Playoff rotation get tie to a 7 maybe 8 man where started play 40+ minutes. Yes you need a good bench but not a 10/11 man rotation like the lakers that help to rest players on the regular season but you can't play that many on the playoff. I seen a lot of the Lakers game and team play them well thought the game and them in a point of a game starting the 4th specially, the Lakers play that 5 man bench that run a lot(fast beak) and outscore by double digit the other team bench that how the get those large point differential. But in the playoff team don't have worry about traveling, back to back, 4 game on five night a tough road trip, a long season. In the playoff team don't run a lot and play HC most of the game player play a 110% and you don't play to save their bodies for an 82 game season you play to survive. I was watching the LA telecast last game and Rick Fox call the soft, that they haven't tough enough since last year, and playoff game are different and this way of playing don't translate to playoff basketball and he knows about playoff. BTW this Lakers team have not won no championship.
I don't think he'll be back. He looks like his cousin Vince Carter... super, highly-talented star that has really never reached his potential and is fading away like polar icecaps from global warming.
Boston worries me more than the Lakers do. Come playoff time, physical defense wins ball games. Gasol and Odom are weak minded and can be taken out with physical defense. Yao can give Bynum some trouble, and make him pay on the defensive end. Hayes can shut down Gasol. T-Mac will shut down Odom easily. Battier and Artest will take turns at Kobe. I believe this Rockets team has a good chance to win it all. They just need to commit on the defensive end, and the offense will come.
Haynes can shut down Gasol???? did u watch the Lakers game man? Hayes is too short. the rockets should not be forced to play a 6'6 player on a 7'. even though he did shut down dirk...
This is really just ignorance. Obviously he's not the scoring leader Tmac of old, but every 3rd game he'll have an awesome game. He's being inconsistent is all, probably due to the fact that he's recovering from off season surgery. What pisses me off is this happens every season. We'll start off slow (I guess this season 10-6 is slow), hit a stride going into the All-star break and become the hottest team in the league. It happens every ****ing season. When are people going to learn that there is no point in worrying about our play this early in the season as this has been what has happened every year.
Rocket's offense isn't as good as Lakers. This isn't the way the team is built. The way the Rockets will beat them is beating the Lakers with defense, as long as the Rockets offense holds up. The Lakers' biggest weakness is their defense. But I have to admit, their defense has gotten better this year with Bynum back.
Not so much Bynum, their Lakers defense is predicated on traps and steals to go and run to get easy baskets. A patient team will get them, they just need to be smart and move the ball until the crack their defense. Kobe and Maybe Ariza can present some problem one on one, the rest is are not physical players even Bynum is not that strong. Celtics are a different story they can frustrate you and get stop. Lakers Great offense Good Defense. Celtics Great defense Good offense. They both can be beat, but they are both tough, just have to wait for the match up, team can look a lot different vs x match up. Houston have the potential to compete with the best they just need time and health and that can be achieve by when they playoff start. Regular season will be a big lad to try all kind of line ups defense, offense, rotation etc. until we fine the best that can maximize the Rockets potential. Previous season we didn't have the talent, this season we do. We need to be patient, by the Allstar we can actually see what weakness we have and what we need to correct and Morey will find any piece that by them can help patch or fix the problem, that's why probably he is not rushing to get Mutombo or any other big until we can find what this team with all the pieces can do.
we just need the tmac of last yr who put up 27, 8, 7 v. utah and we'll be good to go. as long as tracy can at least jump better, he'll do the things he can do. he can't move like this bad all year. he'll get better.
u gonna cry? Spoiler u see, italics guy wasn't smart to say we'd win it all last season. but this season, the Rockets will win it all.
with the way the rox have been playing as of late..they wouldnt even beat utah... but w/ TMAC all healthy and everyone on the same page..i still believe we can beat anybody.
I actually think we can beat them. They are on a run, but this is the regular season. It matters, but does not guarantee anything. Remember Dallas a couple of years ago? They made it to the NBA finals, but lost. Then they put an incredible record in the regular season and lost in the first round. Getting to the NBA finals two years in a row is really really hard. The game where we played them we got got blown away. But for the first half of the game it was pretty even or we were even playing better. The team just broke down all of a a sudden (due to the LA bench). But we did not have Shane. The reason we might lose against the Lakers in the playoffs is the homecourt advantage. If the Rockets are healthy, I would expect a 7 game series against them.
It's crazy, but i still think that we can. With the way we have been playing lately, of course not, but again, i stress that our best basketball has yet to come. We've yet to play a full strength side, and we've just gone through the toguhest part of our schedule with a complete lack of chemistry and form. The lakers look incredible, but we do have the weapons to beat them. 1. We are fortunate enough to have arguably the 2 best wing defenders in battier and ron artest. If there was any team that could stop kobe, it would be us. Kobe can get his points on anyone, but imagine facing the defense on ron ron and sugar shane for an entire playoff series. 2. On traditional bigs, yao tends to play his best. The game earleir in the season is not a good indication of what Yao can do as he was completely out of form, and i believe that by the end of the season, he'll be as crisp as ever, provdied he does not get injured. 3. T-mac turns things up come playoff time. People keep saying that tmac has no heart and on most nights i would agree with you, but regardless of how bad he has been playing, Mcgrady plays his best in the post season. 4. The most intriguing thing about this series to me is the benches of both sides. Both teams have strong benches and it'll be a great battle to watch. Landry and brooks is instance offense and Farmar and Radman are damn good bench players as well. It'll be an incredibly hard thing to do, but if we are meshing well then there is a huge chance for us to beat the lakers. Gasol will probably be the biggest concern to us but i'm confident that scolandry will be able to somewhat contain him. The lakers will exploit us at the point, but even though rafer hasn't been playing great lately, he has shown signs of what is needed. I love the fact that he recognises the fronting D on yao and uses it as an opportunity to drive to the whole. If he continues to do this, and do this successfully, teams would stop fronting yao , meaning they are forced to play Yao from behind, which is where Yao is dominate.
we are capable of knocking them down theoritically. so far i just donot see it is happening. we have great deal of works to be done. let's wait and see.
we dont have big 3 in this team, we dont even have a superstar in this team ffs. after all, yao and ron are just bordline all-star lvl players and tmac...forget it, he cant help much due to his injury. we got some good role players though, which make us a good team in regular season but when playoff comes, we ****ed. lakers on the other hand, they got superhero kobe and all star lvl players pau, bynum plus some good role players and benchs. no way we can beat em to be honest.
Of course we can beat them in the playoffs. If we played them tomorrow? No. In April or later, yes. I fully expect the Rockets to be wrecking shop within another month and certainly by the time the playoffs roll around. Why? Because we've yet to see this Rocket team at full strength, yet after playing 10/15 on the road to start, the Rockets are 10-6. The Lakers are on a great run right now, but so what? It's a very long season.
Can we? Of course it is possible. However, a .500 team would be a fairer comparison based on our level of play.
The Laker's best player last year struggled having to deal with James Posey. He will have to deal with Artest and Batter for every minute he is on the court. Pau Gasol does not deal well with physical play. Scola is not the best defender but is very physical defensivly. We also have Chuck Hayes, who has stopped a 7 foot jump shooter before. To sum it up, our defense will be too much for the Lakers to handle for 7 straight games.
jesus tapdancing christ. can we plz stop comparing teams by one-one-one matchups? basketball is not a series of one-on-one matchups. if that were the case, we would be undefeated and go 82-0 every season.
Defensively, I think we can give them problems; offensively, we are constipated and they will blow us out, right now. Things may change.
