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Last year our playoff position and the opponent was decided in the very last minute.
This year we are lucky enough to know almost for sure that we will finish 4th and play the Nuggets.
Also lucky, that we get to play Denver twice in our last 6 games.
Really good test, good to see how we match up nowadays against this team.
These two games are really important in my eyes and I would really like to get two Wins.

they will play the nuggets. but 4th? don't count your chickens.

huge games coming up. will set the tone for the playoffs.

cajun joe wrote:they will play the nuggets. but 4th? don't count your chickens.

huge games coming up. will set the tone for the playoffs.

OKC is up 3.5 games with what, 4 games left to play? They're pretty much locked in to the 4th seed.

cajun joe wrote:they will play the nuggets. but 4th? don't count your chickens.

huge games coming up. will set the tone for the playoffs.

so there's 6 games left. to keep the 4th seed they can lose to denver twice, the lakers, and win the remaining games. and denver would have to win out.

so my bad on that. they're about 95% locked in.

It's an interesting scenario. OKC isn't a veteran team that can afford to lose both regular season games knowing they can turn it up for the playoffs, they simply don't have the experience necessary. If they do lose both games what does that do to the collective confidence of the team and coaching staff?

OKC has more talent than Denver, but the team can't afford for Brooks to do something stupid like playing Thabo 30 minutes a game or choosing to let Durant iso all game long rather than running an offense.

George Karl loves to be in this situation and will be pulling out all of the stops to upset OKC.

I agree that it's important to at least split the Denver games, if not for home court advantage, but for confidence. Losing twice to Denver would give them a ton of confidence against us, and they've got some players like Felton, JR Smith, Kenyon Martin that feed off of that.

I'm not too worried about the team not playing hard in the playoffs. They sleep walked to the end of last year and gave it a good fight in the postseason despite being dominated at several positions. Against Denver, there's no real matchup that goes squarely in their favor, just their depth. I think if they put in the same effort as last year the talent should win out, provided that (as sonicteture said) Brooks doesn't do anything stupid.

More than anything I want to see the starting unit put together a complete offensive game without going through major droughts. It might not be possible with this group though.

I just discovered that George Karl is 7th on the all time win list for NBA coaches. Am I the only one in awe of George's status?

sonictecture wrote:I just discovered that George Karl is 7th on the all time win list for NBA coaches. Am I the only one in awe of George's status?

He's had terrific regular season success but his teams have had a tendency to under perform in the playoffs, IMO.