But part of the Rockets entire strategy is to abuse the refs. You can't talk about a matchup with Houston without talking about the refs and how they affect the game.
Last time Portland played Houston Lillard went for 21 points, 54% shooting and 7 turnovers. The turnovers killed him, but we still ran up 113 in that loss (in Houston). Houston had no answer for our scoring, other than to score more. And it's important to remember in three prior games (pre-All Star) Lillard was shooting 22% against Houston. To go from 22% to 54% demonstrates that maybe Beverly's tricks can be neutralized over a 7 game series. Beverly has Lillard's attention--you can bet your last dollar he (and Stotts) would go into that series with a serious game plan against him. As for free throws, Lillard is averaging 5.7 FTA's per game since the All Star break (up from 5.0 pre-All Star). Not at Harden's 8.6/game, but it's a good trend and I think it shows that All Star hype is paying some dividends for him. Beverley, meanwhile, was averaging 2.9 PF's/game pre-all star break, and now 3.4 PF's post-break. Beverley plays the same PG's over and over, and once he gets their attention I think a lot of them adjust. Besides, nobody was impressed with the way he took out Westbrook--that's got to raise some red flags for the refs. The NBA does not make money when defensive specialists injure star PG's, whether that star PG is in OKC or Portland.
I think Dame can handle Beverly. And LA's production will probably neutralize Harden's. The problem with that matchup is Dwight. Robin's defense has vastly improved, but he still gets torched by his man more often than not in the post because he doesn't get much help in the form of double teams. And against a team like HOU that lives on threes and dunks, we probably can't double too much. And not to mention, their bench is pretty damn strong, while I'm expecting very little production out of ours. All that said, Terry and this team seems to be top notch in preparing for an opponent and making adjustments. Can't wait to see him coach circles around McFail in the playoffs even if our talent isn't on par.
Lopez on Howard is a problem because he doesn't respond well to One on one situations inside (also Aldridge's fault), agreed. Harden seems to also do well against us, I would consider using Batum on him although both Beverly and Parsons are also good offensive weapons. I actually think our bench could be a strength, if in playoff mode we replace Wright with Claver our bench looks good even without Freeland. Stotts using effective rotations is also key. Of the 4 seeds with HCA right now I would rather play both the Clippers or Spurs, the Rockets would not be easy, they have a lot of effective, mostly 2-way players and match-up very well against us. Would have to bring our A-game.
