I start to think maybe this loss is a good sign! We all know that the rockets were sucessful in regular season for last several years. The rockets were consistently good whey they played against bad teams. But, they could not beat suns, jazz, etc. It appears the rockets can beat good teams now. Of course, they also can lose to bad teams. Can we say that the current rockets team is built for playoffs?
I feel, if we can get homecourt advantage this season, we will pass the 1st round for sure. btw, I think, except for the lakers, no other wc team will over 55 wins this season.
i kind of like it. we're playing to our competition's level. consistency can sometimes be a bad thing, as OP mentioned. we would always beat the bad teams but always lose to the good teams. with adelman and our offense, we have the POTENTIAL to beat the great teams like the Lakers and Celtics, unlike unde JVG where we lived and died by the 3 ball. a good defensive team that could close out well would always beat us.
Not just this season, they often lost to EC teams before. Do you remember how we passed Utah to get homecourt advantage one season ago?
Morey intends to build a team for the playoffs, but little preperation for the playoffs has been made by now. Maybe it's a little bit early to plan on the playoffs right now, but I hope it won't be too late when the playoffs is around the corner. There's no problem for rockets to get access to the playoffs, but the big question is how long will we stay in the playoffs. I'm really tired and afraid of being wiped out in the first round. We can beat Hornets in the regular season but it seems no possible to beat them in the playoffs where the body touch will be a lot more violent and frequent, especially in the paint. Take a look at our paint rosters and theirs then we gotta know what may happen in playoffs. Scola is good and Yao is not too bad, but they're too soft compared to TC and DWest. Landry and Hayes are not soft but undersized, dorsey seems to be the only rocket who has both size and toughness but doesn't get the gt to adjust himself to NBA games. I expect Deke to be a firefighter but he isn't gonna be a longterm piece due to his age. A champion team couldn't have win the title if it doesn't have a great Center or PF. We need a big Center rather than PFs like landry and hayes.
Our team is a matchup nightmare to some teams, and that is currently it. Against some teams, we are destructive, against some others, we're not. At this stage, it would appear (through someone elses investigation) that we are great against teams with good PG and bad against teams with a average to bad PG. This is most likely because if we shut down teams with good PG, the whole team is shut down because they rely on the PG. I think RA is making the rockets focus on shutting down opponent PGs, but this will probably shift the defense so that the other players are not as heavily pressured. When the Rockets realize the other players (not PG) are getting hot, we're unable to contain them. The bad PGs then easily feed off the players that are lighting us up. We can look at this in a few directions. One of them is, the Rockets have fixed the problem that has caused them the first round losses. Deron Williams was our biggest problem the past 2 playoffs. Also, we were never good against the Hornets a few meetings ago, but now they seem to be becoming our favourite opponent. Our loss against the Spurs may not mean that we're doomed when Parker and Ginobli comes back, it could mean that we match them up better. Why? Because Spurs offense will be run by Parker again, not Tim Duncan or the other players. When we contain Parker, their offense will distort. It will take them time to revamp their offense so Parker doesn't need to facilitate everything. However, this will mean that against teams with average to worse PGs, where the offense is not entirely ran by the PG, we will be in trouble. If it is true that the Rockets have shifted their defense so that we shut down opposing PG, then that is good news, but if we shifted our defense so it is FOCUSED on shutting down PGs, then that is bad news. Like I said, it will become matchups, even Barkley said (last year) that the playoffs are matchups. We will only dominate completely if we can balance our defense, yet keep the offense going. So as of now, I say we're playoffs team. But not good enough to win it all yet, not until we beat either Lakers or Celtics.
Good points. But, I don't think the rockets are able to shut down those good PGs consistently in 7 games playoffs. The great pgs can figure out how to play in that situation.
They were built for the playoffs, last year. The only thing that derailed that was the Yao injury. If Yao doesn't go down, the Rockets probably take out the Jazz in 4 or 5 games. Next up would've been LA. Who I think would've been overwhelmed against us with no true Center, and no one to really defend Scolandry. I think we would've ended their dreams to Finals. But, I think the Spurs series would've been toss-up, even with an injured Ginobili...they might've gotten past us.
The debate about whether it's better to beat the scrubs (and lose to the contenders) or to beat the contenders (and lose to the scrubs) has gone on for a while. I remember the Olajuwon years, post-championships, I think in 95-96 we could beat the scrubs but not the contenders, and that didn't work out too well. And then the year after that we started beating the contenders and losing to the scrubs, the way we are now. That didn't work out either. I don't think there's a preferable way to do it, just to win as much as possible and be in your best shape come playoff time.
