Sunday, January 27, 2013

Where the Rockets Stand


Moving closer the All-Star weekend in the NBA, the playoff picture is shaping up to be pretty close in the Western Conference and the Houston Rockets are right in the thick of things. At 24-22, the Rockets are currently in the 8th seed and fighting to get in to the post season after being bumped down to the 9th seed for the past 3 years.  After grabbing back to back wins over the Hornets in New Orleans and the Nets at home in Houston, the Rockets will take on the 7th seed Utah Jazz Monday night. The current playoff push teams are the Utah Jazz(24-20), Houston Rockets(24-22), Portland Trailblazers(22-22), Los Angeles Lakers(19-25), and the Dallas Mavericks(19-25) rounding out the  7-11 seeds in the West.

The Small Free Fall

The reason the Rockets are looking at this tough uphill climb was a result of a 7 game losing streak that dropped them out of 6th place at 21-14 and knocked them down to the 8 seed. The losing streak happened at such an off time as well, with Houston starting their toughest part of the schedule this season. At the time they were on a 5 game winning streak, just had a blowout win against the Lakers at home and looked poised to extend their lead in the west. They set out for New Orleans to win a game but instead the bottom fell out and "Houston, We have a problem" began to fill the atmosphere. James Harden struggled and the rest of the team seemed to be in a funk as well.

One of the biggest outlandish moments from the losing streak happened to be ineffectiveness of the 4 spot on the floor. There was no rebounding from Patterson or Morris and the scoring from them was  poor as well. They continued to struggle until they finally got to a team that was having more trouble than themselves and that was the Charlotte Bobcats. The Rockets snapped the losing streak after 7 games with a 100-94 win over the Bobcats where James Harden closed out the game with 29 points and the defense held the Bobcats to 13 points in the 4th quarter. Although they lost the next game at home to the Denver Nuggets, they at least knew that the losing streak was over and that some good practice can always help the team out. The next two games were a back to back (of course) where the Rockets went in to New Orleans and played great basketball winning the game (100-82). To top that they went back home the next day and outlasted Deron Williams and the Nets (119-106) for a solid home win to push them back to 2 games over .500. The win against the Nets was led by Harden(29pts/3reb/7ast), Asik(20pts/16reb), and Parsons(16pts/6reb/11ast) who outplayed whoever was opposing them on the court. Both of those wins were solid in bringing back some of the chemistry that was lost on the road trip.


What to Watch for

With 36 games left in the season, there is quite a bit of basketball left to be played and with 7 of the next 10 opponents in the Western Conference playoff picture, things will start to come to fruition pretty soon here. James Harden is playing at an extremely high level and Omer Asik is really starting to show his stuff at center. Chandler Parsons has been nothing but solid and will continue to grow in to one of the most underrated players in the entire league. Jeremy Lin will continue to flourish as a player but will have his tough moments until his game develops some more.

The lingering problem for the Rockets is the ineffectiveness of the 4 spot on the floor. Patrick Patterson and Marcus Morris are still working on their game and with no really powerful position player at the power forward spot, the team will continue to struggle in that position until they can make a trade or a major breakthrough happens with Morris or Patterson (or Royce White really excels and can come in and take over....LONG SHOT.....but could still happen). Or will Morey pull some of his magic tricks out of his hat and land Houston another building block like Paul Millsap or Josh Smith? Who knows. However, I know that if anyone could do it, I believe it is this crazy bastard. Morey  some how got us one of the brightest young superstars in the league in James Harden and never folded when one thing did not work out. The trade deadline is just under 4 weeks away, they are going to have to decide if they wanna make the playoffs with what we got. Or are they gonna make the push to bring in someone that could immediately affect the team and give them the presence at the 4 spot that they need.

Through 46 games I have loved watching this team, whether it be the yelling at stupid shots from Jeremy Lin, getting hyped up after Harden motors to the hoop for the basket, seeing Delfino nail three pointer after three pointer, Asik Grab 15 rebounds and score half of that in points, every Bill Worrell call of "CHANDLER BANG!", and the team slowly developing chemistry and an identity. No matter what way the season goes, it is still better than suffering through the last 3 years of 9th place mediocrity. This team is much more talented than the 9th seed teams of the past we have had. I believe they probably will not make it out of the first round, but maybe they can put something special together and at least keep giving these fans hope for the future by playing competitive against either the Thunder/Spurs/Clippers in the first round. All of the pieces of the jigsaw aren't there just yet, but they are close to becoming more than a fringe playoff team. 

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