with this latest rox slump, along with memphis, min, and denver playing very good ball. does anyone know our magic number for getting in the playoffs?
Believe it or not, we're still in pretty good shape. We're 4 games up on Minnesota in the loss column with 7 games to play. Minnesota has beaten us twice this year and we've only beaten them once, so they own the tiebreaker. The best Minnesota can finish is 47-35. We're at 44-31. Four wins by us would guarantee a playoff spot. Any combination of Minnesota losses and wins by us totaling four will do. i.e. Minny loses twice and we win twice and we clinch.
That sixth spot sounds great right about now. Remember when we were discussing what spot the Rockets would be better suited to play? Sixth is probably the highest we can hope for. If we do get the sixth spot, it won't be bad at all considering the other options. We will get Seattle. I like me some Sonics
True, but the championship Rox went thru the 4 best teams in the league to win...which had never been done before...making it all the sweeter.
Yeah, I wonder if it'd be better to face Tim Duncan in the first round, 5 game series with a little rust on his game, or face him in the WCF after he's done battle with the better teams in the league.
Magic number is now 3. I can't decide if we want Minny to lose or Denver. I think Minny, because once they're eliminated, we'll have a better idea of what we need to do to either secure 6th or tank and get to 8th.
You kidding right? What we need to do is to secure the 6th spot by all means. Tanking to the 8th? What are you thinking?
We may end up 8, but it won't be because we were trying for it Slipping and stumbling is more like it, tanking implies we tried for it.
I think the worse case scenario is the rockets getting into the 7th not spot not 8th, because Minnesota is to far behind and Memphis has the toughest schedule in the league right now. However being in the 7th spot means we'll probably have to play the Spurs and that would be hard unless Duncan won't come back. So hopefully all goes well and we can maintain the 6th seed and play the sonics in the first round.
If we're 7th after clinching a spot, we may want to tank to 8th to get the suns if 6th is unreachable.
I hope Denver loses. We need to maintain 6th seed. Denver hasn't lost to ANY team since the all-star break other than Phoenix. Their momentum needs to be stopped. That doesn't improve our magin number any, but I'm not that worried about falling out of the playoffs completely. It could happen, but it would be such a monumental failure, even slipping to the 8th seed, barely making it in, and then getting run out in the first round wouldn't be much of the improvement. At that point, myswell go into the lottery and hope for some draft day luck.
Dallas can't rise any higher than #4. The top three seeds are for division winners (Suns, Spurs, Sonics).
