nice find but i wouldnt get too high just yet the rockets are only 1/2 game ahead of the spurs and actually are behind in the loss column. if the rockets lose on tuesday to the jazz that 2nd place becomes 6 or 7th in a hurry. they just need to keep winning.
Same here! I enjoyed that alot.. I'm sick of most newspapers saying that oh yeah the rockets are on a roll big deal they are still gunna choke till they die in the playoffs...But finally one of them notices that this is a different kind of roll.... 16-4 isn't a roll anymore for us...it's beginning to come naturally... i dont know what or how Rick is telling and training them but DAMN its working.
I'm in love with this team right now. Perfect scenario is the Jazz fall to 8th place and knock off the Lakers only to lose to us in the WCF. I'd love to see that happen. I just hope this team can get deep in the playoffs for valuable experience.
yeah I was thinking the same thing. Though it was good to see someone praising the Rockets it's hard to feel like 2nd best in the west where there are so few games separating us from the 8th in the west.
Exactly... This team has looked good (hell, great) lately, but let's not get ahead of ourselves. The Rockets were in 1st place late last year, and then completely lost it before the playoffs. I love where this team is heading, but the season isn't over yet, anything can happen.
I did enjoy reading that article very much, but a part of me remembers back to last year where he heard similar stuff. And we got taken out in the first anyways.
Well you know what? He can just STFU!!! Wait...what? An actual basketball analyst gave his opinion instead of the never ending cesspool of ignorance that is the majority of the ESPN personality clique? Touche' sir, touche'.
The Rockets are literally sneaking up on the league. No one takes them too seriously. They get little if any media attention. Most don't even see them as a serious contender, not even their own fans. BUT, they keep trudging along, improving bit by bit. Scola is the symbol of the team, undervalued and invisible. In a way it doesn't seem probable that a slow footed, relatively non aggressive center, two inexperienced young guards, a non offensive threat glue guy, a white guy with long hair, and a wacko will ultimately terrorize the league, but stranger things have happened. This team is under the radar, winning, and they haven't peaked. If they put it all together during the playoffs, things could get interesting.
That article actually frightened me more than it encouraged me. The paragraph about how we were doing all the right things now...that seemed ripped right out of the annals of The Streak. It shows you just how fast things can change, and how everyone in the league still has an out when it comes to having to measure us as a legitimate threat. I heard Wexler say this on the radio tonight: the Rockets have no go-to guy in the crunch, and that might be just fine if we play the way we have in the past week, but still...track record has to count for something. And EVERY other team in the West has a player you can be sure will be holding the ball on their last possession. LA - Kobe SA - Parker UT - Williams NO - Paul PR - Roy DN - Billups DA - Nowitzki
This could be considered either a blessing or a curse. The flipside to not having a go to guy in the clutch is that it makes you harder to guard down the stretch. Against all of those teams, you pretty much know what you're going to get and you can defend around that. But, take last night's win as an example, the Spurs assumed Yao was going to be taking shots down the stretch, and Yao found Scola for two easy lay-ups. The Rockets might not have one closer, but they have a variety of players who can make shots or create a play for someone else. Really, I think the end of game (and end of quarter) iso plays are incredibly boring, over-used, and ineffective possessions in basketball. I'm sick of watching a team's best one on one player dribble out the clock attack his man, and shoot a pull up jumper. T-Mac, Kobe, Lebron, Iverson, Wade, and their coaches are all guilty of doing this. You would never run an offense like that in the middle of a game, so why do it on your final and most crucial possessions. On Adelman's old Sacramento teams, they could score at will and get open looks for Peja, Bibby, Miller, Webber, Christie, Jackson, etc. Where they fell apart against LA (other than officiating) was when they felt they had to force the offense through Webber at the end of games instead of the movement they'd been killing people with all year. Webber ended up settling for elbow jumpers instead of running the offense. There will be nights where Yao has things working and on these nights, I'm all for force feeding him inside until the defense finds a way to stop him. But on the other nights, move the ball, find the open man, and let him try to knock down an open look.
What took us out of that streak last year was McGrady deciding he had to up it to continue the streak, messing up the team amazing team chemistry we had. Not trying to knock McGrady, but that's what it was. This year, as long as Artest doesn't decide to take over, we don't have that problem. I just hope Artest plays the same style as he did against SA. Aggressive to the rack all game. Not very many fall away jumpers.
You forgot one... HOU - Scola Yeah, he may be more of a garbage man than "Clutch" player but he got it done against SA and he is the one player on the team that is not afraid to take the last shot (see SA). I think we all wish it was someone more prolific - a la McGrady, Yao or even Artest, but let's call a spade a spade and Scola is our spade. He's fearless and thus far - nobody is paying attention to him. Let's ride it out!
