In the playoffs having the talent trumps all. OKC has essentially 3 stars and a dang good player in Adams. What does Jazz have? Gobert, Rubio and a rookie? It's going to be a tough series, I thinking it could easily go the distance or end in 5.
If playoff George and playoff Melo show up, the sky’s the limit. I don’t believe either will. Donovan is laughably bad with his rotations and sets this year too. I think they struggle to get past Utah in the first and if ultimately they do, they get beaten in the second round.
The Rockets have not proven anything to me so far, except that they can win a lot of regular season games which I already figured would be the case. They have Mike Antoni as coach, their best player is Haren. They don't play or preach D. We'll see how far that gets them in the playoffs. Honestly I anticipate a real match in the first round against Minny. Thibs is the best defensive coach around and they have Jimmy Butler back, one of if not the very best two way guards in the league to match up against Beard Papa. Plus Houston has to deal with KAT who they don't really have an answer for. Not to mention Wiggins ain't chopped liver either. I think they are going to have their hands full getting out of the first round.
Listen OKC, Cleveland, SA, New Orleans and whoever else wants to listen.... we scratch your back now, but when time comes you best follow up with scratching ours. Don't itch out! And spare the Balls, we're good there.
Fair enough - but that's regular season stuff and I want to see if they actually D up in the playoffs when it counts. Harden doesn't so that's going to be a drawback. Again, I won't believe the Rockets till they prove it to me. I think that first round is going to be tough.
I'm late to this but I really hate that OKC jumped to 4th seed and drew Utah in the first round. Utah is good but OKC has more experience and should win this series. I'm worried about Houston though...they have ChokeP3 and Harden...two of the game's biggest chokers....and honestly even if OKC doesn't beat Houston...if they get CLOSE (6 or 7 game series), that might be enough for OKC to keep PG13 because he'll think to himself "but we were so close and we didn't have andre roberson to guard harden and blah blah blah" (I hate that PG13 acknowledges the Roberson injury as significant to the team's success)
houston's going to beat minny like a redheaded stepchild, then dispatch utah or okc in an unceremonious five games.
Houston plays defence, they’re missing their best defender in mbab a moute but they’ve still got Capela, CP3, Ariza and Tucker, in the starting 5 alone for defence. They need to try and hide Harden on switches and PnR’s but it won’t be too tough since their two main attacking threats are going to be Butler and Kat - guarded by Ariza/Tucker and Capela/Nene. Wolves aren’t a good defensive team and Thibs hasn’t made them into one regardless of his reputation. KAT gets abused on defence, he is shocking. Even with a choke job, Houston is a much better offensive and defensive team than the wolves...
With Roberson, I think OKC would have had a good chance of the upset. We all saw how Roberson limited Harden last playoffs, he made him half the player he was in the regular season.
They borrowed concepts from previous Kobe shoes. This is the Mamba Mentality edition and Kyrie had a MM edition as well.
