And if there wasn't the division and they had the same record and split the season 2-2, who should get home court? The team with the better conference record???? Fact is Rockets had to play more games than playoff bound teams than the Clips. They deserved HCA due to the SOS.
Exactly. Starters, bench players and coaches ALL combine to form a team. Most teams are going to be strong in some areas and weak in others, but the combination of all three areas is ultimately going to be what makes one team "better" than another. A person can make the argument that Team A has a better starting 5 than Team B, but to try and argue that Team A is "better" than Team B after Team A just beat Team B in a seven game series is a bit silly, but maybe that's just me. I would say that the only exception is when a team has injured players, which makes the Rockets win over the Clippers even more compelling considering that the Rockets were down two starters and still beat the Clippers in 7.
The Warriors have 67 wins in the regular season and beat the Rockets 4-0 in the regular season. I have no problem with ant analyst saying the Warriors are a heavy favorite. Now if the Rockets beat the Warriors and you still hear fatty and big nose making excuses for the Warriors and Clippers... then yeah, I will have a problem with it.
**** you with your backhanded compliments. Superior my ass. The only thing superior is, hmm, about 200+ posters vs. you. Here's a suggestion- how about you change your user name to Carolina Herrera, stick to the Hangout section, and write about fashion, for ****s sake.
I have heard that a lot, the Clippers were the better team. I just assumed they stopped watching the series after game 4. Every time the Rockets decided to actually try they outplayed the Clippers. Not sure why that gets lost in the narrative, the Clippers were never able to beat the Rockets when the Rockets actually cared to play both offense and defense
Loosers make excuses. They've had this team for a while already... they have 3 allstars in their team. The have potentially the best healthy defensive C (outside of dwight), Pg, and PF. Knockdown shooters in Reddick and Crawford. And they're a bunch of entitled whiny losers. Perserverence is rewarded more often than anything in sports. That's what I love about this Rockets team.
Who cares? We beat them. My brother-in-law has a been a die-hard Clipper fan for 20 years and admits that San Antonio was the better team, but does that take away from the victory they had in the first round? If anything, it adds to it. To be the underdog and triumph is much more rewarding than being the heavy favorite and stomping the competition. I savor this win because we were supposed to lose. Our season was over with three minutes to go in game 6 and we rose like a Phoenix from the ashes. We crushed them in three straight elimination games. How much more entertaining was that than a sweep? And if we beat the Warriors the victory will taste that much sweeter.
Yeah... they looked like a cohesive unit being outscored by 34 points in the 4th quarter of game 6, at home, and then losing every single quarter of game 7.... and of course losing by 20 points in game 5. The Clippers have 2 Hall of Fame players and a really good rebounding/team defending center......... and that is just about it.
I wouldn't really care... cause at the end of the day, WE get the trophy and all they get is unrighteous indignation. Championship seems a lot sweeter.
So guess what: pre 2004, there was just the Midwest and Pacific Division. 2 divisions instead of 4. Golden State would have clinched the Pacific, and Midwest would have still been clinched by the Rockets. So 2nd seed, Midwest division champ with HCA up until the WCF. So Lowe's whiny argument is both whiny and bogus.
It reminds me of the assholes that used to stay Alan Iverson was a better player than Shaq because Iverson was only 6 feet tall.
Your analogy is completely flawed. The correct analogy would be people calling the Grizz a better team than the Warriors. The Rockets haven't beaten the Warriors yet...
This. "Better" or "Best" are opinions. Anyone has the right for his opinion. But they are not facts. Winning is fact. The "better" team does not always win. It doesn't really matter which team someone thinks is better. The fact is, the Rockets won. There are plenty of upsets in sports history. The "better" team/player gets beat.
....look, I agree - the commentary is definitely focused more on what the Clippers did wrong than what Houston did right but Zach Lowe is one of the few people who give Houston ANY credit at all. He has said on several podcasts that Houston is a really good team which is better than I have heard any other writer/analyst say about Houston(JVG excluded). I do agree with the general sentiment here that judging a team by their starting 5 is foolish in a 7 game series. The Clippers lack of depth finally caught up with them - you might even say San Antonio taking them to the wire in a 7 game series was part of their downfall. I mean the Clip just wore down. Houston by contrast had a number of different lineups that were effective to deal with fatigue, injury, etc. Kudos to McHale & Morey for putting us in that position.
They have a better starting 5(but its closer than most people think). They don't have a better team. Morey signing Smoove and trading for Brewer and Pablo helped win this series despite not having 2 rotation players. Depth is a vital part of a NBA squad, and the main reason why they don't have a better team.
Here's my more objective response to why Lowe says what he says, as just calling him an idiot doesn't really bring much to the discussion. 1. Lowe has been beating the "divisions shouldn't exist" drum for ages now. So much so he pretty much just beats it regardless of whether it's correct or not. 2. Lowe hates the Rockets in the sense that he simply doesn't understand them. Lowe is 100% about team ball and "the Spurs way." The Rockets though play superstar basketball, iso basketball, a lot of stuff purists find appalling. Lowe inherently does not like the Rockets methods because it goes against his aesthetics. Not exactly mind-blowing. Most NBA fans outside of Houston probably don't like Harden+Howard, but it colors his judgement. 3. Lowe can't explain the Rockets. Every time he goes on BS Report, he talks about how he doesn't understand why the Rockets are winning. He can go on soliloquies about why the Spurs are great or why the Clippers are great or why the Warriors are great. But he literally just says something like, "Houston is somehow keeping afloat and it's mindblowing." 4. Lowe has been beating the "Clippers v. Spurs should not be a 1st round matchup because they're the 2nd and 3rd best team in the west" drum the entire 1st round. Obviously the Rockets beating the Clippers kind of puts a dent into his tirade. tl;dr version. Lowe doesn't like the Rockets because the Rockets don't actually fit into his way of dissecting the NBA. And like any normal person, when faced with the prospect of being absolutely wrong, we tend to explain ourselves out of it rather than just flat out say we're wrong. Like Carl Herrera is doing right now.
