Who scares you in the postseason???

[King Roosk]

Utah scares me the most. We don't have an answer for Deron Williams or Carlos Boozer, Yao becomes a disadvantage against the Jazz, and our strongest defensive weapons (Artest and Battier) aren't as useful against Utah because they don't have a guy like Kobe or Lebron on the wing that they rely on for points. Oh, and I would really rather the Rockets not step foot in Energy Solutions Arena.

[tisbee]

Phoenix definitely beatable.
Dallas prob beatable.
Denver should be beatable,but they may be legitimately hot going into Playoffs due to their soft remaining schedule.
NO is a one-trick pony,but that one trick is awfully tough-iffy.
Portland should be beatable,but young athletic teams give Rockets fits-iffy.
Spurs w/Ginobili-very iffy. W/out beatable.
Utah is jelling at right time and are a bad match-up for Rockets as the King noted.
Lakers too loaded.

[2fast4u]

yao for not being "the" man sometimes...

[TMACFORMVP]

Yeah, I don't want to face Utah for all the same reasons Roosk posted, but in reality we should be "scared" of everyone, we haven't proven anything to show that we'd be confident in winning a playoff series. The only team with a lack of experience is Portland and Denver to an extent.

[bigbreakfast]

spurs and lakers aside, since i don't think we can beat them realistically -
the jazz. the create the most match up problems for yao and as far as 2nd tier taems go in the west, they are the best.

[grond]

Jazz, Lakers, Spurs.

Spurs might be beatable because 2 of their big 3 are hurting and because we match up well.

I still want the Jazz tho' - just not in rnd 1.

[moofs]

I think we match up good with the Lakers.

The thing about our team is, while I think we match up well with everyone in the WC except the Jazz (who are almost our new flavor of '94 Sonics, much as I hate to say it... especially since I don't see them winning anything either). We don't match up favorably enough with any group of teams to have a good shot at making it through to the Finals. So yeah, we should beat the Nuggets in the first round if that's who we play, and yeah, we might could beat the Spurs or the Lakers, but can we beat the Nuggets, then the Spurs, then the Lakers, then the Cavaliers? Our odds lower dramatically vs. our odds of winning any 1 or 2 series.

[AI2TOHOUSTON]

Maybe Utah. This time we have artest and no luther head or alston to keep missing every shot

[King Roosk]

I think we match up good with the Lakers.

The thing about our team is, while I think we match up well with everyone in the WC except the Jazz (who are almost our new flavor of '94 Sonics, much as I hate to say it... especially since I don't see them winning anything either). We don't match up favorably enough with any group of teams to have a good shot at making it through to the Finals. So yeah, we should beat the Nuggets in the first round if that's who we play, and yeah, we might could beat the Spurs or the Lakers, but can we beat the Nuggets, then the Spurs, then the Lakers, then the Cavaliers? Our odds lower dramatically vs. our odds of winning any 1 or 2 series.

I was thinking the exact same thing.

I agree, our odds of beating 3 quality teams in a row aren't high by any means...but so what? I just want this franchise to get the first round monkey off of its back, ESPECIALLY without Mcgrady, and we can move on from there.

[YoungMoney23]

Utah are just a bad match up for us defensively, Personally I think the Blazers are our best shot or the Mavs. Id love to send CP3 packing in the first round but he would most likely eat Brooks alive.

[TMU]

For some reason, I feel there's less pressure without McGrady.

[Young_Star11]

LA - a must-avoid in Round 1

SA - the Spurs are better than us and playoff-proven, but they aren't a team that would blow us away. Think SA play similarly to us, it would be a good series.

Utah - the scars of playoff defeat, the hot form Utah are in at the moment, and most likely we wouldn't have HCA. One to avoid, at least in Round 1.

NO - I think this is a series we can win in 6-7 games. CP3 will probably dominate and Landry will have to do a job on West, but we have the superior bench.

Denver - Pretty good match-up overall. We match-up with them pretty well, with HCA, we would be favored to win the series. Melo will be seeing Battier/Ron all day, Billups is the real problem.

Portland - Another one where I think we can ultimately get the job done in 6 or 7 games. Roy will be a beast, but our PGs are (arguably) superior to theirs. Most the other teams have great players at the PG position...Portland don't. Their bench isn't as great as advertised, at least not yet.

Dallas - almost another mind over matter series. They are mentally weak, but so have we. Dirk will go off, but so will Yao. We'll have Terry being hounded by Brooks and Lowry, and Ron/Battier have the advantage on the wings. In theory, we win this series.

PHX - Wouldn't be an easy series if we were to play them. They don't look like making the playoffs however.

[rocketsballin]

utah, spurs, lakers are the teams that would give houston the most trouble, so we should try to avoid them at all costs and body parts neccessary.

[moofs]

Oh yeah, I'd like to add healthy Orlando and Celtics to the teams I'd worry about in the playoffs (in addition to Utah), then strike Orlando off the list since they're missing their starting point guard.

For the Lakers, since they're being noted a lot, we match up well with them and are actually built to play best against teams with SG/SF as their primary offensive options. Lamar Odom would definitely be the wildcard in that series, but I think we could handle them. Pretty sure we could handle the Cavs fairly well too.