I'd like the Suns to take down Utah - keep Utah as far behind us as possible. We are currently 7th, but really as long as Utah has a worse record than us if Denver passes us they won't really demote us, they will displace Utah pushing them beneath us. We are the biggest underdog of these three teams vs dallas, but i do see us winning. And Dallas could definitely beat, both the Lakers and Utah. The kicker is if the West continues to be so even through the end, we have to occasionally beat the elite and definitely take care of business with the less than elite. I hope so, and I live in Denver Look for Rockets to turn some heads when they beat Denver and then Dallas. The media will have to designate another few Rockets to superstar status - the next thread should be predictions on who will be so promoted. Rafer will have to be one of them... Landry is an easy choice. Scola of course. Deke will be reincarnated and celebrated once again. And all the hoopla for TMac's playoff woes are really only a set up for the celebration that will occur when he advances past the first round this year. They are so hard on TMac because they want so badly for him to advance, because he is such a powerful player - and he knows, has known for a while, how to incorporate his team to advance, but now, me thinks he has the team to do it. And Yao will come back in time, next year, to continue it and make it a dynasty. Mid March we will see what this team is made of.
Don't want to rain on anyone's parade but we still have to beat Denver. Denver is about to go into a killer week in which tonight's game looks like there best chance to pull out a win. They also understand their playoff hopes are dwindling. They're not going to roll over... this will be like a 7th game in the playoffs. They will come out fighting and if we beat them I would say we took their best punch and showed we are better. If we win tonight I will be a believer in this Yao-less Rockets team.
I think this game means more to denver than to us because if they lose to us...they could go for 5 straight losses which will knock them out of playoff contention. If we win, we gaurantee a playoff spot indirectly becuase then denver can't catch up
deron has a field day with everyone, but unlike last year we are now better defensively because yao's out, meaning we can actually guard the pick and roll. i wouldnt mind utah though we would be underdogs in the series.
This is wrong Utah 4th? That's BS. They should be 7th. Even if they are the top of their division and their record is out of the top 8. They should get no better than the 8th and last spot.
We're in 5th! Same record as Phoenix 39-20, season series is tied, not in the same division, but we have a better conference record = HOU 5th place, PHX 6th place.
Not only are we going to take New Orleans... we're going to take Indiana and Dallas and New Jersey and Atlanta and Charlotte, and we're going to take Los Angeles and Boston and Golden State! And we're going to take Phoenix and Sacramento and Minnesota and San Antonio. And then we're going to the WCF to take back the White House, Yeeeeeaaaaaargh!
Yeah, but the Spurs and Lakers are playing almost as well as the Rockets and have easy schedules the rest of the way.
LOL, how's that for gung-ho-ness huh rockmanslim. This is insane. The battle for the WC playoffs is like the playoffs in itself. The real NBA Finals will be the WC Finals that's for sure. Not whoever the winning team is playing against the East. That'd be more like the victory parade series. Anyhow, I'd like to see us keep it at 5th. I think we kind of match up just a little better with Utah with Yao out and Deke in. And Yao being the defensive liability that he was on Boozer in the last series, we still managed to stretch it to 7 games down to crunch time. We can beat them in a 7 game series. It's much better than us vaulting to 3rd and then facing the Shaq-Nash-Stoudemire Suns without our biggest interior force anyhow.
5th seed! Im really excited, if the playoffs started today we would face the Jazz and have home-court advantage. We are right now 39-20, 3-0 since Yao got injured, Mutombo is playing like his old self, everything is going good, we are now half a game behind the Hornets. Hopefully we keep this up and Mavpricks, Suns keep losing. Same with the Hornets. GO ROCKETS!
