I think the Rockets will have a 21 game winning streak going into the game with LA provided they beat the Mavs.
i think we look good too, but we need to beat the GOOD teams before ill be a believer. i still cant see us getting past the first round.
We'll BEGIN to see what this team is. After all, matchups matter. But one thing that caught my attention after this last game was Carmelo Anthony's quote, "We just didn't figure out what they were doing." The best thing the Rockets have going for them is constant motion and ball movement. If the other team never really figures out what you're going to do each time down the court it puts a kink in their game. RA's offense in it's purest form (from what I understand) exploits whatever weakness the defense offers and is supposed to act as early and as quickly as possible to keep the defense off balance. To the extent that they have mastered his offense will determine their success. That, and if they can maintain their defensive consistency, then worrying about games with the West's toughest teams will include the Rockets on "their" schedule, just as much as we worry about "them" on the Rockets.
Like I said earlier in another post, the Rockets are still a dangerous team w/o Yao. No Yao to deal with, but that means the speed of the team actually increases and the offenses becomes a bit more effective in some areas while defense is still top notch. Like I said, yesterday....I think we can score 100 against just about every team in the West playoff pictures. I believe the only team that might slow us down defensively are the Spurs. Also, I think Landry and Scola will be handful for lot of teams on offense.
Yup - a pretty fortious prediction. 2-3 the last 5 games was not what I was hoping for. But I don't think we played our best basketball these past 5 games. The ball movement was lacking. Alston and T-mac have resorted to old habits. And Our defense has looked suspect at times. Every team goes through tough streches, and we have gone through ours against some tough teams. I think we'll bounce back.
we do have an easy schedule, playing against good teams only 4 times for the last 12 games. but.. so is everyone else. new orleans, have a really simple easy schedule ahead of them, which just makes me fustrated. playing boston, orlando (meh... ok team, depends on your opinion), Utah, Lakers, and Dallas (same with orlando) and i think they'll win at least orlando or dallas... they have 14 games left, we have 12. depends on your thinking, whether or not it is bad or good. too me, the more easy games you have, the better.
We can beat the Suns in a playoff series. Tonight was a bad example since it was on a B2B and our last game in a five game, seven night trip.
I dunno, the way their inside duo dominated from pretty much start to finish doesnt bode well. With Yao, I like the Rockets chances, since he will be able to go more than Deke, and will be able to put pressure on their bigs as well. Though, I dont know if the Rockets will get a chance next year seeing as how Shaq may not be there.
It took a while for the rockets to understand how to take advantage of their mismatches. If Kobe Stoudemire played like that every night he would be the mvp hands down. Scolla played flawless D on him, he just kept draining tough jumper in his grill and hit every freethrow. If they didn't play over their heads in the first half the rockets could have won.
