before i learned we were matched up against portland, I was more angry at how we lost the game than the loss it self(i assumed we'd have home court no matter what, more on that later). no matter what our players and coaches say this was a playoff-type of a game. The reasons i am more concerned than i was 6 hours ago is because we choked big time under the pressure. von wafer showed his inexperience, artest choked, brooks and scola were subdued, and yao was neutralized in the 4th qtr. Only guy who came to play was lowry but too bad the guy has no jump shot. after this game, i had this sick feeling in the back of throat. the last time i had this feeling was back in 2007, game 7 against the jazz. we all know the outcome of that game. later on i learned that San Antonio won and that portland will be the team we will be facing. the news that home court would be decided by Portland hit me like ton of bricks. I was shocked we fell this far(i paid little attention to the scenarios proposed by our fellow members). right now, i have very little faith in the rockets to pull this one out, especially after this horrendous showing. we are bad road team no matter how good the match up with Portland is. both teams are good home teams and portland has HCA. you do the math. game 1 is a pivotal game cause it will tell me who will win the series. if we win game 1 we can win it in 6 games and if we lose game 1 we will lose in 7. YES, HCA means a lot in the playoffs.
Please dont use last year as an example for anything. Utah was heathy, we weren't, missing two of our starters those two game and not as deep as we are now. When you're in that situation, records dont matter(obviously since we had a better record and still lost)... I know we're not completely healthy this year, but this team has been as is for a while since tmac was out a lot, so it's not like last year when we lose guys towards the end of the season and have to adjust on the fly.
The previous two seasons, we had HCA but a bad matchup, and lost twice. This season, we don't have HCA but a good matchup. No matter what will happen, I think the rockets and fans cannot complain. Life is fair! As clutch said, "this is Houston's Mount Doom: They must go back to where it started".
The players have moved on and focus on the next game, and so should we. This is a new and fresh scenario. We don't have HCA this time but the Blazers are a better team for us to play than say Dallas or Jazz. Last night (tonight?) game was a great wake up call. I feel a good vibe this time around... I have faith in our team and after the 82 game grind it comes to this - a new start - this is where the real action starts. With our collective belief, Rockets will go past the first round, and who knows, more amazing things could happen. The thing is we don't need a miracle for us to go past the 1st round this time. All we have to do is to play hard and play smart.
Good opening comments, TS - set the tone for the rest of the thread. Losing hca is a disappointment, but I think losing this last game the way we did was an even bigger disappointment. Having a 14-point lead and then scoring only 14 points in the 4th quarter made us relive all the bad memories we thought had been dead and buried. But if there's a silver lining, it's that Portland would be a better matchup for us compared to Dallas (which would be whom we'd have gotten if we had won and the rest of today's results remained the same). The play-offs aren't the same as regular season games, so looking purely at regular season results aren't going to be indicative of how the 1st round would turn out. However, defensively we're better and if Yao and our bench show up for every match, we should take one of the first two away openers and return to Toyota Centre focused on sweeping them at home. The 2nd round would be really tough, though. Still, if we stay with the Lakers for 3 quarters and our defence play the game of their lives in the 4th, we could surprise even ourselves. As fans, we should be satisfied if our team fights to the end in every match.
yes, after 82 regular season games, now every team has a record of 0-0 until it's been eliminated and gone fishing.
i think you quoted me by mistake, but I just realized most people probably thought i didnt mean the vehicle, but i did!
Don't feel too bad about the last game. I agree with a lot of what others say...Matchups > HCA. Just look back at Dallas and Utah series where we had home court advantage. Portland is a very good matchup for us. But I think the Hornets would be much better. Either way, I feel good about our chances.
