Top 3 West Teams Tanking against Houston??

You have got to believe that at some level, none of the top 3 teams want to face the Lakers in Round 1...

Houston, while ahead in the standings, is not as big an upset potential team as the Lakers are with 4 HOFers starting (especially if Pau gets back on the court).

That said, who here thinks the Spurs, Clipps and OKC are tanking games against Houston in the name of keeping Kobe and Co. out of the playoffs...?

Houston has already spanked OKC....they keep on winning . We all know how much Pop likes to tank strategically before the playoffs....and the Clippers would love nothing else but to be the sole representative of the Lakers in this years tournament..


Bet money on Houston going undefeated in games against these guys from here on out!....

I don't know about that, but how did the Spurs lose against the Warriors yesterday, that's lame, we really need teams like that to drop.

would be the lakers fault they brought it to that point

^That's true. All of those games they lost, due to blown leads, missed FT's, etc. Now we need to rely on other teams to lose games and it leaves us with no room for error.

You can't blame somebody else when you lost games against Magic, Sixers, Raptors , Cavs .. you just can't

I don't think so. I don't believe you can realistically tank at this point in the season. Too many games left.

Why would teams sacrifice potential home court throughout? To avoid playing a borderline playoff team? Lets not take ourselves too seriously now folks.

Wow.... the conspiracy theories are now being expanded to full teams now.....

I have a different theory..... we're not that good and are at the mercy of 1/3 of the teams in the Western Conference.

No one is afraid of the Lakers so no reason to conspire against them. Sneaking into the playoffs most likely ensures an further embarrassing sweep or 5 game series against OKC anyway.

They wouldn't be taking every game just the ones against Houston...

Harden has just been a beast, and Lin's been playing better (shooting better) to let Harden do his thing.

Harden in Feb: 29.4 ppg, 7.3 rpg, 6.9 apg, .558 FG%, .560 3P%

Lin's 3P% month-to-month:
October: 0%
November: 26.3%
December: 29.2%
January: 32.7%
February: 46.4%

Harden really struggled against some of the top teams earlier this year (OKC, Miami, Denver, Memphis, etc.) so they lost a lot of games, but it seems like he's starting to figure things out because he torched them in their most recent games.

Eh no.

I'm always up for a good conspiracy theory, but this one sounds too hard to pull off. If it was down to the last few games of the season, I'd be more likely to believe. But this far out, teams are just trying to win games. Remember that after the all-star break, games are harder to win, since everyone's desperate. That probably explains why some better teams are losing to Houston. Houston sees us a potentially ousting them from the 8th seed, and they're trying to win every game too. And with Harden and Lin clicking, we definitely have out work cut out for us.

Now if we make it in, and the top seed in the west is not the top seed overall, I can see them tank a game or two to switch to the second seed and avoid us in the first round. But that would be because we will be a bad-azz team if we virtually win out and make the 8th seed.

i'll buy this if the lakers are within striking distance later. sorry, nobody's scared of no-d houston, and nobody's scared of utah minus home court advantage. the lakers with all their pieces and no expectations...more of a concern.

abeer3 wrote:i'll buy this if the lakers are within striking distance later. sorry, nobody's scared of no-d houston, and nobody's scared of utah minus home court advantage. the lakers with all their pieces and no expectations...more of a concern.

i think if the lakers were on a 15 game winning streak or something and the season is winding down and houston has kind of muddled its way toward the end then maybe teams tank, but right now the lakers have not done anything of the sort and houston actually, well has to some extent.

kobe is greatness personified but that doesn't mean people are ignoring how bad this team has been. they'll have to give teams reason to be scared before teams get, well scared

Clippers: 3-0 vs LAL

Thunder: 2-1 vs LAL

Spurs: 2-0 vs LAL

....they want to play us guys.

last stand wrote:

abeer3 wrote:i'll buy this if the lakers are within striking distance later. sorry, nobody's scared of no-d houston, and nobody's scared of utah minus home court advantage. the lakers with all their pieces and no expectations...more of a concern.

i think if the lakers were on a 15 game winning streak or something and the season is winding down and houston has kind of muddled its way toward the end then maybe teams tank, but right now the lakers have not done anything of the sort and houston actually, well has to some extent.

kobe is greatness personified but that doesn't mean people are ignoring how bad this team has been. they'll have to give teams reason to be scared before teams get, well scared

At the same time, teams have seen us destroy OKC & easily handle MIA for most of the game.. When we're on, we're better than Houston could ever dream of being. If you could pick either team to face, you pick the one lead by young inexperienced stars every time.

Nah, the Lakers just isn't that great roster-wise even in paper...

Those Harden stats are CRAZY

thkthebest wrote:Harden has just been a beast, and Lin's been playing better (shooting better) to let Harden do his thing.

Harden in Feb: 29.4 ppg, 7.3 rpg, 6.9 apg, .558 FG%, .560 3P%

Lin's 3P% month-to-month:
October: 0%
November: 26.3%
December: 29.2%
January: 32.7%
February: 46.4%

Harden really struggled against some of the top teams earlier this year (OKC, Miami, Denver, Memphis, etc.) so they lost a lot of games, but it seems like he's starting to figure things out because he torched them in their most recent games.

Player of the month ya think?

^ LeBron will somehow win it in the West.

Can't blame nobody but ourselves now.

boy if i was the spurs or thunder i'd LOVE to face the lakers in the first round with the way this season has been going

i think harden has easily established himself as the heir to the kobe throne as the best SG.

good job trading him OKC. always smart to trade a top 2 player at their position when you don't even need to. and people praise sam presti

~30/7/7 are crazy numbers. He's playing extremely well right now.

Harden is unstoppable.... no one is tanking against them. I just watched the Washington game. Man, I thought Harden was just like a young Kobe, a guy who can penetrate and score at the rim or pull up anywhere and drill it. How I wish we had a shot at him in free agency. As I said before they should have traded ballstopper Westbrick instead.