Blazers' Robin Lopez after losing 2 games to Spurs

I do agree that the refs gave a lot of leeway to the Blazers in the first round. Aldridge driving into our guys and getting foul calls. Lopez and others hacking at Dwight and no foul being called. The perimeter D on Harden and Lin where the Blazers were allowed to be very physical.

Here's where the Rockets lose the right to complain. Asik and Howard did reach in and go for pump fakes far too often against Aldridge. Not all the time, mind you. But enough to where the refs weren't exactly calling a bunch of BS fouls on those guys. Most of them were legit. Including BTW that absolutely inexcusable offensive foul by Asik where he grabbed Aldridge and negated that 3 by Lin that would've iced the game.

Regarding the hacking that went on under the basket, Dwight did get screwed there. But that's been going on all year, not just in this series. I don't know if it's the refs(and the league) hating on Dwight. Or if they think they're doing him a favor by not sending him to the line. Or if Dwight and the team need to speak up(i.e. get a T) about it. But that's unfortunately not something that just happened out of the blue once we went up against the Blazers.

The tough perimeter D? The Rockets have no one to blame but themselves. When Lin and Harden dribble around the perimeter for 15-20 seconds(especially in the 4th quarter) before making a desperation move, guess what? The refs are not going to bail you out. They needed to attack the basket immediately every chance they got. If they went to the hoop, got mugged, and never got any foul calls, then we could complain about the refs. But far too often they resorted to ISO ball and bad fadeaway jumpers instead of at least putting the onus on the officials to blow the whistle.

 

^^^^

So you did see it. Thank you for the intelligent response.

I agree that the team was unprepared and underperformed but unlike a lot here I think they can get better. I think they can learn and grow as a unit. I think Dwight will be more respected by officials next season. They grew to respect him by game 5.

I just don't see the point of panicking with this squad. 54 in a stacked west while dealing with major flaws makes me excited about them figuring it out during the offseason

 

The problem I have is with our denial of a few structural problems:
- nobody being held accountable and taking any blame
- DEFENSE!
- ball movement
- coaching
- simple offense

 

Nothing to panic about. We have loads of talent, although somewhat unbalanced. But having McHale back means the team will most likely under-perform again in the POST season. There is very little trust of him getting this team to play defense. A strong defensive assistance coach is a must, but I don't know how far that get you if your star don't buy in and your head coach allow that.

 

What's annoying is that if we'd been able to execute offensively in 4th quarters, it would have been enough to overcome our non-existent defense.

 

What denial? are you in Florida with Morey, Les and McHale?

Do you have some inside I for that Morey doesn't see a problem with our defense? He posted said yesterday on twitter that the team needs to be top 10 defensively to win a title.

 

Good god thats the same face i just made reading this ****

 

7th: FiveThirtyEight. Friend of the program Ian Levy on one major difference in how San Antonio defended the Portland Trail Blazers during their blowout Game 1 victory as compared to the way the Houston Rockets did during their six-game first-round loss to Portland: "According to NBA.com’s SportVU Player Tracking Box Scores, 76 percent of the Trail Blazers’ shot attempts in Game 1 were contested."

8th: The Oregonian. As Blazers forward Nicolas Batum told Jason Quick, the anecdotal experience backed up 538's stats: "The way they guarded me … it was way different than what I faced in the first six games against Houston. I had no freedom. I couldn’t do anything.’’

 

That says a lot about McHale's poor coaching. We played a horrible defense that allows them to score basket after basket. We need to fire McHale soon, but it's unlikely. All we need to do is to try to get 3rd superstar to even McHale's poor coaching out.

 

^THIS. That's all we can hope for.

 

They aren't renewing his contract yet. This is basically his last season and Morey will get him a defensive assistant coach. McHale helped us get Dwight and helped Dwight get better in the post. I trust Morey and he's done nothing but make the team better since he got here.

 

Surely they learned what some of you are so adamant to deny is true.... maybe it's too simplistic, or maybe it just exactly what the problem was...

"Guys, we gotta play harder than this".

I see way too much of people trying to prove some "sky is falling so fire the coach" narrative. We got beat. yeah, maybe the refs helped that, and maybe our x's and o's are a little too freewheeling when half court playoffs start. Maybe we even attacked that too hard once we were down and forced our own half court offense a little to aggressively, denying our previous running and moving without the ball identity.

All I know is there is greatness on this team, and this series (should have) taught us a lot of about what it takes for THIS GROUP to improve. With our talent I am comfortable, it's our mindset and attitude that needed this to happen to light a fire.

I think you will see a resolve next season that really impresses. Do I think Coach will continue to let them run and watch the fluid offensive style dictate our play? Yes. But I expect, with new assistant coaching, our defense will be more deliberate, and we will find a way to make the howard post up game blend better with our running style of play.

Combine that with a more mature attitude regarding opponents and refs, and a better understanding of each other and what needs to be done for us to be at our best regular season AND playoffs, and I would suggest that no one will want to meet us in the playoffs next season.

But all y'all go on back to listening to Sideshow Lopez and berating your team for their learning curve woes.

They are who we thought they were, incredibly talented but young and in search of an identity. Now to see if they become who we know they can be. I personally hated the way the series went, but knowing they never really looked comfortable enough, or played their best ball consistently. I expect this may have been a blessing in disguise.

I expect them to find a way to be our best, and I expect our best is going to impress even the lamest of the crybabies.

 

If anything I'm happy this setback happened now instead of next season.

If this team with its bad habits ended up beating Portland they would have a ready made excuse and failing in the second round wouldn't matter. They would have met 'expectations' and wouldn't have much incentive to change.

That shot will be a reminder that they aren't legit yet and that they need to earn it with discipline and hard play for 48 mins.

 

Amen. The lessons we learned (both players and coaches) were things we knew we needed to learn all season, despite our talent and depth. Hopefully they won't forget.

 

I don't think it's panicking to express concern about the coaching staff. We've had McHale here 3 seasons. 2 seasons with most of the current roster(the only significant addition last year was Dwight, no offense to Omri Casspi fans). So I don't think it's accurate to attribute ISO ball, bad defense, and poor late game decisions simply to youth and inexperience.

And I also don't think it's a coincidence that the team has collapsed down the stretch in April for 3 consecutive seasons. That's a very serious concern that can cost a team dearly and in the case of the Rockets, it has. We missed the playoffs in 2012. We fell to the 8th seed in 2013 and wound up with OKC instead of the Nuggets in the first round. And this year, we managed to clinch home court(barely) but played so horribly on D late in the season that it carried over into the playoffs and led to the defeat to the Blazers. And no, Sampson leaving is not a valid excuse. I don't think losing your top assistant justifies allowing scrubs like Corey Brewer and Luke Babbitt to light you up or refusing to run back on defense.

To me, panicking is demanding that Morey trade away a bunch of guys in order to acquire a third star or to replace half the roster with new players. I actually like the team we've got. Certainly we need a deeper bench, and suitable replacements need to be found for Lin and Asik, but I think the Rockets have a very good starting 5. I just don't feel they have a competent coach who can lead them to the next level. The best comparison I can think of is the Clippers a year ago with Del Negro as their coach compared to this season with Doc Rivers. That could be us a year from now if the front office will just admit to themselves that McHale's not the right guy for the job.

 

Well, yes and no. Of course we had to play defense, but our offense made it even HARDER for us to play defense. Our offense made their offense stronger. If we do less isolation ball, we make the other team work harder defensively which tires the other team out alot more. More fatigue on the other team = less FG% and less efficiency. You wont see Lilliard going off and you'll see Aldridge miss alot of easy baskets a fully energized Aldridge would have made. You'll see less offensive rebounds and 2nd effort points... so on and so on and so on

***** the isolation and ***** crap defense, ***** McHales 'coaching'- all he is, is a glorified motivational speaker.

It pains me as a fan to know he is returning next year when we have a team loaded with so much talent and potential.

 

Very true. Not being rewarded for your poor habits is a good way to get you to break those bad habits.

I'm just very pessimistic with McHale style to have this team really get it. Is he going to hold everyone accountable on defense? Is he going to develop the bench? Is he going to be respected enough that they follow his game plans and plays?

We are going to improve and going to look better next year just on more experience along. However, unlike our players who show very good promises, McHale has not shown to be the right coach to push us over the edge. He has shown to be hard headed, stubborn, doesn't learn from mistakes or take any responsibility ever. Hope I'm wrong, but that's the current reality to me.

 

Problem with trying to correlate the April collapse this year and last year is that we had major injuries and a coach leave this year. We were great defensively in March (top 10 defense) then Bev and Dwight went down. Then our defensive assistant left. That shook the team and they didn't get back to that form again.

 

and remeber when the series was over if bev couldnt play ???? LMAO, lillard had low assist TO the every game. If you ever watched lillard you would know hes not a good finisher at the rim. he lives off the jumpshot, he will get his shots up no matter whos in front of him because of screens.

 

This "timeout" thing late in Game 4 is pathetic.... I don't think there was ever a situation in an NBA game in which a ballhandling guard or coach called a timeout because one of them anticipated an opposing player chasing the play from behind possibly inducing a turnover... (It was not like the ballhandler was trapped. He certainly wasn't on that play.) Because it happens so fast and often unexpectedly. I want McHale gone, but wouldn't even blame him for not calling a timeout on that play. Once again, I thought it was an incredible play by Mo Williams.

In fact, along with Lillard's series-winning three in Game 6 and DeAndre Jordan's block of Steph Curry in the last minute of Game 7 of the LAC/GS Series, I put that play by Williams in my top three for the First Round.