Im not crying, but I think the rockets played a very good game coming off of a back to back and having to play in the toughest arena and against the hottest team in the league. They were still within striking distance at the end of the game and I was impressed by their performance.
I'm just saying this board has a habit of complaining about the refs. I didn't say the fans and Yao were nuts. I didn't say it wasn't justified.
IBM, every post game thread win or lose and the officials are on the top of the loss. Also, as bad as the officials might have been last night, the rox shot twice as many ft's on the road as the jazz. How many times during the season a team doubles up the home team on the ft line?
I don't think the loss is that big of a deal. Hopefully the team learns from this loss and grows. People let the emotion of a loss mess up there thoughts. You would think we were just eliminated from the playoffs with some of these post. Losses happen, we have been on a good streak so I think the guys will bounce back.
Durvasa, I'm not blaming battier, but against a team like utah when he doesn't have to spend enrgy chasing kobe,james ad guys like that, he needs to get intot he offensive flow of the game. He needs to cut to the basket like he was doing the last few weeks, he needs to run the break, offensive rebound, something. What Utah has done is single yao and stay close enough to contest the 3pt shots. That's why head sucked against Utah, that's why battier has struggled also. If Yao isn't being doubled, which utah doesn't, it puts the burden back on rocket players breaking guys down off the dribble. By my total, the rockets don't have enough of these kind of players when they play Utah.
I personally thought that if the rockets could have beaten the Jazz in Utah while the Jazz were waiting for them off of a back to back and on top of that the Jazz playing their best basketball of the year with an 8 game winning streak. I would have been surprised. I am more upset about the game they pissed away in Chicago than losing like this to the Jazz. I thought they showed progress lastnight.
Leeb, You know I can't agree with you about Battier, he was playing his role, when he is open he shoots, or passes to an open player. Nothing wrong with his game last night....at all..... And if you actually think Yao is being correctly officiated you are nuts.....Yao gets screwed out there, the problem is that he does not SCREW back....it is not in his nature..... And Artest goes off the reservation and attempts to drive (not something he can consistently do) and Aaron Brooks is too darned passive......people are loving what lowry did, but he got ZERO assists...... Which to me is fine.....the way to beat Utah is to attack them, take it to them, force the refs to call all those fouls and make Utah adjust by playing lessor players. The foul more than any team in the NBA, their style is, we will hit you, and hope the refs catch the retaliation.....it works, until you get to the playoffs and the other team has a Superstar player protected by the refs. Houston doesn't have one, so any game with them is going to be a toss up..... DD
Poor officiating is unnerving, however. You can't be angry at fans for getting angry at the officials. That being said, in the Utah game last night, I was upset with some officiating in the third, but later in the third (and the beginning of the fourth) some BS calls were actually going our way instead (likely make-up calls). As long as they balance each other out, I get over it pretty quickly as I did last night. However, there is nothing wrong in wanting consistency out of the officiating. If it's a bad call, fine, just call it both ways. That's all I want. This "oh I made a bad call here, so I am going to make another bad call to make up for it" gets a bit tiresome (and most fans don't notice the bad call going the other way, only the one against their team). I think Yao doesn't get the benefit of the doubt often enough compared to other centers, however, the officiating is not why we lost last night. Aaron Brooks is not why we lost last night. Execution down the stretch was. While players like Lowry had a herculean effort in trying to get the team back into it, I think it was more of our 4th game in 5 nights, on the road, arriving in Utah at 3am CST, and on the second half of a back-to-back against a team with an amazing home crowd and a home team that was well rested (since Sunday). They had the energy to put forth the effort/focus necessary at the end of the game; we didn't. The game was evenly matched otherwise. We meet them in Utah again later this year, and we won't be off a back-to-back, so it should be a really good game. I know I'm looking forward to it.
Well there are some things we need to get over. Yao will never be officiated perfectly, that's just the case with big men sometimes. Utah, and their coach that everyone seems to love, preach a cheating style of basketball. They push you in the back for rebounds, they run multiple screens that start making their players look like full backs, and they flop like crazy. There just has to be a better team defensive concept for when Yao is matched up against a jumpshooting big, that falls on the coaches. Also, Yao has to be agressive and find a way to make that a net gain for us when he has a smaller/weaker player on him, all the time. If we are going to be a tough defensive team, we can't be physical just sometimes. If there is such a thing, we are a finesse defense. We play smart but when someone pushes us we don't push back. Less like a steel curtain and more like cellophane wrapping, we can contain all the soft stuff but some force can bust straight through.
When obvious flops are rewarded with 2 turnovers(Okur's and Brewer's flops on Yao) and 2 free throws for the Jazz(AK47 being hit in the face by Battier's 2 foot long fingers) You cant help but be upset. This isnt counting the bad calls because those go both ways. This is the intentionally try and fool the ref calls. I saw 4 times the Jazz drove into an arms straight up jumping straight up Yao. 3 times the proper call was made. The proper call in all 4 situations was NO call. He went straight up and is entitled to his space. The other one that was called wrong wasnt a flop, just a bad call. So bad calls happen. Folks arent as angry about those. Fans can live with bad calls because refs make mistakes, like when there is an honest basketball play involved such as a block/charge or a moving pick or whatever. Its when there is a DIShonest NONbasketball play involved that gets the most ardent fans up in arms. And not just Rocket fans, fans everywhere.
durvasa, is there anyway you can find a stats comparing the average FGA and FTA rox have versus their opponents? I HIGHLY doubt leegibez's claim that our opponents are getting a lot more shots at the basket than us. Given the fact that we are a TOP rebounding team and do take care of the ball as a team, I don't see how our offensive-opportunity-versus-opponent is not one of the better ones in the league. The claim of "our opponents is getting a lot more offensive opportunities than us" simply seems unreasonable and high suspect to me.
excellent point. that's the integrity of the game i have been talking about. biggest reason i hate the jazz and all floppers.
I dont think the issue is with the refs on a broad sense, its purely about how they officiate Yao. Yes, the Rox shot more free throws then the Jazz. But does Kyle Lowry getting two foul calls and shooting four free throws have anywhere near the effect of Yao getting two offensive fouls to pick up his 5th and 6th foul? The Jazz didnt get any foul shots on those but Im sure they would take that trade off anytime. Watch how many times Yao gets called for little bump fouls, and I will agree they are absolutely legitimate calls. But then on the other end guys are pushing him with both hands, bumping his lower body on shots, grabbing his arms and nothing is called. Yes he is big, yes it would slow the game down but you have to make equal calls. Even look at the jump ball with Okur. Yao's arm was extended but Okur is clearly grabbing Yao's upper arm and pulling down on it. Most annoying is the flopping. Yao falls down and he must not have really been hit cuz he is so big. Yao's man falls down and Yao must have run him over cuz he is so big. People here call Yao soft all the time. That he is not physical enough and mean enough. Watch the last five games. If Yao was more physical he would have fouled out in 20 min.
right, so yao fouling out on bs calls and brooks playing like a chicken with his head cut off had nothing to do with us losing...i don't like when people make quick decisions on how they feel about a game or a player, but the truth is brooks isn't worthy of starting yet, maybe he just needs a few weeks, but i don't know if we can afford that, look at our schedule. and second, we have every right to complain about refs, we are one of the worst officiated teams in this league imo, we don't get the kobe or lebron calls, and yao is obliterated in the pain with out a whimper from the whistle, it's bs and everyone knows it
Dismiss it as whining or whatever you want. There is no way you could watch that game last night and not notice how horrible the game was officiated. There was absolutely no flow to the game last night. If Yao Ming is calling you out then you definatley are messing up. The Jazz are know flop artist and have been flopping for years now.
I don't care that we lost. They played a good game. We were playing the 4th game in 5 nights. It was expected we wouldn't get all the hustle points, ie rebounds, etc. What I am upset about is the way Yao is officiated. The Jazz flop all over the place and get a call. Yao gets hammered all night long, and gets fouls called against him. How can you not be angry at that?
it's funny you have to throw out the only stat that matters to argue stats with lee. how many points a team scores for each possession they have is really all that matters at the end of the day (just like on offense how many points you ultimately score per possession is all that matters). if you give up 60% shooting (and our 45% defense is actually 5th in the league lee so i'm not sure why you harp on it so or think it is so bad) but force 40 turnovers a game you're D can still be very good. even funnier lee that you argue we can't secure rebounds when as durvasa points out, we're one of the best (ESPN actually has us 4th in def. reb. %). if grabbing a high percentage of rebounds isn't securing rebounds, then i don't know what to say. utah killed us last night, but that's obviously not the norm or we wouldn't be 4th. and rebounding actually is part of points per 100 possessions. if a team misses, grabs the rebound, and makes a layup, that's only 1 possession. so you can't hide poor rebounding behind good initial defense in the points per 100 possessions stat. and while battier didn't make any of his open 3's (no one is arguing he's good if he misses all his 3's), he definitely was active on D. he took a charge, stripped a number of balls down in the paint, and as pointed out, wasn't the guy giving up all those baseline cuts.
except luther head puts up negative PER's in the playoffs (i actually thought 0.0 was the floor for PER before luther came along), and battier averages 10 ppg on 46% 3 point shooting.
Everybody shoots more FTs than the Jazz. They foul on every possession. It's what they do. It's how Sloan instructs them to play.
