The following is from a friend's analysis. Think about it. some interesting things that i've noticed lately a. our home record is severly underappreciated. all 9 losses have come with tmac or yao having some injury problem. lakers-tmac elbow, phoenix-tmac dnp, dallas-tmac coming back from elbow and in bad rythem (though id be the first to concede this was an unexcusable loss), dallas- tmac knee, orlando-tmac knee, golden state-tmac dnp, new orleans-tmac dnp, philadelphia-tmac dnp, and utah-yao dnp in healthy home games, the rockets are 9-0; who saw that one coming? b. there have been alot of comparisons to the 04-05 rockets team that started off 6-11, got to .500 at 16-16 and then finished with 51 wins; This season's team was actually on a worse pace than that, getting to .500 at 17-17 I believe; But both teams had a point where they were 20-19 (interestingly enough the 19th loss for both teams came to inferior eastern teams on a tuesday at home). But that 04-05 team actually picked up their 21st loss in january itself before embarking on the 8 game win streak leading up to the allstar break finishing at 32-21; should the rockets win their next 3 games, we'd be at 32-20, on an 8 game win streak, leading to the all star break That team has always been my favorite team in recent memory, although last seasons team was arguably better because of the grit and toughness that team had; we actually ran up and down the court finishing our season with games where we scored 127, 119, 117, 115 (twice), 114, 113 after van gundy had been berated in his first season and the first part of his second for not scoring points; jon barry, david wesley, mike james, and bob sura provided a veteran spark and the fun factor; last season had that fun factor missing and thats what cost them the most in the playoffs, it was too much about business, too much pressure, and they ultimately folded this season though, that spark is back; i actually felt inspired when watching that cleveland game seeing landry hit the deck frequently, bonzi hustling and throwing down some vicious dunks, scola being all over the place, yao playing efficiently, tmac giving it all he had, and maybe, just maybe there's enough for a magical run to end the season to put ourselves in the greatest playoffs the west has ever seen
so we DO have excuses. tmac just didn't want to claim those excuses, but rather blame them on the depth perception . he knows injuries are not good excuses haha.
Also don't forget that the supporting cast in 2005 ran out of gas in the playoffs due to their age, and I do not see that as a problem this year.
The depth perception was particularly bad on those nights, so T-Mac faked his injuries to avoid playing. He didn't want to explain the depth perception issue for the upteenth time in the post-game interview.
I would love for this team to follow the path of the 2005 team. The only reason that team wasn't able to seal the deal on the Mavs is because of our lack of depth and athleticism. This year's team has that.
Good point, however this team is organized differently. That was a Tmac-centric team and this is a Yaocentric team. Yao is a better player now, while Tmac may have regressed
No. Is Yao's team because every team that has a Big Man like Yao need to play around him. Kobe was phenomenal in the 3 NBA championship but that was Shaq's team. In the last two championships for the Spurs Manu and Parker had statistical outplayed Duncan, but is Duncan's team. And team that have a force inside like Houston does need to make the game around him.
WORTHY OF NOTE: The Houston Rockets basketball team won tonight The Houston Rockets basketball team has won 10 of last 11 The Houston Rockets basketball team has won 8 straight road games The Houston Rockets basketball team is in the playoff picture The Houston Rockets basketball team lost one game last month The Houston Rockets basketball team are the sum of all its parts - strengths and weaknesses, and live or die as a TEAM. Got nothing to do with YOF or TOF or any individual. Thank you, Houston Rockets! from all the ROF
Nice post. These "excuses" are actually worth mentioning and have merit. Amazing how I write this team off and then they go off and start playing some pretty good basketball.
