ClutchFans Game Thread: Rockets @ Lakers 4/17/2004 (Playoffs Round 1, Game 1)

The Lakers were going to Kobe on nearly every play, and Cat was shutting him down. What game where you watching. In the last 5 minutes, Kobe shot 7 times and Shaq shot 3, 2 off of offensive rebounds. So the Lakers went to the big guy 1 time down the stretch (and that time he was fouled and missed both freebies). Oh yeah, and in the same time period, Cat shot the ball 0 times and was fouled the only time he touched the ball.

 

totally agree. It sucked, but no way it was a rebound, and no way it was something expected. Lakers just got lucky.

Regarding the foul: first there was no time to think, and secondly if there were time to think, you would still want to committ the foul. If you don't foul Shaq on that play, it was guaranteed 2 pts. If you foul him, there is a slight chance he would miss and most likely he would miss both FT's. There was 17 sec left for the game, it was worth Yao's 6th foul. It didn't work out the best way for us, but didn't hurt us any further either. Shaq missed the FT as expected, so no 3-pt play. And with 17 sec left, Yao was not to touch the ball on last play anyway (except maybe catching the inbound pass).

 

No, Yao is already getting slower. He needs to improve mobility, and learn to use his length better. BUt first of all, he needs to improve endurance. Gaining 30 lbs will make all these impossible.

 

Yao already weights in at 300 lbs, I mean there is much he can do besides improve mobility.

Great game by the Rockets, they proved that they can hang with the Lakers at the Staples Center and this has to give them great confidence going into game two then they know they have two home games afterwards. We did come up short but you cannot deny it was a good game.

 

I think this lost makes them get hungry for a win I think if they would have twon the game yestaday they would strat being cocky

 

bill walton said "what a pass" twice last night when a laker jacked an airball to an open shaq: once when his pathetic son did it, another at the end when Kobe shot up that awful shot.

"What a pass" my ass, walton. those were missed shots and the Fakers got lucky. it pisses me off when he analyzes a game with so much bias.

rockets better be ready for Lakers to come out strong, both teams should be angry. all we have to do is match the level of intensity we played with and HIT SOME FRIGGIN BASKETS

 

oh and make your free throws mr. francis. three missed free throws in a one point loss will hurt your team. I'm not blaming sf3 for the loss but he was nervous when he missed those two in a row. just relax, they are FREE

 

You must not watch many games with Walton.

He says that anytime anyone on any team shoots an airball and one of his teammates scores off of it.

 

Let me spell it out for you: S-A-R-C-A-S-M

 

I really appreciate the defense Rox shown tonight. We could have win this game if not for Shaq's lucky catch of airball.

That definitely shows Rox are good enough to kill the Lakers. I'm looking forward to a long series.

Go Rox.

 

It's called wrapping the guy up. If you taped the game, watch the replay ... JJ showed Yao how to do it right after the play.

 

You must be mad at Dream for letting the same thing happen against NC State in the NCAA championship when he was a Cougar. Same play, same results and it cost us a championship.

 

so turnovers mean nohting; and the whole team shot like crap. Lets quit the SOF and YOF crap and relize reality, we lost as a team, everyone on the rockets did dumb things.

 

We have to be pleased with last night's effort. It wasn't like the Lakers were missing all of these shots they normally make. That might have been the case with Malone, but certainly with no one else. We were all over them. Other than the Rush's 3s at the end, the Lakers were forced into tough, tough shots.

All the media and Payton is talking about a different game come Monday, but I think that's BS. If the refs call the same game, we are going to control the tempo just like we did yesterday.

As for Yao, I honestly thought he played very well. He airballed one hook shot and had that embarrassing block, but he blocked Shaq right back and forced him to shoot airballs of his own. He also fouled Shaq pretty hard on that last play, grabbed his arm, but Shaq was too strong. He needs to learn the bear hug. It happened so fast though that it's hard to second guess. It looked to me like he grabbed as much of Shaq as he could.

Also, Shaq never once left Yao open. He completely covered Yao from 18 feet on in. We need to take advantage of that. No one else on the Laker's can defend the basket other than Shaq.

For game 2 offense, we need to look for Mo more down low and he needs to learn to kick out against the double team.

 

yao actaully made shaq play yesterday; i also read somewhere that phil aslo thought shaq looked tired.

 

First, I thought Jackson's shot was in for the game winner and was shocked when it missed. Second, Mobley did an OUTSTANDING defensive job on Kobe. In fact, the whole team played exceptional defense, good enough to win. The Lakers played tough "D" as well, but our offense is so disjointed and ineffective that I am not sure that mattered anyway.

I was shocked to see the boxscore and learn that Francis had 18 pts. We the exception of a few standout plays, I thought he player poorly. He looked lost on the offensive end, made several of his patented "turnover-passes," and generally seemed out of sync. But so did Ming.

Nevertheless, it was an amazing effort. The Rockets made the Lakers look as bad as they did. The Rockets may not win this series, but I think they have a good chance of taking LA out their Championship run. The Rockets are "roughing them up" and making them work extremely hard. I really wish Jackson could get a "redo" on that last shot. That would have been soooo sweet!

 

Man, that last attempt by JJ had me thinking about Mario Elie's "kiss of death". Too bad JJ ain't Mario Elie. Elie would have made that shot.

 

I haven't read the entire thread, but this could be LA's worse game. If it's LA's worse game, and we didn't capitalize, we are looking at maybe a four game, or at the most five game series.

The game was pretty good, pretty exciting, but damn it was ugly. I don't see the Lakers scoring 70 points again this series.

 

If anything, I'm hoping this gives our guys some confidence. If it does, maybe they can cut down on the mistakes. All it would have taken is one or two fewer mistakes and we would have had this game--or just a little more oomph on JJ's last shot.

By the way, would anyone like to pitch in and buy Francis some new shoes? I've never seen a player slip so much in my life.

 

the most underrated thing in the game was the rockets wasting 6 seconds on that first inbounds to spoon, im quite sure jvg would want steve or jj to take the shot w/ at least 2 secs remaining just in case they missed so they could foul and would still have had that timeout to advance the ball, sure its risky w/ kobe on the other end but cat did a great job all game on him. Poor execution on the first inbounds