplished... So in retrospect that makes you look like a YOF....
Yao gets cut up, sliced up, knocked in from toe to head every which way, and you rarely see Yao complain about it. A healthy Yao is always greater than Gasol! Yao can shoot, slash, defend, and rebound. 08/09 season was Yao best season so far!
The fact that we stretched the streak from 12 games to 22 was lucky due to an easy schedule and teams sustaining key injuries. I really don't understand how you guys can keep denying the significance of the schedule/opponent injuries.
the schedule/opponent injuries played a part but the majority of it was due to the players themselves. Are we the only team in history who faced teams with injuries? How come we're the only one to have a 22 game win streak?
McGrady was at full strength. What facts are you giving me? All you seem to be doing is repeating "22 wins" without going into further detail. Winning 22 straight was a huge accomplishment. I'm just putting it in the proper context. We shouldnt be thinking that Rockets team is one of the best teams ever just b/c they had the 2nd longest streak. To the majority of posters, I probably do seem like a YOF, but that's b/c they lack the critical thinking capabilities to properly analyze a situation.
