Crash, Ill double check my math, but I already counted twice on each just to make sure, so I am confident in my #s. Regardless of the diff of 3 games or so, that doesn't explain why the Rockets were just a good team, and not a great team. The 6-19 record against teams that were ahead of us, does explain it IMO.
Who cares what the point is? You haven't supported it with any meaningful evidence. The Rockets beat the sh-t out of bad teams this year, more so than in the previous year, and about as well as any other playoff team in the WC. Their conference record against top teams has been lousy for the last 4 years. Their record against lousy and EC teams has been good. Every good team loses to some bad teams over the course of the year. Atlanta beat SA, Sacramento & Dallas over a short span of time earlier this year. Does that mean those teams are inconsistent? No, it means they play in the NBA, where you can win or lose every night. Your argument is DOA.
I think the meaningfull proof was in the game themselvs. If you don't consider Francis comments as meaningfull then there is nothning I can do about that. Personally I consider it very meaningfull.
The games themselves -- specifically the results -- indicate that your thesis itself is incorrect. The Rockets, as most NBA teams, fared significantly better against bad teams, and significantly worse against good teams. You can take Francis' words for whatever they're worth, but they have no impact as the thesis that you're trying to get them to support is demonstrably incorrect.
Needing triple overtime to beat Atlanta--ON YOUR HOME FLOOR--is not beating the anything out of anybody. We swept the Clippers for the first time since 2000 this season. And in some of those defeats in the previous seasons, the Clippers flat out blew us out, regardless of the final score. That's pathetic, as bad as they've been over those past few years.
So what does that mean for LA, San Antonio, Minnesota, Dallas, and Detroit? All of these teams were beaten by the Hawks this year. Does that make them even more inconsistent than Houston? Since not only did they do worse against Atlanta, but they did bettter overall against better teams. Hell the Pistons won the NBA title, yet they lost at home to the Hawks. According to your and Crash's definition, they are therefore even more inconsistent than the Rockets. Must be chauncey billups fault.
My point is that the Rockets have played this type of inconsistent basketball for an extended period of time. I used the Hawks game from this past season only as a recent example. The whole point of this is the fact that since the day Francis arrived, the Rockets as a whole haven't taken some teams as seriously as they should have. I know they're not the only team that does this and I know Francis isn't the only player who does this. But when you consider the Rockets' record against these clubs during the past five seasons (Francis' tenure), coupled with him being quoted as saying a team can be "walked over", it just doesn't make him look good. And those other teams you mentioned all have one thing in common that makes them different from the Rockets: until this past year, they were all in the playoffs come April while Stevie Wonder was watching at home with his good buddy, Cuttino. ***Ducking to avoid thrown objects from Cuttino fans***
Your point is wrong from the get-go, the Rockets have generally beaten weaker opponents and lost to stronger opponents That does not equal inconsistent basketball, in fact, that is exacty what you would expect from a middle-of the pack NBA team. You used the Hawks game and it blew up because the Hawks illustrate the folly of your and Crash's argument: any team can beat any other team on any given night; to point to a few losses acn deem them as evidence of inconsistency is misleading and just not accurate, as has been shown by codell. You can say the Rockets are inconsistent, but it's not reflected in their overall comparative performance vs. tougher or weaker opponents.
O.K. so I am wrong and so is JVG. I guess you would certainly know better than the coach who also thought they put out less than best effort many times last season and were very inconsistent against some of the worst teams.
I am sure other team's coaches say the same thing when their teams lose to lesser teams. The point is, this problem is not unique to a team like the Rockets, and its certainly not unique to a player like Steve Francis.
I completely agree with you. The Rockets took several teams very lightly last season and the season before that. They have to go into games with mental toughness, a great attitude and a killer instinct. The Rockets need to play tough for 48 minutes not just 24. We cannot look past any teams especially since the West will be even more competitive next year.
You're definately wrong. But IIRC, JVG was constantly saying after losses that we played hard enough, we just didn't play well. He always said that our effort was good, but the execution was lacking. JVG doesn't agree with you.
I would agree with this to an extent, but it still points directly back to Steve. What you're saying is that the team (including Francis) played hard every night, but they're collective basketball IQ (made up in part from Francis') was lacking. I just think that without Steve (and his turnovers, constant fundamental mistakes), this will become a SMARTER basketball team. Addition by subtraction. And with T-Mac, addition by addition.
1. I don't like how you associate the words evil and vegetarian together and I don't particularly approve of calling a woman a b**** either. Being compassionate for other living creatures isn't evil. I could care less if you agree with the vegetarian diet, but to imply that it is evil is ridiculous. 2. She's gone and the power dancers are still wearing the shirts. Guess who else is vegetarian? Les Alexander. 3. I actually seem to recall that Hakeem Olajuwon was/is also a vegetarian and with a quick google search I found this: "there have certainly been a number of peak performance athletes that have dispelled any myths about the shortcomings of a vegetarian diet, including the all-time home run champion, Hank Aaron; Ironman Triathlete, Dave Scott (six time winner); basketball great, Hakeem Olajuwon and dozens more world-class competitors from around the world." http://www.bobbyrock.com/foryourhealth.html Sorry to get off topic, It's just a pet pieve of mine when people attack vegetarians for no good reason other than that they like to eat meat.
No, you're wrong because you have unrealistic expectations and you are confusing two separate issues. If the Rockets were inconsistent against some of the the weaker teams because they lost a few games that they shouldn't have lost, than so was/is every single other team in the NBA. Do you see how ludicrous this is? The 1996 Bulls had a better record than every single team that they lost too...therefore they are inconsistent. If you were able to show that the Rockets were losing to weaker teams in a greater proportion than their peers, maybe you would be on to something. But you haven't been. Any reasonable observer when looking at the rockets W/L records over the past few seasons would realize that their least success comes from playing against the powerhouses in the West -- What are we against San Antonio and Dallas the last few seasons? 2 -14? Hell, for all our regular season "success" against the Lakers, most of which happened with one or more key lakers injured, the best we could do was split 4-4. That's "success"? I call that "mediocre" at best. What happened in the playoffs, with both sides healthy, seemed more appropriate. Our record against the 5 "power teams" in the West (LA, Dallas, Sacto, San Antonio, Minn) this past season was 2-2 (LA) 0-4 (SA) 1-3 (Dal) 0-4 (Sac) 2-2 (Minn) for a total of 5-15 The year before it was 2-2 (LA) 1-3 (SA) 0-4 (Dal) 2-2 (Sac) 2-2(Minn) for a total of 7-13 Now, please tell me how the hell you think the Rockets were disproportionately good against a high level of competition and mediocre against a low level of competition. You can talk about JVG quotes all you want, but it remains that your misconception about inconsistent play by way of having counterintuitive results with regard to the strength of the opponent is precisely that.
I thik it was Doc Rivers who first used the phrase "Detroit did not take off any possesions against the Lakers" in the finals. Say what you want about whose fualt it is, but clearly one can not make that statement about the Rockets over the last several years.
a) as a joke, before even reading the thread, i was just gonna post "steve francis" but lo and behold that's what this is about. b) crash, 34 games, not 24 against under .500 teams. making up facts does make your argument look better though. c) i feel like writing a long response but codell and SamFisher have so thoroughly crushed crash and rocketabc there's no reason to at this point. y'all came to conclusions in your head that simply weren't true based on your dislike of a player* and are now having to pull anything out that you can to try to appear right. the only measure of not taking a team seriously would be lack of effort. francis has essentially never been questioned, even among his biggest haters, for his lack of effort. i guess it's a shame yao always came out dominating those lesser centers but then steve drug him down with his infectious nonchalance (aww man i did it again). d) the fact we've crushed the east over the last 5 years shows we beat weak teams. while there's no debate on tmac vs francis and who is better, holding up tmac's playoff record versus francis is laughable considering the conferences. we could've steamrolled all but a few teams in that conference each of the last 4 years (this year we would've been a second round team and 4 years ago we would've had equal odds with the sixers to make the finals). e) not sure why francis called miami a walk over either considering their play last year. i guess they were a walkover relative to having shaq but it still doesn't make sense. f) have fun making more stuff up to support an unsupportable hypothesis crash and abc. *i love the term Stevie Jock Riders. basically, if you don't think francis is the anti-Christ, or even worse, you actually defend him, your a SOF or Stevie Jock Rider and should just go follow the magic. hilarious lack of insight by some fans.
