isaacjunk

The Spurs sacrificed depth to get Aldridge.  I know it sounds crazy, but they are going to miss Baynes quite a bit.  Bellinelli, Joseph, and Splitter as well.  David West doesn't move the needle for me.  I don't know...for some reason San Antonio doesn't scare me in a 7 game series.

 

The Clippers?  OK, so they are going to trot out Lance Stephenson, Josh Smith, Jamal Crawford, Glen Davis and Paul Pierce?  They still have Jordan's free throw shooting to contend with.  They replaced reliable Matt Barnes with Wesley Johnson and Jordan Hamilton (two promising wings who have never been able to find a consistent level of play).  Chris Paul is going to have no less than 3 public freak outs next season playing with that group of yahoos.  That's too many free lancers on one team and Doc Rivers is going to have a heck of a time balancing his line ups.

 

Golden State?  They had a heck of a season last year and look like a lock to be good for the next decade....just like the Bulls did...and the Pacers....and the Thunder....watch what happens over the next few years when the quality of NBA bigs finally gets back to where it used to be.

 

 

Agreed that outside of the Clippers, Spurs, and GS, no team is appreciably better on paper than Houston.  However, that is 3 really good teams that are appreciably better on paper than Houston.   So, our chemistry improves after a year together?  Same with GS and to some extent Clips and Spurs ( although working in LMA may take some tinkering with the offense ).  To equate an improved D-Mo with the addition of LMA / loss of bench depth on the Spurs just doesn't ring true to me.   Of course in a 7-game series anything can happen, but odds-wise you'd have to put those 3 ahead of Houston, and by a noticeable margin.  Incidentally this is reflected in Bovada's odds, which actually have OKC ahead of Houston as well putting us 5th in the conference.  Similar if you go with nate silver's RPM-based calculations.

Those Jennings highlights remind me of those old-school martial arts flicks where they artificially speed up the frame rate...till you realize no one else is in hyper-mode. Unreal.  Almost makes me agitated to see his jerkiness.  He seems to make two-three motions for every one that everyone else makes...

The purpose of my post was to defend hack-a-shaq as a sound strategy if we couple it with attacking the basket to put Jordan in foul trouble...and how there are extenuating circumstances that interact to make it especially effective.  But no matter how we slice it, we face an uphill battle for sure...

To continue on this idea:

- transition/perimeter defense is not an issue; while hack-a-shaqing we can fill the lineup with our best set offense.  

This is esp. handy for us with our 37-year old guards who are + offense but a huge defensive liability.  

To clarify, hack-a-shaq on Jordan not only increases the value of his time in foul trouble, it gives us more opportunities to put him in foul trouble.

The fact is we fought them to nearly a draw last night until hack-a-shaq stopped...give me that half-time score + 4 fouls on Jordan, I'll give you a Rockets win...

it occurs to me that if we end up facing the Clips, it means they came back from back-to-back elimination games against the defending champs, so you can't slap the mentally weak label on them at that point...