2nd or 3rd.... all that is at stake is home court or not if the Denver advances... that's it... home court in 1 possible series is at stake... vs ensuring our guys are rested and healthy for the post season.... this is a no-brainer, folks...
GS, OKC, Spurs, Utah, Portland x 2 Also Detroit who is fighting their lives for a playoff spot (and a higher one, to avoid Bucks) and Houston Denver going 5-5 is not far stretched.
Don’t forget the Blazers though. Rockets can easily fall into the fourth spot if they’re not careful Blazers are tied with the Rockets in the loss column and already won the tiebreaker. They also have easier schedule than Rockets.
The way this team has lolligagged at times, it is important for them to find that 48 minutes of concentrated play, so they can do that in the playoffs. Too many losses to crappy teams by not playing hard, we need to play hard all game long...so yeah, every game counts. DD
that's not important anymore because of how far OKC and Spurs have fallen. Out biggest threats in the playoffs are Blazers, OKC, Spurs in that order. OKC and Spurs might now finish 7/8. If we get 4th seed we will likely get Clippers or Jazz in the first round with HCA which is actually perfect. If Portland goes 2nd seed they might get OKC and get swept again which is also great.
5-8 seeding can change pretty quickly. Also, I would like to avoid playing the Warriors until conference finals. That’s why I don’t want to be in the 4 spot.
Playoffs is about matchups, with home court being less of an advantage (one home loss reverses the roles). There is so much fluidity in the seeding that it is more important to be healthy than wasting the effort trying to get a higher seed. Any of the top 4 seed is fine imo, and if we can avoid GS half of the bracket will be a bonus.
This. We don't control who gets 5-8, so no point in positioning for that. The one thing we can control, if we keep winning, is staying above the 4 seed so we don't face the freaking GOLDEN STATE WARRIORS till the conference finals. If we have to play the Warriors in round 2, then either we won't make it to the conference finals, which would suck, or we'll make it, and we'll be banged up, and we'll be facing some lucky team that had easier opposition in the semis and will benefit from us having given our all to knock off the champs. Don't end up in that position. Make that other team knock off the champs, or die trying.
I don't care about any team 5-8 I want the 3 seed over Blazers But mostly I want Harden to play in the playoffs like a star and not disappoint like he has in the past. I want Paul to not get injured. And play like he did last year. Get them ready for the playoffs.
Here's my pretty good pitch for facing Worriers sooner. Spoiler'd for size, and well as to visually deemphasize my narrative. Both narratives have merit, imo. Spoiler I'm a firm believer we will have a better chance to beat them the sooner we play them. Don't give them more rounds to gel. (Durant and Cousins playing together are a mess, right now.) Don't give them more rounds to go to school on how teams are defending Harden. More pre-playoff rest Harden will be fresher Less chance for an annual Paul, you know what. Now that we are clicking, I honestly don't see any benefit in playing them, later, except Harden's MVP chances increase with better seed. No one else is going to beat them, and giving them extra practice games is not helpful. They can withstand more grind over playoff months than we can. They've proven it with 3 rings. Worriors are going to get better the further along they play, just like we did in '95. All that said: I'm rooting for wins every game, as long as Harden keeps playing. But if Portland goes on a run, so be it. I won't care about going all out against OKC in the last game just to beat someone out for the 3rd seed. I get this. It works both ways though. You sound like you consider there's a tougher 2nd opponent in the West than the ECF winner. Consider getting "banged up" playing the Worriors in the WCF would also carry over immediately to Game One against the 76ers. I don't fear being banged up against another Western foe in the WCF. It will give us time to recover from a post-Warriors let down. But would be very sad to do everything we have to do and succeed against GSW to be banged up and lose Game One to Embiid, Butler, Simmons, Harris. And I question the theory that another Western foe would have an easy 2nd Round, too. Denver will give everyone a long series, or Denver will waltz, and they are an easy opponent for us.
Consistency and chemistry kinda ****ed at this point in time. Last season the biggest issue was LRMM getting injured and whether playing washed up vets was a good idea... Not whether Harden need the rest (prob because he came off the season before "gassed” and was conscious about it). It was clear Chris Paul needed the rest when when he still played the same amount of crazy minutes... Yeah that should be the issue this time.
I abstained from voting once I saw that the poll was about the 2nd seed. Any of the top 3 seeds is fine with me. Not what I was here to vote on. I was going to vote yes simply because I don't want this team to be cold going into the playoffs. I want them mentally fired up to kick some ass from day one, so keep the pedal to metal all the way through 82. Oh, but that doesn't mean I want to overtax our important players. By no means. Rest CP3 as advisable. Keep Harden's minutes reasonable. Let Gordon recover from whatever his injury of the week is. AND keep winning. I want the bench to understand that losing a starter in the playoffs is not an excuse to throw in the towel, and they have a job to do whether that happens or not and these final games are important for them to get their act together. So, yeah, we win out, because we want to keep the knives as sharp as possible. And identify the ones that just can't take an edge.
Don't be ridiculous, real teams are just waiting for the playoffs now. And then they need to click into gear. Last year Warriors went 7-10 to finish the season.
Unspoiling this case for facing the Warriors sooner, since it's persuasive. Especially the you-know-what part.
