Portland isn't losing to some trash like team in Utah. Rockets only do that kind of crap. Rockets need to stay focused on just beating the teams on their schedule.
Rondo is just not very good right now..maybe that changes, but if he can't carry the celtics past the dleague Lakers than he is obviously not that great.
Not that worried about Memphis with Asik, they're the only team that lineup works against because Asik guards Zbo as well as anyone.
Would you rather play Memphis or Portland? I think that even if you matchup with Memphis better, you have to take into account that they beat you up and that can have a big effect on subsequent rounds.
The Rockets dream scenario is having the Thunder face the Griz first round and us face the Suns or Mavs. The Griz may not be as talented but as you have said they will beat them up. Then we can face the Spurs the second round, a team we dominate and then face either the Clippers or Thunder in the WCF.
I really don't care. There will be no easy team to beat in a 7 game series... The Suns just don't have the firepower though, if anything they are the team that everyone will want to play. The other teams? I guess Portland too but the west will be hell, even for the Thunder.
Suns have all the firepower they need, they're fifth in the league at 105 per game. What they don't have is a defensive interior presence and somebody to rebound the ball at a high rate. That leads to easy points in the paint for your marginaly gifted post player - if they're facing an elite one, they're toast - and lots of second chance points for the opponent. That's been their biggest problem this year.
If it's his post moves only that you're talking about, i'll give you that. But D12's defense and rebounding is elite.
We'll see, scoring in the post season is a entirely different thing. A guy like Harden for example is not going to take plays off, no one will. Every one will go hard for the entire game. It won't be playing the suns on some random Wednesday night any more.
And you think they're not going to raise their level of play? As addition they've been playing 30 games out of 54 without their second best player in Bledsoe. He's comming back in about a week and if they pick it up where they left in december, they're getting even better and more dengerous. They're still week inside, especially defensively, so I don't expect a substancial postseason success, but I think they get there and make some noise, if nothing else an interesting first round series.
Sure they will...but they aren't very talented is the point. I'm sure they can win 2 games and make a series interesting but I don't see any team that they can beat in a 7 game series.
