Tough stretch of games coming up.

Dre Drummond · Post #1 » by **Dre Drummond** » Sat Dec 7, 2013 3:43 pm

Our upcoming stretch of games is pretty brutal. It starts with 4 games in 5 nights with plenty of travel.

Sat 7 @ Chicago (playoff team that we will battle for position with all year)
Sun 8 v Miami (will be looking for payback)
Tue 10 v Minnesota (9-10, but 5-3 v east and in battle for 7th or 8th seed out west)
Wed 11 @ New Orleans (9-10, but 6-2 v east and in battle for 7th or 8th seed out west)
Fri 13 v Brooklyn (The one game we should win)
Sun 15 v Portland ( Best record in the West)
Mon 16 @ Indiana (Best record in NBA, back to back on the road)

Looking at how tough that stretch is its going to be really important to get the W vs Chicago tonight, get one from Minny or New Orleans, and beat Brooklyn.

Going 3-4 in that stretch would be a victory for us IMO... going 4-3 would ridiculously good.

Post #2 » by **dVs33** » Sat Dec 7, 2013 3:57 pm

It's a shame since we've started getting some traction of late. It would have been nice to get up to .500, but i can't see it happening.

Chicago will beat us tonight. Miami got beat by us then chicago killed them so they'll be looking for revenge in the biggest way. Minny match up well against us. NO should be a winnable game, but not a certainty. Brooklyn suck. Portland and Indy are balling.
Hopefully we get a few wins out of this bunch, but im not holding my breathe.

princeofpalace · Post #3 » by **princeofpalace** » Sat Dec 7, 2013 4:05 pm

I think we go 4 and 3 over that stretch, we are better than we were to start the season.

Chicago-Win
Miami- Lose
Minnesota- Win
New Orleans- Win
Brooklyn- Win
Portland- Lose
Indiana -Lose

Dre Drummond · Post #4 » by **Dre Drummond** » Sat Dec 7, 2013 4:07 pm

I agree that 2-5 in that stretch seems most likely and that would put us at 11-15 and probably have people around here freaking out again.

The good news is, after that stretch we have a long stretch were about 12 of 14 games are against competition that is equal or lesser than us where we could really go on a nice stretch.

BOS, CHA, HOU, CLE, ORL, WAS, WAS, MEM, NYK, TOR, PHI, PHX, UTH, WAS

Only HOU and MEM there are should lose games... We certainly could go about 10-4 in that stretch and finally propel ourselves about .500 for the season.

Q00 · Post #5 » by **Q00** » Sat Dec 7, 2013 5:17 pm

We nearly beat Portland in Portland, and we are much better now. That's a winnable game. So is NOH without Davis and Minnesota at home.

Brooklyn should be a definite win. After beating Miami in their place, while the rematch will be tougher, its certainly a winnable game now, especially being at home.

Honestly the only two games that really worry me are Chicago and Indiana because of how we've played them over the last few years, and both being in their place. The rest are all tough too, but all winnable.

I think 3-4 or 4-3 is not unrealistic.

If we can come out of this stretch still hovering around the 3rd seed, like within 2 games, that will be big going forward, because the schedule gets much easier afterwards

zeebneeb · Post #6 » by **zeebneeb** » Sat Dec 7, 2013 5:34 pm

2-6, for this team, at this time, that's actually really good. Anything more would mean they are ahead of schedule.

Baby steps people.

MotownMadness · Post #7 » by **MotownMadness** » Sat Dec 7, 2013 6:40 pm

If we wanna be a good team we have to learn to play through these stretches and win some games.

ComboGuardCity · Post #8 » by **ComboGuardCity** » Sat Dec 7, 2013 6:44 pm

W
W
W
W
W
W
W

triplet1984 · Post #9 » by **triplet1984** » Sat Dec 7, 2013 6:46 pm

I think aside from Miami and Indiana, all the rest of those games are winnable.

Brapman · Post #10 » by **Brapman** » Sat Dec 7, 2013 6:48 pm

I just wanna see the team make serious progress against the better teams.

I've been saying and thinking that our season needs to be measured in 20 game increments. The team is playing better from after game 15, but that still holds. I expect and want to see significant improvement over our next 20 game stretch, and then again over the 20 game stretch that follows, and then again in the 20 game stretch ramping up towards the playoffs.

The final 20 game stretch is interesting since we'll be playing against some teams that have given up, and the best teams that will be ramping up their games. I'm most interested to see how we play in those final 20 games against the better teams, to use that as a measuring stick pointing to where we need to improve as a team over the summer and going into the following season.

But mostly, I want to see measurable improvement on the key indicators, and want to see our key core players learning to step up their games, and some of our role players (Gigi? Harrellson? Singler? JJ?) take a step up and perform well.