Perhaps a welcome reversal of fortune...

Post #1 » by **Mr. E** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 7:57 pm

I have to admit that the thought of the Rockets going through the beginning and middle of the season without Yao & McGrady and getting them back in time for the playoffs is quite a welcome change of pace!

I fear that I'm getting my hopes up, lads and lasses!

:lol:

Guy986 · Post #2 » by **Guy986** » Tue Sep 1, 2009 12:18 am

All i want for Christmas is alot of ping pong balls.

Oh wait this is a postive thought thread. Oooops, my apology. *tip toes out of the thread*

Moreyball · Post #3 » by **Moreyball** » Tue Sep 1, 2009 4:18 pm

I just hope the Rockets can have McGrady back sometime around December and are 3 or so under of a playoff spot in April and Yao can return.

Lakers v. Rockets in the first rd. would be the best series ever.

Smash3 · Post #4 » by **Smash3** » Sat Sep 5, 2009 2:31 pm

Weirdly I was just talking to my friend about this. Rockets making the last playoff spot with T-mac and Yao ming back against the lakers would be amazing :

Munchlaxatives · Post #5 » by **Munchlaxatives** » Sat Sep 5, 2009 5:38 pm

I stick by my belief that this is a better team than the one that took the Lakers to 7.

rocketsballin · Post #6 » by **rocketsballin** » Sun Sep 6, 2009 6:30 pm

man on man if tmac can play like the 06-08 tmac, this team can make the playoffs, possibly 2nd round again. a lotta guys have to step up, scola obviously can, but who else?

Munchlaxatives · Post #7 » by **Munchlaxatives** » Mon Sep 7, 2009 2:33 am

Who can step up? Brooks, Lowry, Battier, Landry, and Dorsey.

Post #8 » by **Mr. E** » Mon Sep 7, 2009 3:10 pm

Munchlaxatives wrote:I stick by my belief that this is a better team than the one that took the Lakers to 7.

I have to agree with this. Ariza will hopefully prove to be a better fit than Artest (his steady improvement indicates that he could be), and this is still the same scrappy bunch that gave the Lakers fits.

There were so many injuries last year. Too many lineup changes and no sense of continuity for the longest time. Some solid, consistant playing time with the same lineup will help these guys out a lot.

tisbee · Post #9 » by **tisbee** » Mon Sep 7, 2009 3:52 pm

T-Mac will prob get limited to @ 30-32 min/game when he comes back,so it's unlikely he'll put up huge numbers.(Prob first 8-9min of 1,3Q and last 7min of 2,4Q.) What the Rockets need most from him is his passing ability. His ability to get teammates open looks would be huge late in games when refs swallow their whistles and the D tightens resulting in Adelman's motion offense grinding to a halt.

I live in LA and have watched waaaaay too many Laker games. Ariza is going to win everybody over. He is NOT a 20ppg/scorer who can get his own shot whenever he wants,but he does almost everything else superbly.
He is fast and will finish breaks,often started by his deflecting a pass. His looong arms and anticipation wreck havoc on the other teams passing lanes. He doesn't have Rons strength,but he works hard on defense every play and will learn quite a bit from Shane.
He is constantly in motion on offense leading to numerous offensive rebounds-often of crowd-rousing dunks. He will get numerous looks from Adelman's offense and will feast on lobs from McGrady like Landry did.

The Rockets are going to run and run and in the half-court will actually run plays that involve players moving and are going to be fun to watch-unless you like watching a team give it to it's star and let him go one-on-one

BTW,Lowry is supposedly looking really good working out back home,so our second unit is going to run some teams off the court and we're going to see alot of Brooks,Lowry together. Beep!Beep!

rocketsballin · Post #10 » by **rocketsballin** » Tue Sep 8, 2009 9:22 pm

the team as whole has to step up. i can see more than scola steppin up...

brooks, landry, battier,lowry can up their averages. i dont see landry being much more than he was last season, whihc isnt bad. imo he's a legit backup pf, but he has a lotta time to get better

.

ariza can have highest scoring season(gonna be hard w/o a playmaker). what he did in la is good enough

anderson could put up matt bonner numbers. hopefully he can do more but in his first year thats good enough.

i wanna see dorsey as our backup center, or sharing the center minutes w/ anderson and scola. i love hayes but dorsey has shot blocking and the team really needs that w/ yao out. dont mind hayes at all

if budinger can contribute to the offense that'll be a huge bonus. dont really have a scoring wing outside of tmac and brooks.

no doubt this team has a lotta positives, but w/o tmac, there is no star player. brooks and scola only ones to make their own shot, something the team had nightmares with wesley, bowen, howard. brooks has to rack up assists, make plays for our spot up shooters. battier cant play 60 games, and has to play lock down defense along w/ ariza. w/ no shotblocking teams are gonna attack the rim, hopefully our defense prevents that but w/o a shot blocker it'll be extremely hard, ariza can hopefully help w/ that, and dorsey. first season shane is playing w/o a big who can man the paint, and that is a big help on shane's defense.

houston is stacked w/ tmac and yao, but w/o they're more of a lottery bound team. that can change and this team is capable of stepping up like a mofo. every team is getting stacked, so they'e gonna have to work their asses off to get to the playoffs. prolly need a rookies to chip in as well. if tmac can play half the season at a high level then there's no way this team misses the playoffs. even w/o tmac there's a chance, but extremely small chance. cant wait for the first game