jason richardson, stephen jackson, baron davis, shoot even monta ellis and al harrington are potential all stars... most of them were starters in the east. this is a stacked starting line... their season record is deceiving.
Man i love Chris Paul and all, but dang imagine him and baron davis like Ellis and Baron davis. That'll be one sick team!
You know if we some how miraculously were to face a fresh, energetic and confident Warriors squad in the second round we might have a serious problem.
Highly doubt it. They can't defend Yao at all and Hayes can outrebound anyone of the Warriors at any given time on any given day. Our defensive trio of Battier/McGrady/Alston as a collective is worlds better than Howard/Terry/Harris. They wouldn't even think about putting that lineup of Harrington/Jackson/Richardson/Davis/Ellis on us. Yao would destroy them by himself.
Did you watch the last matchup between the two teams? Yao couldn't catch up with their speed, and we lost.
Is that the game where our all-star McGrady went down in the first quarter? Because I recall a game (linked; that we lost) where Yao went bananas on them. I am pretty sure if McGrady's back didn't decide to flare up, we would have won that game.
But I do believe we have good chance to beat them. I still remember Yao almost single-handedly killed Warriors on road when TMAC was injured. But B-Davis' last second shoot beat us. But I admit Yao played very well in that game (without TMac as well).
Oh btw, that was before they tried fronting him. After they tried that, he became useless without McGrady to collapse the defense. They still couldn't beat us in 7 games, no way.
It's still way too early to think about playing the Warriors in the next round. However, if it were to happen I think some of you guys are already not giving them enough credit. It would be a very tough matchup for us because they're similar to the Suns only they seem to be even more care free and every single one of their starting 5 can penetrate and shoot. I'm not saying they're better than the Suns, but I believe it's stupid to think that we'd destroy them. They are playing with a ton of confidence and if they beat Dallas they'll be the hottest team in the league.
As long as yao can guard the three point line against Harrington and not get tired running up and down the court...
Im not 100% sure, but that was before the trade. You cant judge the warriors till after B.Diddy came back from knee surgery and had everyone healthy for the last 21 games or so. They went 16-5 with the toughest schedule in the league, going 9-1 to cap it off. The last game with the Warriors we got owned without tmac. Yao was completely taken out of his game and looked rather helpless out there. We had a lot of turnovers that game, which most came from trying to get the ball to yao.
