Our first meeting against Houston this year is fascinating.  Mainly because most people assumed that without Yao and TMac, the Rockets do not have enough talent to compete night in and night out.  But something about this Houston squad and the way they pushed the Lakers to 7 games last year impressed me.  True they don't have any clear cut "superstar" active on the roster, but they do have alot of complementary young talent and a very underrated coach in Adelman.  Our roster, in comparison, look far superior, even without Blake and Eric.  In a way, if you had to choose between a healthy Yao and a healthy Blake, Yao would win, because he has proven his worth in the NBA.  Same with comparing a healthy TMac against a healthy Gordon.  As promising as Gordon is, he has yet to reach the level of dominance that TMac once achieved on his way up.  Yet Houston, with the loss of their two All-Stars, have a better record than we do.  And on this night, they proved that, as constituted, they are clearly a superior team.

During the heady days of summer, when the Clippers got Blake, Sebastian, Craig Smith, and Rasual Butler, many of us thought that a playoff position is preordained for such a deep and talented Clippers roster.  But there is a huge gap between the talent on paper and the chemistry on the floor.  Young, talented teams like the Clippers and Memphis lack an inner fortitude when the pressure is on, and it culiminates in their inability to execute down the stretch, going for long stretches without a point.  Well coached, well organized teams like Houston, on the other hand, who have felt the pressure of playing and pushing the NBA champs to 7 games in a hard fought series, come away with a certain confidence.  You can never discount this experience.  It probably means the difference between winning and losing 5 to 10 games a year.

The season is still early, but if you were to analyze the western conference playoff picture, particularly for the last spot, there are more surprise teams than teams not meeting expectations.  Until recently, Phoenix has performed much better than expected.  Only New Orleans have performed worse, but whenever you lose the top point guard in the league, you're bound to drop a few notches.  But even without Chris Paul, they beat us, and now we're only half a game ahead of them.  San Antonio and Utah are hitting their strides and will soon be beyond our grasp.  With Tyreke Evans leading the way, Sacramento is now 9-8, which is a huge surprise.  Oklahoma City looks alternatingly brilliant and dysfunctional on any given night, but they have managed to be 10-8, which is where they're expected to be.  With their win tonight against us, Houston is also 10-8.  As it stands right now, we are 11th in the West, ahead of 12th place New Orleans by only half a game.  We will eventually get Blake back and they will get Chris Paul, and we would have to assume that right now, Chris Paul is the superior player. 

I believe that the break even .500 record is an important psychological threshold for this Clippers squad, both for the veterans like Baron and Camby to remain interested and for the younger players to avoid the here-we-go-again downward spiral.  The loss tonight against Houston is damaging because we have failed an important test against a team that we must surpass if we have any hope of climbing to the eight spot.  Indiana on Saturday now becomes another "must win" game in a season already full of crisis games.  If we lose on Saturday, the Clippers will be 4 games below .500 with Orlando and a surging San Antontio team coming up.  If this team falls 6 games below .500, the hole will get too deep and the bottom will fall out when we start to play the better teams in the league.  It will mean that our come back win on Sunday will probably be the season's high point, the closest we will get to .500 this season.  And that is a depressing thought.

For this night at least, we can see with our own eyes, how a "talent-deficient" team like Houston can be two games over .500 while we're three games under .500.  We can only hope that order is restored soon and talent will win out in the bigger scheme of things.  Though in hindsight, I'm not sure that Landry, Scola, Brooks, Battier, Hayes, et al are less talented than Baron, Kaman, Thornton, Butler, and Sebastian, as they have proven to be a better squad on the court.