Good game. We might have won this one if Budinger had not botched up 6-7 layups in the second half. We need to get rid of Chase Budinger while his stock is still high. He is a soft player who avoids contact- a poison in playoff games. And I have pretty much given up on Scola's defense.
The main reason everyone wants a STAR is to get STAR RESPECT from the refs That is a large difference between CHAMPIONS and alsorans Rocket River
Well, we needed to go atleast 7-3 in the last 10 games, and IMO, this is one of our acceptable losses. We played really well against an elite team. If we play every other team like we played Miami tonight, we'll be in good shape. Maybe that's just me being optimistic. But you gotta love the fire in this team.
Punch to gut because of what it means. We won't consistently beat elite teams without playing defense. Good game though, they battled and I always thought Lowry was a starting caliber PGuard but now he is starting to make me believe more is possible.
I wouldn't care about this, except on the other side of the court, they're calling any contact at all. WTH??!! Some of their fouls were NOTHING, and we were going into the paint and getting hammered and no call. So blatant!!
If the refs called a balanced Martin vs. Wade game it would degenerate to 3 hours of free throw shooting.
Grizzlies are on a drug called Charlie Sheen. Tough loss to suffer. Bud forgot he was lights out from 3. Screw Miami. That is all.
Guess it's not in the cards for us this year. Too bad, we've been playing darned good ball lately. Would have been nice to see more even foul calling by the refs. Would have been nice to see more physicality from our guys (other than Chuck and Lowry). Martin did well until the end, but frankly he was looking a bit tired to me, as was Lowry by the middle of the fourth.
I'm disappointed in Lee and Pat. I thought their play would put us over the top. Pat's Hustle wasn't there; looked like he was playing scared. Lee's Defense wasn't as good on Wade. Adelman putting Chuck/Pat on Lebron was a bad decision because they would just bring up Scola's man for a pick and Chuck/Pat would switch leaving Lebron to do anything he wanted. Bud was doing just fine considering.
Clutch, please make a separate thread for blame it on the refs because that's the way it seems to be going. Rockets can blame themselves, mainly no hustle by Scola on defense; Patterson & Budinger playing scared and rushed, Lee for not contributing, Adelman for taking Martin out when he was hot, Martin for trying to run into guys everytime. I didn't see the fight I saw when Scola & Landry (& Harris) were our hustlers. Also not having a good back-up PG killed us. Fire Adelman and get some1 to teach them defense. If that means JVG, then so be it.
