<B> Games H2H Div Con Overall Magic </B> <B> Team W/L L10 H2H Left TB Div TB Conf TB TieBreak Number Diff</B> 1 Lakers 52-13 7-3 0-3 1A L 35-7 L No*<B> 27</B> (-1) 2 Spurs 43-21 6-4 1-1 1H,1A T 8-4 L 27-11 L No<B> 19</B> (-1) 3 Rockets 43-24 7-3 6-5 27-12 4 Jazz 41-24 9-1 2-1 1A W 28-11 L Yes<B> 16</B> (-1) 5 Hornets 41-23 9-1 1-1 1H,1A T 6-3 L 23-14 W No<B> 17</B> (-1) 6 Blazers 41-24 6-4 1-1 1H T 21-19 W Yes<B> 16</B> (-1) 7 Nuggets 41-25 4-6 3-1 None W 25-14 W Yes*<B> 14</B> (-1) 8 Mavericks 40-26 7-3 2-1 1A W 5-7 W 22-19 W Yes<B> 14</B> (-2) 9 Suns 34-31 3-7 2-0 1A W 20-17 W Yes*<B> 8</B> (-1) 10 Warriors 23-42 4-6 3-0 1A W 13-23 W Yes*<B> Vanquished</B> * Indicates the Tie Break is final For more information on the Magic Number Chart or about seeding or tie break rules, read the FAQ <B>Clinched the #9 seed</B> Here is the latest batch of Magic Numbers after all games were played on <B>March 13</B>. Whew! The Rockets turned a game they should have won handily into a tense last second affair, but they executed just well enough to pull out a victory. A win is a win and all, but the Rockets have got to get better at closing out games or it will come back to haunt them. And will someone contact lost and found to let them know that Ron has lost his freaking mind, and he’d like it back. Still the Rockets did get the W, and Yao has now become a lethal three point threat. All Magic Numbers drop 1, and we hold on to the #3 spot for another night. The Bucks have been resilient at home, even after they lost Michael Redd, and they held the #8 spot in the East. They fought the Hornets tough, but ultimately the Hornets proved too talented and pulled away in the fourth for a 95-86 win. Chris Paul continues his solid play with 30 points and 9 assists, David West added 21 points and 10 rebounds, and Tyson Chandler chipped in with 17 rebounds for the Hornets. Richard Jefferson had 27 points in the loss for the Bucks, who maintain the #8 spot despite being 8 games under .500. Eastern Conference Playoffs, where sucky teams happen! Don Nelson and the Warriors faced Playoff elimination when they hosted their old foes tonight. In typical high scoring fashion, the Warriors made Mark Cuban a very unhappy boy by outgunning the Mavs. Monta Ellis had 29 points and 11 rebounds, and Captain Jack had a huge game with 31 points, 10 assist, and 7 rebounds. Jason Kidd racked up a triple double with 21 points, 11 assists, and 10 rebounds for the Mavs who lose an additional Magic Number. The Nets traveled to Portland and led the Blazers for most of the game. However, Brandon Roy got hot in the second half and scored 24 of his 31 points in leading the Blazers to a come from behind win. I am very disappointed in the Nets for this loss. Nicolas Batum had 20 points, and LeMarcus Aldridge had 19 points and 10 rebounds for the Blazers. The Nets’ game of shame honor goes to Yi Jianlian who threw down a monstrous 1 point and featured prominently in a 30 second stretch that had 2 turnovers and coughed up the lead for good. The Rockets face another huge test when they host the Spurs Saturday night. If we harbor any hopes of winning our division, this is a must win game for the Rockets. We have a solid home record and have taken the Spurs down once in Houston already this season. Of course, that was Luther Head’s signature game as a Rocket. Still the Spurs have looked vulnerable to quality teams the past few weeks, and this is the sort of game we have to win down the stretch if we want home court advantage. A win would drop the Spurs 2 points and improve our division record. Also on tap for Saturday: Jazz at Heat, Hornets at Bulls, Clippers at Nuggets, Thieves at Suns
Chris Paul follows a triple double with a 30pt, 9ast game. That dude is not just solid, but awesome...1st team NBA. And Deron Williams has been anchoring my fantasy team ever since Al Jefferson went down. If it weren't for LeBron going nuts with triple doubles every night and Wade being completely unstoppable, Paul would be getting more pub. So many say the West is in a down year, but man, there are some really good teams out there. Bynum will be back, and even if he isn't, the Lakers are better and more experienced than last year. The Spurs are deeper than last year. The Hornets are more experienced and still just as good and have Posey, and luckily kept Tyson, and will be healthy. The Jazz are fully healthy and more experienced. The Blazers are better. And the Nuggets getting Billups is better. The down stuff was early injuries and the aging of the Mavs. The Warriors were never true contenders. Oh yeah, and the end of T-Mac and Amare. So 3 down teams, but the rest are the same or better. And I can't really say the Rockets are that down because Artest is new and has made up in a way for losing T-Mac...so it's really 2 down teams from the past. No Suns in the playoffs and an older, slower, less deep Mavs team.
what concerns me about the spurs matchup is matt bonner hitting 3's at a high clip. this means scola will have to guard him on the perimeter, so he wont be under the basket for the rebound most of the time. this also puts yao on duncan and in potential foul trouble. as if that wasn't enough, oberto always finds a way to pull a utah on yao. fouling him all game with no call, then flops on the retaliation. this will be a test of yao's intelligence when it comes to playing through the calls and playing with fouls. our PG's are fast enough to stay in front of parker which is in our favor. if they can make him shoot jumpers more than get into the paint (where he's always among the league leaders in points) they will really hurt the spurs. ron and shane are much better at keeping guys out of the paint than they are at guarding guys who like to run off screens and shoot. manu is a driver first so they should be able to have their way with him. of course, if ron finds his head, and his shot, the spurs have no possible match up for him.
I think best case would be: 1. LA Lakers 2. Houston/New Orleans 3. New Orleans/Houston 4. Utah 5. San Antonio 6. Denver/Portland 7. Portland/Denver 8. Dallas This way, we would have to win the 4-team lower bracket (Houston, New Orleans, Denver, Portland) to get to the WCF and only have to go through one of the following three teams: LA/SA/Utah. A nightmare scenario in terms of the bracket would be having Utah and San Antonio in our half of the bracket. I don't think this team is ready to get through a Utah, San Antonio, LA gauntlet to get to the Finals.
I agree that this seeding would be VERY favorable for Houston. But.. I believe that would be one of the unlikely scenarios. The likely of Spurs dropping all the way to 5th? I doubt it. The likely of the Hornets to go up all the way to the top 4th seed? Maybe I think it's very likely that the Utah will lead it's division, and they will be likely 4th or 3rd. Denver is going to be in the lower half. (5th-7th, they are so inconsistent...) Spurs find a way to win; I believe they'll stay at 2nd unless Rockets beat them tonight and the next game. Hornets and Utah are going to be the key teams that determines the seeding, IMO in the final stretch of the season.
that was huge!!! GO D WADE!! rockets have to capitalize! and route for the bulls and clippers to upset!
Good News: Hornets and Utah lost. Bad News: The game we just lost cost us two games We'll be fine; I guess. We gotta take care of the Hornets on Monday, and beat the Spurs on Sunday.
I just looked at the 14 remaining games for the Rockets, realized there are only FOUR against sub .500 teams, and all other TEN games are against playoff teams with .500+ records. Among those games, 8 of them on the ROAD where we are only 16-17. We probably will end up with 6-8, which means 49-33 for the season. Normally, I'd worry about missing playoff, but with the way the Suns have been playing, I don't think they can catch up to any of the 8 teams in front of them. My prediction is 50-32, 6th seed in the West, play the Jazz again.
to scribo and the rest of those who contribute to this thread with responses, this thread has become a shelter for intelligent thought in a $h!t storm of emotional overstatements (putting it VERY nicely) in the garm. -------- now back to the playoff race: we got really lucky that the bulls and the heat saved us today. we hold on to the 3 seed for now. i'm looking forward to watching a lot of basketball tomorrow, which will mark the first time i do so on a rockets off day this season. the blazers, mavs, and jazzholes will all be on the road against tough opponents. in fact, they should all be considered underdogs. lets hope they all drop one tomorrow! scibo! awaiting your recap!
<B> Games H2H Div Con Overall Magic </B> <B> Team W/L L10 H2H Left TB Div TB Conf TB TieBreak Number Diff</B> 1 Lakers 52-13 7-3 0-3 1A L 35-7 L No*<B> 27</B> 2 Spurs 44-21 6-4 1-2 1A L 9-4 L 28-11 L No<B> 19</B> 3 Rockets 43-25 6-4 6-6 27-13 4 Blazers 41-24 6-4 1-1 1H T 21-19 W Yes<B> 16</B> 5 Hornets 41-24 8-2 1-1 1H,1A T 6-3 L 23-14 W No<B> 16</B> (-1) 6 Nuggets 42-25 5-5 3-1 None W 26-14 W Yes*<B> 14</B> 7 Jazz 41-25 8-2 2-1 1A W 28-11 L Yes<B> 15</B> (-1) 8 Mavericks 40-26 7-3 2-1 1A W 5-7 W 22-19 W Yes<B> 14</B> 9 Suns 35-31 3-7 2-0 1A W 21-17 W Yes*<B> 8</B> 10 Warriors 23-42 4-6 3-0 1A W 13-23 W Yes*<B> Vanquished</B> * Indicates the Tie Break is final For more information on the Magic Number Chart or about seeding or tie break rules, read the FAQ <B>Clinched the #9 seed</B> Here is the latest batch of Magic Numbers after all games were played on <B>March 14</B>. That was an ugly game. The Rockets drop a second straight winnable home game to a Contender. Ron Artest is killing me. I suffered through the Francis years, and I thought we were done with the senseless dribble-and-jack offense. If this is our late game offense, we’re not going far in the Playoffs. The loss pretty much eliminates any chance for us to claim the Southwest division and the #2 seed. Our division record is 6-6, and we’ll be hard pressed to win a tie breaker over the Spurs or the Hornets if we split with them. Luckily we got some serious help tonight, and we spend another night at the #3 spot. However, we wasted another opportunity to put some distance between us and the pack. Dwayne Wade and the Forces of Evil staged a triple overtime thriller in Miami, and Wade proved he belongs in the MVP race with another stellar performance in leading his team to an exciting victory over the Jazz. You missed a great game if you didn’t watch it. The Heat staged a 7-0 run to end regulation and an 8-0 run to close the first overtime. Deron Williams hit a late shot to force triple overtime, and then the Heat took over. Wade finished with 50 points, 10 rebounds, 9 assists, 4 steals, and 2 blocks, and Jermaine O’Neal added 28 points and 5 blocks including some very clutch ones in the late stages of overtime. Deron Williams was outstanding with 30 points and 13 assists, and Kyle Korver had a season high 25. That’s 2 straight road losses to quality teams for the Jazz, which doesn’t bode well for their upcoming schedule. They played a lot of minutes tonight and get to play a rested Magic team tomorrow. The loss drops the Jazz all they way to the #7 spot, and Utah loses a Magic Number. Maybe the Hornets were tired on the second game of a back-to-back. The Bulls raced out to a 48-24 lead on a lethargic, uninspired Hornets team and cruised to an easy win. Ben Gordon had 27 points, and John Salmons added 24 for the Bulls. Chris Paul put up an impressive 29 points, 6 assists, and 6 rebounds in the loss. The Hornets drop a point. The Nuggets were looking for a second straight victory over a scrub team when the Clippers came to visit. They didn’t have much trouble with the junior varsity team from LA. The Nuggets put up a solid effort and came away with a 107-94 victory. It’s two wins in a row for Enver, who are percentage points behind Portland for the division lead. Renaldo Balkman had 22 points and 11 rebounds for the Nuggets, and Steven Novak had 17 points on 5-7 3 points shooting for the Clippers. Marcus Camby had only 11 points and 7 rebounds in his return to Enver. I thought the Suns would be looking to exorcise their six game losing streak with a merciless beatdown of the Thieves. However, the Thieves led for most of the game before finally bowing out. It’s a welcome win for the Suns, but it wasn’t exactly a dominating win over a pretty bad team. It really is just a matter of time before they’re eliminated. Leandro Barbos led the Suns with 22 points, while Kevin Durant put up 22 for the Thieves. As disappointing as the Spurs loss was, we still had a few competitors drop games. I'm also quite optimistic about tomorrow. I think the Blazers, Mavs, Jazz, and Suns will all lose. On tap for Sunday: Blazers at Hawks, Mavs at Lakers, Jazz at Magic, Suns at Warriors
great analysis... a bad loss to the spurs pretty much emilimates all the hope for division champ... the bright side is no more b2bs for rox...
POR 80 ATL 98 LAL 107 DAL 100 Two down, two to go. At halftime: ORL 57 UTA 43 Hey Scrib, I know you may have said this already in here, but what is your dream seeding for the playoffs (being realistic at this point)? I think for me it's: Lakers (1) Blazers (8) Jazz (4) Hornets (5) [w/ HCA] Spurs (2) Mavericks (8) Rockets (3) Nuggets (6) In this scenario, our two biggest matchup problems IMO (LA and Utah) are on the other side of the WC playoff bracket. Houston gets homecourt against a favorable opponent in Enver. The Mavs have the best shot at upsetting Dallas in the first round or will at least wear them down and play them tough. Same thing for the Blazers and the Lakers. Also, we get CP3 vs. Williams in the battle of the elite young point guards (on the other side of course). What do you think?
I meant to put Dallas at the 7 seed, and say they are the biggest match-up problem for San Antonio (though they are a big match-up problem for themselves as well).
