This team minus the defense looks almost the same as last year as in having trouble getting into those offensive sets and Steve still takes those tough shots after he dribbles into 3 people or just quickly forces the shot everytime when there's a lick of defense on him (a hand on him). Yao Ming while getting better this year still is shy to just slam it like the onyx on the centers and PFs and if he can just rebound with 2 hands instead of tapping it and hoping that your teammate catches it. The offenseive output so far this year is even worse than last year and we still iso. What's even more evident of this fact is that in the past few games, we had like only a few fast break points and in the west against the Kings, Mavs, Lakers(Spurs will catch up eventually) and even the Hornets & Pacers in the east, that won't get it done. I mean in like six games already, we've only mustered up 70's which are D's on your school tests. That ain't good. To the poster who said we're on paste for 52 wins. First of all, that's not even mathematically correct. I use this fourmula that in this case stats 9/15 and X/82. You cross multiply and you get 15X=738. 15 is the amount of games being played so far this year and divide that into 738 which is what 82 multiplied by 9 gives ya. Divide 15 into that and you get 49.2 games exactly. That'll get you a 6 or 7 seed in the west. But as of today, the Rockets have only beat ONE current team that has a .500 or better record which are the Nuggets and that's not even saying much considering they're just overachiveing. We are 1-5 against teams above .500. Hope we can find our offensive stroke again soon or it just might be another insignificant award of "best team to miss the playoffs" cliches.
If we would not be getting blown out, losing wouldn't hurt so much. Being blown out isn't a good sign. Actually being able to score from time to time would make losing at least bareable.
It is actually worse than that because we play the western conference teams twice as often as we play the leastern conference teams. We cannot know what the combined record of each conference will be, but I can guarantee that the west will be stronger than the east, knocking us down several wins.
Yes, but the Rockets have played 9 games on the road, the most in the Western Conference. They have the fourth best road record in the West. The Rockets are 4-5, while the Mavs are 2-6, the Spurs are 2-5, the Jazz are 1-5, the Blazers are 0-5, and the Suns are 1-4 on the road. The Rockets need to protect their own homecourt. If they do, then they can afford to go .500 on the road.
We are 0-5 on the road against teams with .500 records or higher. I'm still waiting for them to play more games to have a better projection for the season.
With a win tonight, the Rockets would be complying with Van Gundy's winning philosophy (win half the road games, dominate at home). The Rockets could be 5-5 on the road and 5-1 at home. I am looking forward to seeing how the Rockets do against the good teams on their home court. We can't expect them to dominate on the road just yet. (Though we can expect a better performance than we got Wednesday and Friday)
Pop quiz. What do you remember more from 1994-95: a. The Rockets had a five-game losing streak. b. The Rockets won the NBA championship. The moral: Seasons are 82 games for a reason. Thank you. Carry on.
Finally a thread I can read. No matter what people say, the Rockets have improved treamendously since JVG. We get a hot start on the season and everyone is happy, we lose a couple road games (to teams that aren't that bad) and everyone wants trade and start over. 16-thats how many games some of the posters have given this team. I know everyone's a little grumpy from the last 4 seasons, but we can' expect the Rockets to come out and win every single game. And even though we want to be, we still are not one of the elite teams in the NBA, not yet atleast, but we need to give more than a 16 game window to do so. -Gucci
