Let's put the current season into perspective... Let's just break it down for every 10 games. 1st 10 games - 8-2 2nd 10 games - 9-1 3rd group (not 10 yet) - 6-2 So as much as you may think the sky maybe falling; if we keep even a 7-3 for every 10 game average, we will be a 58 win team.
Not worried at all. Even the 72 win bulls went through a rough stretch (they lost 2 in a row once!) And *knocks on wood* we haven't done that yet.
Not negative Nancy but there is some reality to at least consider. Blazer bench is near the bottom and they get killed on points in the paint on almost a nightly basis. There there is the schedule so far. Props for winning the games in front of them but they are just 7-5 against .500 and above. Wins against the Nuggets, Spurs, Warriors, Rockets, Suns, OKC and Pacers. Losses to Suns (x2), Rockets, Mavs and Wolves. 15-0 against below .500 teams....killing it there. They get the Clips and Heat at home, then at OKC in December. In January @ Spurs, Mavs, Thunder and Rockets before a game @ Warriors. No sky is falling here but once they start playing more teams over .500 and some of those on the road, we will find out how much of a contender they really might be.
And obviously far better than my 40 win prediction. I don't know how you can't be thrilled with where this team is at. What has really thrilled me is that guys like LA and Nic do care.
That's all fine and dandy, but how are the other .500 teams doing against their counterpart? Definitely not as good as we are. In fact Indiana just lost to Miami tonight. What we've accomplished on the insanely hard stretch is beyond amazing. So as you want to be a forensic fan, take into account the amount of b2b games we had. Count the road games. Doesn't matter if they are sub .500 teams. Traveling alone puts a toll on you. I had to travel a lot in business and it wears you down. With us being undefeated against eastern conference teams, mainly on the road is incredible. What other team can say that?
Okay let's look at the real contenders of the NBA. OKC: 9-4 against .500 ball clubs SAS: 7-5 against .500 ball clubs MIA: 5-2 against .500 ball clubs Indiana: 5-3 against .500 ball clubs Houston: 6-5 against .500 ball clubs The rest aren't contenders. So we are on pace with all contenders except OKC. Not bad company!
Funny, but if this were the Spurs, people would be saying that they are winning the games that they should be winning and only losing to good teams, as top echelon teams should be doing.
So Mo is the reason our bigs have no depth and our defense is less than good? man, talk about a scape goat
Yeah that's rough, just about every team gets a stretch like that, I'm curious how many back to backs the Lakers have had thus far in season?
The Lakers have 19 back to backs. Just like Portland 10 teams have more than we do, and 5 teams have as many as we do
On the other hand, Indiana and San Antonio both went 4-0 on their respective 4 in 5's so far. OKC and MIA haven't played in one yet. Regardless, I'm pretty impressed with 3-1, and it was good to see the Return of the Dame.
I don't think the sky is falling, I just tend to think that a regression closer to the mean is probably coming based on their deficiencies on defense. Eventually all teams hit cold streaks and can't just outscore their opponents. Phoenix demonstrated this pretty clearly over the course of several years in the past decade when they were a great regular season team with a blistering offense and a mediocre to piss poor defense. Whatever, the team is still better than I anticipated and I'm happy to see it because it actually makes watching them this year fun and hopefully Olshey will have an opportunity to improve the team at the deadline.
