I have to disagree with this. First game, the Rockets were in the midst of their longest losing streak of the year. They also lost to lottery teams such Mavs, NOH, and Sixers during the streak. You probably didnt watch the second game. Clippers shot the lights out! They made something like 17/22 and 6/7 from 3's in the first quarter. They were leading 46 to 28 after one! That's a tough score to overcome if you are the road team. If anything Clippers defense let down after one quarter. Even if Heypartner was being arrogant, which I dont think he was, there is nothing wrong being a homer at Clutchfans.
Are you like comparing your style to non-playoff teams, because this is not really a good description of all the other playoffs teams in the league. You honestly don't think Chi, Miami, OKC, Spurs, Memphis can handle our tempo and ALSO play better defense than LAC? The reason I said LAC is our best match up is very simple. You have the worst defense of all the other Western Conference playoffs teams. Why wouldn't I want the Rockets to draw the worst defense?
Here are the possibilities: Gregg Popovich 4× NBA champion 2× NBA Coach of the Year A future HOF coach. George Karl seventh in NBA history with 1,076 career victories among active coaches w/ most wins 21 playoff appearances 20 winning seasons Vinny Del Negro Playoffs record: 8 wins 15 losses Hmmm...really a tough choice.
I just don't want Memphis and LAC to play each other again because I like to see different first round match-ups. No repeats or first-time meetings. Denver-LAC and Mem-GSW would work for me.
Clippers score 101 ppg and lead the NBA in steals, turnovers forced, fastbreak points and have a hyper athletic team and the best bench. In otherwords the Grizzlies and Clippers have NOTHING in common outside of the fact that they use turnovers to fuel easy buckets. You don't remember our 47 point quarter against your team last month? Nobody else has scored that much in a quarter this year I believe. Memphis is more a pound it in the paint and rough people up on D team.
They didn't exactly shoot lights out so much as the Rockets didn't play a lick of D. The Rockets porous defense will be abused badly and running will be negated since the Clippers can also run. Memphis is the best matchup. As a Clippers fan the Rockets are actually what I consider the ideal matchup. A 5-6 game series at best in the Clippers favor. I don't think the Clippers will have any problem with the Griz especially with HCA but the Griz play physical which can bang our players up so I prefer the Rockets + it would be a more interesting series with a lot of scoring.
I laugh that they put that provision due to the Rockets. The year of our streak we came damn close to a three way tie with the lakers and hornets for best record in the west. We would have lost the head to head with the hornets for the division crown, but we would have won the three way tie break and been crowned the #1 seed as a non division winner. Stern always overreacts to those kinds of scenarios.
If you said 6/7 from 3's, 11/15 and most of 2's are from midrange is not exactly shooting the lights out, I don't know what to tell you. Give some credit to team who shot them. We will agree to disagree........
