I'm as scared of the spurs as anyone right now, but I think the majority of you are underestimating the jazz. They win games despite injuries to major players and still have a better record than the spurs. Deron Williams is one of the scariest PG's in the league right now. Watch their games, you'll see a team that is very tough to put away. They don't have a real weakness, they're just slightly inconsistent. At least we have a solid grasp of how we match up against the spurs. With the jazz, we could either whoop them or they could whoop us.
the jazz are very efficient on offense but sloan does not like to double team anyone which would mean a field day for either yao or tracy. the one thing the jazz dont do nearly as well as the rockets is play defense. I would give the edge to the jazz since they've had less injuries (missing significant time) and thus have better chemistry right now than the rockets do and more than likely at this point would have home court in the playoffs. the one thing that the jazz dont have is playoff experience, at least this current group of guys. Sure okur has a ring with the pistons but this collective group of guys have not played in a playoff game together so in that respect they are on par with the rockets or just a bit less (since tracy and yao have one series between them)
Lakers lost again. Denver is playing GSW tonight. When Denver wins, they will be only 1.5 games behind the Lakers for the 6th seed.
It's interesting that you say that about Phil, because I was thinking about the same thing the other night. The only difference is I have my own 'theory' about what could very well be our biggest 'acquisition' this off-season. Here's the scenario: Rockets flame out in the first round again despite being healthy; Les doesn't renew JVG's contract and lets him walk; Phil Jackson walks away from the Lakers and decides to look for a better opportunity to get that elusive tenth ring so he can finally retire in peace; Rockets take serious interest in PJax, PJax is interested in coaching another dynamic duo in Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady. I know it's premature, but for whatever reason that seems plausible to me.
See how the 3,4 loses to the scrub teams hurt us - we were talking about getting 4th or even 3rd seed 2-3 weeks ago.
Funny I was thinking the same thing the other night. But the chance of happening is pretty slim. Of course in the next 5 minutes, there will be some JVG lovers jump in and claim JVG is the better fit than Phil Jackson. I am waiting.
What the hell happened to us? I mean.. we were playing well against strong teams. Then the wheels fell off the wagon. We didn't suffer any new injuries... ... I suspect that we lost some chemistry. At one point, our players (and coach) were arguing with each other on the bench during a game. That's not like us. I wonder if our problems stem from some personality conflicts in the team?
We were overachiving without Yao because of individual effort on D and Tmac being Tmac. With the injuries we have had, a slump was inevitable, but hopefully we have put it behind us now.
I think it has more to do with our old guys starting to wear down and teams using the all-star break to focus more on how we have been playing of late and how to stop us offensively. plenty of times for film to be reviewed. deke played incredible but our reliance on him defensively was obvious and our reliance on tmac on the other end was clear so teams keyed in on him. one of the games we just plain lost without both yao and tmac effectively making us one of the worst teams in the league. the raptors,hawks are two types of teams that gave us trouble with their front court size and athleticism. the spurs are just plain good and we got jobbed in cleveland. not trying to make excuses for the loses but i dont think its all doom and gloom as some make it out to be. things looked much more smooth offensively last night with yao, even though he didnt take too many shots or score a lot of points it shows that the players are slowly adjusting back to having the big fella back. i think we can go on a 4-5 game winning streak right now that will cure all that ails ya
we can still catch 4th even maybe 3 if we win 10-12 consecutive games! it's very much possible now that tmac and yao are on the floor!
Extremely unlikely. We have 21 games left and are 5 losses behind the Jazz and 6 behind the Spurs. Unless one of those teams goes in the tank completely AND we finish the season on a 19-2 run (or something like that), we are locked into #5 and will be starting the playoffs of the road. I promise you the Spurs won't tank and there is no reason to think the Jazz will either. As long as we play the Jazz, I'm not worried about home-court in the first round.
man the Fakers are in some deep $h*t.....5 losses in a row...not sure if they can make the playoffs by the way their going now
The first 1/2 of the season I followed the Lakers fairly closely because they were interesting. Bynum seemed to be developing, their defense was very good and their team chemistry was getting better every game. I considered them a darkhorse for the Finals. But ever since Walton went down they have cratered. Now that LO is down too, they are of little interest. To me, the only interesting thing left is whether PJ comes back.
what is the rockets win loss record 2 years ago? on this same day. im pretty sure 50 wins couldnt be that hard to get
Jazz and spurs are the two teams we will definitely be facing in the first round, and both are as dangerous as the Mavs. Even though they ahven't won as many games, they still have enourmous talent, Utah with Williams, Boozer, AK47, Okur, Spurs with the usual 3. The only way to win is for T-Mac to go on one of his 7 games scoring spree and Yao is hold it down low against Boozer and Duncan.
