Yea, the Spurs were on a run and Houston had a hard time hitting shots when Harden was hit with that 5th foul in the 3rd quarter on a jump ball. He and Tiago both went up for the jump ball and he got tag with the foul!!! I don't care what some people here say but that was a crucial moment with Harden. The Rockets needed Harden but he was in foul trouble and the Rockets couldn't buy a bucket without Harden on the floor.
I watched the entire game and the Spurs did outplay us. The officiating was atrocious but it was far from the worst days when Yao got smacked every single night with no call. Even without some questionable calls, we may or may not win with the Spurs shooting lights out and our defense being non-existent.
The jumpball foul on Harden is what changed this game completely. Should have hit free throws, Morris should hit his open shots (and TD), but that foul took Harden out of the game and he had to be extra careful when he came back. The Mills flop on Jeremy was the icing on the flop cake.
I appreciate your attempt to be even-handed, Durvasa, but I don't believe that free-throws being quantitatively even is the sign of a well-called game. It stands to reason that one team might get fouled twice as much as another in the game and same-amounts of free throws might be the sign of a poorly called game. I'm not saying that was the case tonight, really just being devil's advocate. (The Spurs outplayed us without a doubt and I would not suggest that we lost due to officiating. However, I have a hard time giving any credit to Parker and Ginobili.. as great as they are, I despise their flopping ways. Or what others might call 'veteran moves'. )
I agree that as a whole the game was terribly officiated. I actually missed Delfino, that's an odd thing to say. He usually hits the timely threes that were lacking late in the game. No excuse for the free throws and Morris and Greg Smith were largely nonfactors. Duncan had his way with both of them.
Harden is the one person on the team who gets "make-up" calls. I don't dispute that for one second. But the game is MUCH larger than one guy getting 13 free throws. I'm not saying that the refs were the only reason we lost the game, but I will say they were part of it. Do we know how it would've turned out sans bad officiating? Nope. But we know how it turned out with it.
How many times does a team win a game giving up 57% shooting and 12-24 on 3s, turning the ball over 24 times, and shooting 57% from the free throw line? Maybe there were a few more 50/50 calls that went against us than the Spurs, but so what? That's par for the course for a road team and in any case we were trailing by 19 points in the 4th quarter. Those calls weren't enough to make up that sort of margin.
Yes they did and had to had great games from their big 3 to do it. 84 points from those 3 was what did it if they average their season averages the Rockets win easily.
The calls made us go in to a completely different substitution pattern. Which, in turn, changes the gameplay entirely. Again, if you read my post fully, I said there are stats that can go both ways, you already pointed those out, and those are the ones I quoted.
First thing I said in my statement was "I agree", meaning that it was not the best officiated game. But, when you have more turnovers and shoot less percentage in 2 pointers, 3 pointers, and FT, how can you expect to win the game? The game was a much larger difference than the score indicated. Let me repeat that: The Spurs shot better than us from EVERYWHERE. We out-rebounded them because Morris and Douglas through up so many bricks that led to long rebounds, and they made all their shots, meaning less offensive rebounds. This is not the game to complain about the refs. That should be left for close games like Miami.
Officiating is always "part of" the reason you lost, any team can make that argument at any game. There are games way more lopside refed than this game, and refed a badly played team into wins. This is not the case tonight. Even if this game is absolutely fair refed, the Rockets only have 50/50 chance to beat the Spurs tonight, because Spurs played fantastically. So please don't bring officiating as the summary of the game. This is absurd from pure basketball standpoint.
This. I agree that the officiating was really bad but it was bad for BOTH teams. It's not like either team was screwed over by the refs or anything. We lost cause they played better and not because of the officiating. The start of the 4th quarter was horrible and up to that collapse the game was pretty even.
I'll admit the refs were horrible but so was our defensive rotations and turnovers. We could have easily won this game despite the horrible officiating.
the refs did stop the momentum with that horrible jump ball call, which blood was hacking at harden's arm. But no excuse to leave green open for three over and over and over and over again. Though I do think our defensive rotations will get better as we mature.
Actually most of our O-boards were off 2 of Harden's missed lay-ups, a variety of 3s (by Cook, Lin, Harden, Douglas and Morris) and 2 off missed free throws. Either way, I understand that you weren't saying the game wasn't equitable, but my statement was more regarding the fact that a variety of people in this thread are acting as though it was. We don't know what would have happened had Jason Phillips and his crew not put together a game that Tim Donaghy would've proud of, but it would've been nice to not see our 2 bigs get 3 fouls in the first half, or to have seen Thiago Splitter pick up a foul for his 2nd when Tim Duncan CLEARLY should've gotten his 3rd, and Splitter was no where near the play.
We can only hope! The Spurs know how to dissect our defense, as evidenced by the points they are averaging against us in 3 game this season, compared to their season average.
Akerman made at least one comment about how we didn't have them on our side tonight. Not those words, but ya get the point. Harden having 5 fouls is a bit odd along with his other bk court buddy Lin, as well, having his own foul trouble. Spurs are better and deeper. We should be glad we can hang with then when they are playing well. Like tonight. Duncan has owned us lately more so, it seems.
