As usual.... Warriors love letter ... Doesn't acknowkedge our potential, and reverts to the season games.
If we beat them it might be the best playoff team the Rockets have ever beaten. Who holds that title currently? 86 Lakers?
good in depth article. i see valid points but im going to have to disagree. I'm riding on history all the way to the promise land
The rockets have a number of weapons not being listed here and remember: never underestimate the heart of a champion.
Not that I disagree with the prediction(I also think it'll be Warriors in 5), but man, that article was 75% about Golden State. Dwight Howard was almost an afterthought by Zach Lowe when in fact, he's the key to the entire series for the Rockets. If he's dominating, then the Warriors can't go small as Lowe predicted they would.
But can you REALLY see Dwight dominating on offense?? The Rockets have rarely posted him up through the first two rounds, and that seems to be for the best. Bogut is a great post defender and the Rox would be foolish to let Dwight bang with him 1 on 1. If Dwight is dominant on offense, it will be because he is spacing the floor, setting great screens and rolling hard to the basket. It will also depend on Harden, Smith, Terry etc. getting into the paint.
No, I don't see Dwight dominating through postups. But he killed the Mavs with alley-oops and he got his fair share against the Clippers. The Warriors should be able to defend those pretty well, but only if they leave Bogut and Green on the floor. If they try to go small, Dwight will destroy them.
Mchale has all the tools he needs to beat this team, he just has to come up with ways to use them. This series is about mchale. No matter what, he's earned another year for making it here and I was on the fire mchale train.
Lowe has had a hard on for Curry and GS for nearly 3 years now, I am not surprised. He does not like Daryl Morey and he does not like the Rockets. He is still a capable writer and goes in more depth than most, but he is far from fair. My guess is that the Warriors win in 6, but the playoffs are a vastly different animal and the Warriors have issues with size.
A very good article, however, it failed to mention how the Rockets force everything to the ball handlers left hand and left side of the court. Once Klay and Curry move the ball to their right hands to shoot, it's a lot easier to defend and get a hand in the way.
They won't defend them well if they have to converge to stop penetration. Curry is not good at stopping penetration and that is where the Rockets need to get easy points.... in transition off of the Warriors turnovers and off of penetration with Howard/Jones and Smith flashing to the basket. The Warriors are tough and should be a heavy favorite, but there are areas to test the Warriors and see what happens. The Grizzlies were able to exploit the Warriors, but the Warriors made a major adjustment exploiting Tony Allen's inability to shoot and the Grizzlies did not have the right pieces to adjust.
I think deandre Jordan is a better player than bogut and Dwight kind of dominated him for 3 straight games. Bogut is still bogut at the end of the day.
If Bogut is Bogut, then that means absolutely no post ups for Dwight when Bogut is in the game. Bogut is a darn good center when he's healthy. Also Dwight didn't dominate Jordan in a 1 on 1 kind of way. Dwight let the game come to him and cleaned up the glass. He can certainly do that again against the Warriors if he's on his game, but it's not really something that the Warriors need to game plan for. Their primary focus will be keeping Harden and others from penetrating the lane.
This is crazy how so called experts who have all the videos and data to see that those 4 regular season games don't mean anything now. The Rockets are a totally different team from those games and it will be seen in this series.
When I say dominated, I mean on the boards. Basically owning the paint on defense and offense. Dwight did that, that's all he has to do. You're statement is correct about boguts post defense. But Dwight probably posted deandre up a few times and was stuffed. It took us a while to realized you can go through him, we have to go around him.
