Barring a complete collapse and us falling out of the playoff picture, there is no reason to whine because of a regular season loss here or there. This team is clearly built to win in the post season(the only season that matters). Take a step back and think about it. The Rockets have had alot of regular season success in recent years, but does anyone really care? The 22 game winning streak was fun last year, but what respect did that earn us? Zero. We are still the same old soft team that can get out of the first round. Stop putting so much stock into these regular season games. We're going to lose 20 plus games this year, so get used to it. So long as we are healthy come playoff time, we will be okay. I love the team's decision to rest Mcgrady and Shane. Sitting Yao when he needs rest will probably cost us a few games this season, but if that means hes 100 % for the playoffs, we're already way ahead of both last year's team and the 2007 team. If Shane and Tracy are 100 percent, we're ahead of last years team. Adding Ron Artest? a confident Aaron Brooks? Those are 2 additional weapons we didn't have last year. Improvement is good and will certainly get us out of the first round. Think of the teams that have had real playoff success in the past few years...You have Boston last year, Detroit, San Antonio, LA, and Utah. Now, what do these teams have that gives them an edge come playoff time. - poise/high bball IQ - talent - defense - a post threat on offense - rebounding/points in the paint - a strong bench - 3 point shooting - ball movement/passing - top notch coaching - toughness/passion A healthy Rockets team has all of those ingredients. poise/high bball iq: All of our core players are experienced and extremely intelligent basketball players. Talent: Mcgrady, Yao, Artest, Landry, Brooks are players that can use their talent to impose their will on basketball games. Defense: Mark my words: This is the second best defensive team in the league behind Boston. Yao controls the paint, Battier is the most versatile defender in the game, Artest is one of the all time leaders in steals, and he is a strong defender with above average rebounding. Rafer is a good team defender, and Chuck Hayes is the most underrated defender in the entire league. a Post threat: We have several. Yao, Ron ron, Mcgrady rebounding/points in the paint: When all is said and done, we should be a dominant rebounding team. Yao playing 40 minutes a game should get atleast 10-12 rebounds. Scola is an excellent rebounder, so is landry...Tmac and Artest can also grab some boards. All the payers I mentioned are good finishers as well. a strong bench: We are one of the top 3 teams in terms of depth. I think if we could add an experienced big who can defend and rebound(Mutumbo) we would have a more complete bench, but even without that, when Shane is 100 percent healthy your bench looks like this: Artest, Brooks, Landry, Chuck Hayes, Barry. That is a nice blend of scoring and defense off of the bench. 3 point shooting: Plenty of this...Battier, Artest, Brooks, Alston, Mcgrady, Barry, Head can all knock down the three and space the floor for our big men. ball movement/passing: Our two best players are arguably the best passers at their position. Tracy is an excellent passer, as is Yao. Alston, Barry, Battier, Hayes, and Scola are all extremely underrated passers. top notch coaching: RA.....IMO should have been COY last year. Not many coaches I would chose over him for this team. toughness/passion: An area where I feel we could do better, but Yao, Artest, Scola, Battier, Landry, Rafer, Chuck Hayes are all hard working guys who have that will to win. Call me a homer, call me what you will, but barring any major injury, this team has everything it takes to make a run at the championship. With our depth alone, we should be able to win 52 or more games in the regular season which will get us in to the playoffs rather easily. Morey will use the regular season to evaluate the team and patch up the holes that he can. If we can get to the post season relatively healthy, we will make a run at this thing. The Lakers are the only team that strikes fear in me. Relax...It's going to be a good year.
There is no doubt that for the Rockets, the regular season means very little outside of tuning up for the playoffs. However, with the problem we have of not being able to get out of the first round, and knowing we'll be facing a very good team first up no matter where we are in the final standing, I think its understandable people are concerned. Fans want to see this team steamrolling the opposition before we relax and get ready for the playoffs, and while we have a very good team, there are still some issues we have had for a long time that we can all see and that worries all of us.
Yes we are built for the playoffs. But do we want to be the #2 seed playing the #7 seed or the #4 seed playing the #5?
Utah was a five seed last year and made it to the WCF 2 years ago...Spurs were a 6 seed I think and made it there last year.....We're a good enough road team and we shouldnt worry about that too much.
Wishful thinking, but there isn't anything wrong with that. Who can say what this team is built for? The Rockets haven't done anything in the playoffs in ages, so if saying this very disjointed team is "built for the playoffs" helps you through the next 5 months, fine. Most teams that are "built for the playoffs" have experienced playoff success and have players that step up big when the real season starts. They also have great team chemistry, which the current squad has very little of. They also have durable players who don't break down with injuries on a regular basis. IMO, this team looks like a tease and is built mainly for raising hopes and dreams because an unusually long list of things has to go right for the dream to come true. If "barring any major injury" was truly the only concern, I'd be on board with you. BTW, I don't care much about playoff seeding either. Individual games don't matter that much to me except a few.
You might want to add "or any imagined injury" after listening to TinMac today. I've never seen a player sit down for what multiple doctors have classified as 'general soreness'.
Do you guys actually want Tmac to play now score like 6 points, not be able to drive, limited minutes. Or do you want him to come back healthy and play like TMAC? Tracy's thinking April, So am I, some of you aren't
I do agree we are made for the post season. There is not doubt in that. However we still need to get some wins and get a decent enough playoff spot so we don't end up playing someone like the Lakers. Other than that we should be strong and healthy come playoff time (At least I hope **knock on wood**)
Our history shows we are not built for the post season. 3 series in the last 4 seasons where we lost. We are not old like the Spurs. We shouldn't be slowing down like this and resting for every bug bite we get. We should have the winning mentality. We need to get going. We can't just go on cruise control, and then just push a button to go at full speed. With a fairly new coach and a new big player (Artest) we should be trying to figure out our rotation. We should have done that by now. But Battier's been injured, and Tracy is stopping and trying to get a shortcut as soon as Battier came back. What is our rotation? When can we see some movement within our starters? Is Artest coming off the bench, like most of us think he should? We don't know, Rick can't know because we haven't all been playing.
Is this an ideal situation we're in right now? Hell no. But it's reality. I think it' d be foolish to be negative about this team right now when we're ahead of where we were last year at this point, Tmac has hardly played at all, we just got battier back, we've had a ridiculously tough schedule, and we're integrating a new player. I like what our record is given all of that. Throw in the fact that we could have easily won 3 or 4 of the games we lost, and I'd say that we're going to be a really good team come april when Tmac is on the court and our rotations are set.
I understand your point and agree to it to a certain point. Again like you said, we have a great record considering our circumstances. But... we lost games we should have won like you mentioned because we don't have chemistry or a set rotation. How do we know we are going to have the chemistry like the one we had last season that took us 22 games winning streak in time for the playoffs? We don't know when we'll have a set rotation. April is a long way, but resting every bit of nagging injury, I'm getting kind of worry.
If you think back to last year and the 22 game winning streak...I believe the first 10 or so of those games were with Yao and Tracy in the lineup. After Yao got injured, we had a very favorable schedule and won alot of games against questionable competition. Yeh we had good chemistry, but it took half a season to build it....Tracy was in and out of the lineup and trying to feel his way back during the beginning of the streak. Honestly the streak was more about timing than anything. We had a good team, but the schedule lined up perfectly for us, and even when we faced the tougher teams towards the end of our streak, we faced them when they were not at full strength. We beat the Lakers without Gasol and Bynum, and we beat Dallas without Dirk. When we finally played a legit team who had all of their guys healthy, we got routed....We stumbled to the finish and we got beat in the first round. Yeh we had good chemistry last year, but we lacked talent. With Yao, Tracy, Artest, and a better Brooks and Landry, this team is not short on talent. And just like last year the chemistry will develop over time. If we're healthy this time in April the results will be much different.
I'm pretty confident that we will make the playoff this season. Brooks is doing great and having Artest is much better than no Artest. I also agree with the decision to rest Tmac and Shane and go easy on Yao in hope of better performance during the playoff. However I don't think there is any evident to support the claim that we are going to be successful in playoff and history certain doesn't help in that department. We are highly inconsistent and even struggle against below average teams. How can the team have the confidence to beat the Western elites if they can't beat them during the regular season. We should wait for Tmac and Shane to recover. Then the games may give us some hints on what to expect for post-season.
"Relax? I can't relax! Nor can I yield, relent, or... only two synonyms? Oh my God, I'm losing my perspicacity! Ahhh!!"
I don't want to pull any deja vu, but wasn't last year's team built for the playoffs? and what happened? where was Yao? the injuries that are piling up in the regular season has people worried. Last year it was Yao, what about this year? Tmac?
Every year someone says we are built for the post season. Well the latest results in the playoffs speak for itself.
Thats why were being precautionary. We rested Tmac early season last year and he finished strong. I think off the court we are resting Yao more than the average fan could realize. On the court, we are limiting his minutes when we can, and we aren't just banging him in the post every play.
That's why the focus should be on keeping yao healthy. I know it seems like thats not possible given the last three seasons, but if Yao thought he couldnt finish an NBA season, why didnt he just retire.
Very easy: Because Yao isn't a quitter. He won't know if he can't finish a season if he doesn't even try. Better to try and fail than to not try.
