Houston should get the first seed and win the nba playoff title this year

I've already booked first 2 weeks of June 2019 for vacation and saving money for championship hats and shirts. Now, I just need to find my spot for the championship parade.

 

Agreed.

 

Maybe we got a little better than last year.

Ennis + clark is no joke and hartenstein is better than tarik black was.

We will see what knight brings

 

Home Court is not the end all be all of it all

Rocket River

 

Still need a trade and upgrade to the roster.

 

One thing I’ve been very down at is the fact that we are playing CP too much, or unable to give him games off, while climbing an uphill battle with seeding early on.

But forgot that there are less back to backs this year. That should work in our favour. For example we only have 2 back to backs remaining in 2018. We should contemplate sitting CP against the Cavs if we sweep Detroit.

 

Im hoping when Knight is healthy, this team gets on another level.

 

Need 3 rotations to beat GS and Raptors and win it all. (4 Firsts needed via 3rd team)

-very, very low cost and good future

7th man someone like Taurean Prince

8th man someone like Anunoby.

9th man: someone like Saric

 

If the Dubs lose tonight... Rockets will only be a game back on the loss side for the no. 1 seed. Quite remarkable to be in contention for the top spot considering how awful the team looked when they were 1-5, especially the back to back 19 point home losses to the clips and blazers...

 

The Lakers and Spurs winning tonight pushed us to the 10th seed and yet still the Rockets are only 2.5 games out of 1st place. How crazy is the West?

 

This ng start a thread and then say "I believe"

wth?

 

Rockets do better away from home court. And Donkey's team practically rested for most of the season and finished behind Rockets. And they were rewarded by the NBA refs.

 

I guess it would be great to witness the deep fall and demise of the Warriors but .....they are likely going to be back.

 

Alright in all seriousness, lets look at the facts and stop with the bs about the first few weeks of the season with melo in the lineup. That story has played out, its been dealt with, and really should be an afterthought at this point. It was cute for the melo haters to say that they're right and the melo backers to defend their positions - but its over. Now its time to think big picture, what the reality is now, and moving forward how this is going to play out with our current lineup.

In recent weeks we've reverted back to the old system that worked for us last season, retained our defensive guru back in Jeff Bzdelik, and are playing as we expected when at the start of the season. Even after the loss of Ariza, Ennis and Clark are proving to be great complimentary additions as 3 & D guys which is essentially what we all were hoping for - abliet not as good as the original but not necessarily terrible.

The Differences:

1) We've found our groove again offensively, and its a groove we've sustained all last season - so it's not out of the realm of possibility we will do so this season. Without having to feed a 3rd mouth for the sake of having him (melo), we've gone back to a Harden/CP3 centric lineup with an emphasis on a 3 & D role players surrounding them and a pick & roll 5 - as well as some help from EG. It's not that complicated and it works, and somehow people are surprised that we've made this massive turnaround in the past few games. It doesn't take a genius to see the similarities from last season and what we've been doing recently. Moving on.

2) Defensively we've gotten our identity back. We can play the blame game and point fingers all day, but in all reality knowledgeable Rockets fans that are rational really know where the differences are (Bzdelik returning, Melo leaving, and the ability to play switch defense without any major red flags in terms of personnel - its really as simple as that).

3) Shortened our rotation - We're back to the rotation that got us deep in to the playoffs and a ridiculous regular season record by anyone's standard last season. The experiments on the lineup have come to halt and we're focused on simply winning - and its shown. The problem with this is that since we were deeper last season, its unknown how much of an effect these minutes will have on the rotation players come the playoffs (ala CP3), so there is a healthy amount of concern to tie on to this benefit.

These very basic, but noticeable differences have gotten us back on track to where we are projected in the season. And for those rational fans out there - there is a very good reason to be calm and optimistic because at the end of the day we are only 15 games played into the season with 2.5 games behind the #1 seed, it is still VERY early and its almost like we're starting at 0 because the difference between where we are and #1 is so small.

tldr: Ultimately, keep calm and enjoy the fact that we are essentially "back". The tides have turned, we had a hypothesis and did an experiment that did not work out. In hindsight it cost us ~10-11 games + preseason and training camp, plus a vets minimum contract (and MCW's contract as well). Now that experiment is over and its back to the rockets basketball we know and love - enjoy the ride to the top spot and pray that we get through the season in 1 piece.

 

Taurean Prince is on the cusp of becoming a star.

I doubt he would want to give up a big role, he is not in the veteran mindset of riding coat tails to a ship just yet.

 

Marcus Morris will be an UFA at the end of this season. I wouldn't mind having "Melo with defense" back on this team, considering his performance last year. Who knows, this may be the right situation for him here now. But what will it take to pry him away from the Celtics? Chriss, Knight and a FRP?