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Official Houston Rockets Thread: Phase 2 on hold


Pastor Dillon

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  • 2 weeks later...

Quick look back and ahead in this series

1. Eric Gordon's 3 point shot is completely broken, and it didnt cost us yesterday. He was 2 of 6 yesterday, but was really 1 of 6 and got an incredibly luck bounce and roll on a horribly taken shot. Idk what the problem is, but he's convinced he has Damian Lillard range and most of his misses are short. He also missed a lot around the rim. I would say 3 or 4 of his misses at the rim were good looks. I said all that to say that Gordon scored 21, but could have easily had 30. I like what I saw from him, and we are going to need more of it, especially on the defensive end. He is a lock down defender. I am convinced if injuries hadnt started piling up on him, he would be a 25 point scorer with multiple all star appearances. 

2. Game 2 is really important for us. we need this 2-0 lead so that we dont bring westbrook back too soon. If we panic and bring him back, he could aggregate the injury repeatedly all post season. If we could get up 2-0, we can give him off either the series, or bring him back when we lose 2 games in it. Either way, its been 1 week since he first got hurt, and we can buy him 2 or even nearly 3 weeks off before he plays again, which should get him healed up. 

3. Portland or the Lakers in round 2 would be an extremely difficult match up for us. Best case is that we sweep and they go 7, with Portland winning, hopefully worn out. If we can play like we did yesterday, we can get the WCF. 

4. Looking ahead, we should be able to win this series, unless we go cold from the 3 point line, as we like to do every few games. We had 7 turnovers and only allowed 6 points off turnovers. That is the key to winning when you are losing the glass every game. Fortunately we were only -3 in offensive rebounds. If we can keep that level of effort up, we are in good shape. 

5. Green has been so good for us, and so has Mclemore. Those two need to be rockets next year. If we convince green to resign, Austin Rivers is our only rotation guy who wont be back. We can replace him cheaply. 

I am feeling more confident, I want to pick the Rockets in 5, but I will wait until we see how game 2 plays out 

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I don't want to nitpick but Covington needs to find his shot.  His defense yesterday was excellent I just wish he shot better.  Also it seems like he is scared to attack the rim like Ariza did here.

 

I'm still sticking to my prediction Rockets win in 5. I think Westbrook returns game 3 or 4.

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1 hour ago, Texansfan713 said:

I don't want to nitpick but Covington needs to find his shot.  His defense yesterday was excellent I just wish he shot better.  Also it seems like he is scared to attack the rim like Ariza did here.

 

I'm still sticking to my prediction Rockets win in 5. I think Westbrook returns game 3 or 4.

Yeah Covington is forcing up 3s and not shooting well. 
 

covington, Tucker, House and Rivers were combined for 5 of 18 from 3. So we have lots of room for improvement 

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2 hours ago, Pastor Dillon said:

Why is Gary Clark not a rocket still? We could have him locked into a super cheap deal for several years. He’s a perfect fit in our style. We cut him to keep Hartenstien and then just cut Hartenstien for no reason. We are gonna regret letting him go like we did covington. 

cause he wasn't good for us. i agree releasing Hartenstein this early was a dumb move given he is still young and can develop.

Edited by Texansfan713
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The dreaded game 3 in the first round. we are 1-2 in our last 3 game 3s in round one, and in that one win Harden went 3 for 20 shooting and we somehow managed to win by 3 points. 

We have never had a sweep in the Harden era, and I am not sure I have ever seen the rockets sweep anyone. 

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4 hours ago, Pastor Dillon said:

The dreaded game 3 in the first round. we are 1-2 in our last 3 game 3s in round one, and in that one win Harden went 3 for 20 shooting and we somehow managed to win by 3 points. 

We have never had a sweep in the Harden era, and I am not sure I have ever seen the rockets sweep anyone. 

Newbie, but I'm thinking if Harden can only put up 21 ('only') and you're getting contributions across the board, and the shutdown job HOU pulled on OKC, winning despite a pretty rough shot conversion going into the 4th - it should be a good bet that you'll sweep this round. But I dunno.

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1 hour ago, Hunter2_1 said:

Newbie, but I'm thinking if Harden can only put up 21 ('only') and you're getting contributions across the board, and the shutdown job HOU pulled on OKC, winning despite a pretty rough shot conversion going into the 4th - it should be a good bet that you'll sweep this round. But I dunno.

I’d love to finally get a sweep but we’ve never had one. 

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Well we pissed away that game. Eventually the shooting has to improve. OKC is a good defensive team but we just aren’t hitting good looks. I text a friend and said going into the 4th if we would make 5 3s in the 4th we would win. We made 3. 
 

ultimately it was House who came up small late. Missed the go ahead free throw and had a mind blowing lapse on defense. Why he felt the need to leave SGA wide open from 3 to double CP3 up 2, I’ll never know. We win the game if he just stays out there on him. 
 

we need to win game 4 Monday. We don’t need to give them more hope and we don’t need to rush Westbrook back and that’s what is going to happen if we lose game 4

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It’s hard to think the nba isn’t wanting the rockets and thunder to go 6 or 7 games. They missed an obvious call at the end of game 3, that would have most likely sealed the outcome, and this isn’t just complaining, they admitted to this blown call. It turned into Thunder ball down 2 with 24 seconds when it should have been rockets with a free throw and possession, up 2/3 with 24 seconds. 
 

then in game 4, we are outshot at the line 28-10. We shot 1 free throw in the 2nd half. We got 2 fouls on 3 point shots in the first half. That means that on over 30 shots at the rim, we got 2 foul calls. 
 

In the last two games, we’ve been called for 13 fouls in the 1st quarter, the thunder 3. When we made our run in the 3rd quarter, it was all the and 1s that we weren’t getting on the other end that brought the thunder back into the game. 
 

now keep in mind, we are mentally soft. When the officiating gets one sided, we stop attacking and start jacking up 3s. Game 3 we lost because of an officiating error combined with us losing our minds. Game 4 was kept close because of one sided officiating and then we fell apart late. 
 

so we still should have swept this series but the officiating has been terrible. People have said “you aren’t getting to the line when you shoot that many 3s”. Well I’ve watched every rockets game of the harden era and we’ve shot 3s like this for a long time, and I can’t Ever remember a night with only 10 free throw attempts. 
 

but I’m not surprised. Tony brothers is up there with Scott Foster as guys who go to great lengths to “not be fooled” by harden. 
 

if Scott Foster is assigned game 5, we will know the league has some kind of issue with the rockets. After all, can’t let the “anti China” team win anything. 

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I’m a little worried about Westbrook at this point. We are completely up against the wall today, we are failing fast and if there was anyway that Westbrook could play, he would. Since he’s not, I’m thinking he’s still a ways off. We will know for sure come Friday when he’s either back or not 

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