Tracing the Rocket players' quotes to their wins/losses

I posted a note earlier, but someone didn't "like it" and deleted it. I guess respect comes with 2000 opinions, not 20 years of being a loyal fan...

What I stated was that championship teams get there by treating each and every team they play like a championship team. No "illusions of grandeur", as the saying goes. When the Lakers had a 10-16 or so start, and Phil Jackson was asked something along the lines of "Surely, you're better than that..." he replied, "No, we're that bad."

I've collected some quotes by the Rockets that show how they seemed to think they were better than they are, as well as quotes on how they looked ahead to "tough games" - as if they should prepare harder for them than the others, as if one game (or one quarter even) is more important than others. So does that mean they should try less hard when the play "less tough" teams? Or play less hard b/c they had a great quarter? Sure looked that way.

The fans contribute to this - like when there's half a crowd cheering at half volume for the teams with the worst records, or all the posts about how we're going to crush this or that team because they suck. By the time we get to the game, we don't cheer so hard b/c the win should be "easy", if we even show up, or ignore celebrating wins that "we should have gotten easily."

Positive quotes follow the bad ones, reflecting a respect for each and every team, each and every minute, leading one to believe the Rockets might begin winning with more consistency, and winning by much larger margins.


01/26/03 Francis: "If they played like this at home tomorrow, we'd beat them by 30. Today was a bad day for us. No disrespect to them...

01/27/03
Tomjanovich: "We've got some tough teams coming up."
Mobley: That's a really important game right there. We had to get that, even though it was ugly.
Francis: "We needed this after losing four in a row. Not saying Memphis is not a good team, but we've been losing to teams that we think we have a good chance of beating.

01/28/03 Francis: "We didn't come out as intense as we were to close the first half. Normally, you come out playing that much harder. For us, we beat our heads up against the wall, coming out in the third quarter lackadaisical. I would think the way we've been playing lately, we would want to come out and play harder."

1/31/03 Francis: "Right now, we're going through a phase we're not really sure how to win big games. What can cause that, I think, is a lack of focus on yourself and worrying about everyone else."


POSITIVES:

01/28/03 Mobley: "I respect them (the Mavericks). I respect every team we play. I respect the Bulls."

02/04/03 Mobley: "You got to go up there and be physically ready. We have to strive every game we play, no matter who it is, No. 1 or No. (10).

02/13/03
Posey: "We've got to be consistent with it. That's the biggest thing. We beat pretty much all the top teams. But there's always the next game or the next couple games. If we can be consistent with it, that will be a real steppingstone for this team."
Francis: "Last night I was excited, but I was kind of calm, too. There's so many games we have left to play. We can't get too excited about one game."

 

I rest my case:

02/15/03 Francis: "They beat us, it was an old fashion butt kicking but at the same time we beat ourselves by not playing hard from the beginning.''