With or without them, I think they would have anyways. This was difficult no matter who they had just due to the lack of success on the road this year. I kind of think coaching staff felt the same way.
Not happy about the strategy to leave those 3 at home. Not with Minny coming in tomorrow and Utah Saturday. I'm willing to reserve judgement though. Interesting to see what Pop and SA do. They go at OKC tonight, home vs HOU tomorrow, then at HOU Friday. 3 tough games/4 nights. Will he "punt" with home court/Division Title on the line & sit his horses? That's a battle tested team that can win on the road in the post season, and they're old. But home court is important for everyone, even the Spurs. And so is momentum. Not at the expense of health and energy, but if you're smart you can have it both ways. Nobody balances that better than the Spurs. Like I said, I'll reserve judgement on decision to rest 3 guys last night. But if we lose home court by 1 game & lose 1st rd series in game 7 on the road where home teams are 96-24 all time, that decision will deserve more scrutiny. But for now, I'll remain hopeful we can win out or go 4-1 and Mem or SA drops a couple so we get HCA. We won't get it against the Clippers, but I think they're moving up anyways. Looks like SA or Mem, and any chance we have to beat one of them is with HCA.
It seems to me that the strategy by the Blazers in leaving the 3 players at home was calculated on the premise that health/rest trumps home court advantage. I think that makes sense, based on how the Blazers did last year without having home court advantage in the first round. Frankly, the current format puts a lot of pressure on the home team to win two straight games at home before going on the road. Stealing one of those games switches the advantage to the other team. Sure, you ideally want a Game 7 to be at your place, but eliminating the other team in Game 6 beats that.
I'm coo.. Last year was a rare performance by LMA that any nba player for that matter has ever done. It literally took a once in a lifetime (two times) performance by LMA and a miracle shot by Lillard for us to beat Houston. And that ALMOST wasn't enough Personally you take HCA whenever you have a chance. We gave up on that. Watch it will come back and haunt us..
A lot of times the home team will drop 1 of the first 2. But you still have 3 chances to win 1 road game after that, to get home court back. Not very often do you see the home team drop BOTH of the first 2. What are the odds we win games 1 & 2 (if on the road) again this year? Let's put it this way, what % would you put on winning first round series at home vs on the road? I'd say regardless of which opponent we face we have about a 60% chance of winning series with HCA, and about 30% without. We could win or lose either way and it wouldn't be shocking. But I'd rather have the odds in my favor.
Injuries to key players (Matthews, Aldridge, Lopez, Kaman, Freeland, CJ McCollum and Batum). Have you been paying attention?!?!?
IMO I think HCA ended with the loss to the Clippers. I really doubt last night's game would have made a difference. Not with our remaining schedule.
Clippers had tons of injuries, rockets had tons of injures, I'm sorry but we shouldn't use that as an excuse
Rockets are a better team without Howard. End of story.... You look at their regular season record, and they have a better winning % than without Howard. The Clips were only without Griffin. What other injuries you referring to?
Not necessarily. It looks like we're going to face one of the teams that doesn't win the SW Division. The Clippers are rolling & the only tough game they have is the Grizz . . . at home. They are moving up - no doubt about it. Meanwhile Hou, Mem, & SA all have tough remaining schedules. If we go 4-1 or 5-0, we still have a shot at HCA. The trump card being our Division Title being the tie-breaker. HCA is still within reach. If we had won last night the odds would be much better, but it's not out of reach.
Lets put our injuries into perspective here.... Wesley Matthews: 60 GP (will miss a total of 22 games) Aldridge: 68 games played (Missed 9 games) Nic Batum: 67 games (Missed 10 games) But we all know he played very hurt for at least 15 other games too Joel Freeland: Played 44 games (missed 33 games) Chris Kaman: Played 70 games (Missed 7 games) Robin Lopez: Played 54 games (Missed 22 games) CJ McCollum: Played 58 games (Missed 18 games) Show me a team in the top 5 in the west that had more missed time from key players....
This is a different question mags..my point was the Clips lost Crawford as well as Griffin earlier so they did lose the majority of their bench scoring late in the season. We had an injury plagued year for sure.
