Posted by kam77:

In any stretch of games this year, the least amount of games it took us to produce 7 wins was 11 (when we went 7-4 in Dec-Jan.)

Distilling 7 wins in these next nine games will be practically impossible considering the evidence.

unless we can expect our team to improve over the course of this season...

I'll take 6-3 right now. Teams people call bad or push overs like the Hawks always give the knicks fits. 6-3 is the water line, 7-2is a real push.

Posted by kam77:

7-4 is a .636 win percentage.

7-2 is a .777 win percentage.

To EXPECT another .636 stretch is one thing, but to suggest that you EXPECT about a 20% improvement from our high-water mark?

I just would not bet on it.

Why, I thought we were good and getting better? It's not like we're facing a bunch of really good teams. They should be favored in most of the games.

" if the team is everything that IT and the homers are saying it is"

WHO is saying this team is that good?????

IF the 'homers' are predicting 38-42 wins then win one, lose one is the natural state of affairs. Gosh... you guys ie the 'haters' must think the Knicks are AWESOME always predicting or saying we should win all these games.

Posted by kam77:

" if the team is everything that IT and the homers are saying it is"

WHO is saying this team is that good?????

IF the 'homers' are predicting 38-42 wins then win one, lose one is the natural state of affairs. Gosh... you guys ie the 'haters' must think the Knicks are AWESOME always predicting or saying we should win all these games.

dude you're totally missing the point. by "that good" i mean a team capable of going 2 for 3 or 3 for 4... sound familiar? that's most a playoff series (IT: "we'd be a tough team in the playoffs" or whatever it was)... but that's neither here nor there.

let me do the math for you. yes i'm talking .667 or .750. no, our team is NOT that good on a whole season. no one is saying it is. but for limited stretches, this team HAS to be able to do better than .500. what decent team can only expect to win every other game? come on.

i said if the team is *that* good, they should be capable of winning two or three games in a row. against sub-par competition. for a short time. read it again, it's there. *that* good seems reasonable to me.

the natural state of affairs for a .500 team is not win one lose one. that's like saying a .500 shooter always makes one misses one. no they don't, they get hot and cold. teams do the same. a .500 team should be able to go on a mini winning streak. i would excuse us losing two or even three games in a row, i.e. the Texas Triangle, as long as we look like we belong on the same floor with those guys and compete. **** happens. but good stuff should happen too.

don't confuse me with the people who are saying "7-2!" and will bash IT *when* we don't get there. i don't like the guy, but how we do in an arbitrary time period like the next 10 games won't shake that too much either way. BUT. we've played about .500 ball for a few months. if we can't put together at least one stretch above that level, i think we've stopped improving. one stretch, 5+ good games, from here to the end of the season. i dont think that's unreasonable.

do you?

[Edited by - Masterplan on 02-20-2007 6:35 PM]

Posted by kam77:

Good post, but just as you say nine games is arbitrary, in the next breath you say we need to put together a mini-win streak in the next 29 to show that we're improving. I guess i can't argue that we should probably win two or three in a row at tsome point. But our longest streak this year is three wins so i don't expect we have to win 4 straight in order to prove that we're 'getting better' either.

We are mediocre. We all WANT to be much more. But we are what we are, a .433 win team overall, a .500 team since the end of november. I don't expect any 4 game win streaks nor think they are absolutely necessary to establish progress. Win one, lose one. Win two, lose two. We've been here before, we're likely going to be here again.

to clarify, i think that "any four games in the next 29" is a lot less arbitrary a time period than "in the next 9"

if 3 games is our longest win streak, though, i see no reason that this *improving* team should not be able to win four in a row. i think a lot of our losses ahve been winnable games. win just one of those, and all of a sudden a 3-1 stretch becomes that four game win streak. or a 3-2 stretch to 4-1 etc.

we've been mediocre. win 1 lose 1 etc. if this team is truly young, improving, and has potential, the next 29 games could show us a lot. to me, a good run of games (could include losses if we play good teams well) would mean we're becoming a team that can play with consistency, night in and night out. a team that shows up to play with pride every night. a team that WANTS to win every game. a team learning what it takes to WIN consistently.

i don't see any reason that should wait until next season. if we get that streak, i'll believe the team is learning all this. if we don't get it, it doesn't prove anything long term either way. maybe we are learning and got unlucky. maybe we aren't learning at all. i haven't thought wins were the ultimate factor in judging this season anyway. but i think improved play should result in some stretch of games we can point to and say, "we're getting it." IMO we haven't had that yet, for more than 2 or 3 quarters let alone full games.

did he say "should" go?

or "hope they go" 7-2?

we'll probly go 5-4.

Posted by nixluva:

This team isn't miles away from being able to put together a good stretch. A friendly bounce here or there and they could have pulled out some of these close games they've lost. It's a team that has been playing better since starting the year 6-11 in Nov. They've gone 17-19 since.

They're due for some kind of good stretch and this schedule makes it more possible for a 6-3 or 7-2 stretch. As long as this team can stay motivated from game to game I think they have a chance to play above .600 ball the rest of the way.

.600 ball? We've rarely played .600 over a 10 game stretch, now you expect .600 for the rest of the season? Ridiculous. Wake up, man.

[Edited by - Solace on Feb 20 2007 10:18 PM]

Posted by misterearl:

1-0

Can we expect you to post "3-6" if it came to that?

Didn't think so.

We have the tie-breaker against Orlando now, we play them one more time, and we stand three games out. We just need to pick up two games on them, and beat them one last time to match their record. Now if NJ falls off, we can actually make the 8th seed because Orlando has a difficult schedule.