This^ I mean really, all a coach has to do is be competent, not even amazing, and he's already light years better than McHale...
I can't believe posters here are 1 starring this thread, as a fan of the Rox you always tend to think the refs screwed your team but even then they didn't decide the outcome of the game, in fact Portland fans could argue that the Lilliard out-of-bounds play could have been the nail in the coffin but the refs waived it off. And honestly a 3 pt shot with just 0.9 secs left on the clock is the easiest play in the world to defend, LOL if somebody managed to hit that shot against you then you deserve to lose. Try doing that against a top level team like the Spurs and Miami and see how often you can do that, even the Mavs needs a couple more seconds to get it off. I think Portland deserved to advance more than the Rox. Sure the Rockets are more talented but apart from Dwight everyone on Portland wanted it more, they hustled for lose balls, they contested every shot and everybody worked together as one. Not only that they had direction, they had amazing plays being drawn out every game, and everybody stuck to the game plan. The Rox oth are a discombobulated mess, I see everyone running around but it doesn't result in openings, and in the 4rth quarter the offense devolved into throw the ball into Howard and hope for the best. Our defense was even worse than Portland's, and Portland just has 3 good defenders on the entire roster! Great shot by Lilliard, and great effort by the Portland team in general. I'm reminded of the Lakers team with Shaq, Payton, Kobe and malone when I look at this edition of the Rox, lots of talent on the roster but no cohesion and no direction.
Exactly. The Blazers played the cards they were dealt and did their thing. Meanwhile it took Harden 6 games to finally play his brand of basketball. Some of this is confidence and inexperience, but a ton of it is on a coach who couldn't get the job done.
OP: that one rescinded technical. You have to deal with that before saying they deserve any win by a 1-pt margin.
Yeah, but having the men in striped shirts on your side helps too. It was a close series, but the Rockets should've advanced. Horrible calls late into the 4th make the series closer than it should've been.
Exactly. I thought we were better coming into the series (and still do). But with the series being so even, it came down to who could make the clutch plays with the game on the line. The refs hosed us throughout the series, but we had chances to win every game we lost in the last minute, and we failed to do so. Portland made the plays to win.
They were poised and played better than us, IMO. It was a tight series, but there was never a moment where we had control like we were supposed to. Even with double digit leads in the fourth, we never could put our foot on their necks. I have no ill will against them except for the fact that they beat us. But that little punk No Williams can go screw himself.
The games don't come down to the final minute if this series is called evenly on both sides. Rockets would have won in 5, max. I'll leave it at this: which team held a double digit lead at one point in every game of the series? Hint: it's not the Blazers. Who led for 60-70 percent of all six games? Not portland. Yes, the Rockets desperately need to develop a killer instinct, but if Howard was getting calls like Aldridge, Portland is done in 4 or 5 games. And that's with Harden playing terribly in four of those games.
Fair or not it resulted in having to defend a 2 pt lead with 0.9 secs remaining. Ask any coach out there if they like their chances of winning with that situation in their favor and they'll probably take it. I mean what more can you ask for than that moment? If you can't even defend that lead for 0.9 secs you don't deserve to advance. You're acting like the Rox got jobbed on every single play but that's not what happened, the refs didn't make Lilliard hit that 3.
get that **** out of here, the Refs were handing them calls all series long, we are the better team but terry stotts> Kevin Mchale
