24 to 8 free throw disparity at home?? Who in this league other than Celtics and Lakers get away with this? How can Stern let this happen. That 4th foul on Yao was an absolute killer to us playing with the lead. I hate that Phil Jackson is whining to get ft's !
You know, I've never understood all the anger people have after games over foul calls. I just don't think officiating has that big an impact on the final score. Some of the fouls called on Scola during that one third quarter sequence annoyed me. There were a couple charges that I think the Rockets earned that didn't go their way. But the Rockets lost this game because the Lakers were better, not because of the officials.
I disagree on so many levels. Officiating has a HUGE impact on NBA games. I believe the Rockets were the better team today, but terrible officiating swung the final score in the Fakers favor. ... I mean don't get me wrong, we didn't do ourselves any favors by bricking ft's at the end, and Kobe did go off on us, but we should have been up by enough points by that point for it to hardly matter.
Durvasa- too many people want to blame the refs. When you have a standstill jumpshooting team vs a slashing,moving atheletic team, you're not going to get to the line a lot.
It isn't just free throws man. It's about momentum and rythym. When Yao got his fourth foul we were up 6 points with Yao in a groove defensively and offensively and on the glass + finding guy's out double and triple teams. Yao went out at the end of the third and didn't come back till 7minutes left in the 4th quarter. This killed our momentum because when Yao came back for the 4th he was cold and out of sync. This same crap happen when we were giving it to the cavs. I mean they literally gave the jump tip posession between Yao and ariza to ariza. The fool throws the toss right to ariza.The lakers won the game with the whistle tonight,we played 5 against 8 that's fa sure.
A. It's not just a matter of the number of FT attempts. The fact is Kobe got some BS calls to make up for his poor shooting, and he got them consistently and repeatedly (although I guess we should all be used to that by now), and there were a lot of crap calls against Scola, Yao, and Landry, as well. B. Um... were you watching the game? The Rockets were playing VERY aggressively. Almost all the Lakers were playing matador defense on the perimeter, and our guys were slashing to the basket very frequently.
It wasn't about our lack of getting to the line. It was the fact that they allowed the lakers to kill our momentum and rythym with the calls. We get up 6 points they whistle Yao number 4,He's gone till 7 minutes remaining in the 4th.
If you honestly believe that you must have one really sick perspective because the way fouls are called can play a huge impact on how players approach the game. Would you, as a player, slash and drive in more towards the goal if you knew that the calls weren't going to be made? If you start your offense with the mindset knowing that officials weren't going to make fair calls against you why bother trying to get into the paint? Once Yao was taken out for his 4th foul our team lost its' go to man. He was doing rather well regardless of anything anyone else claims. Wafer has been playing well as of late but Yao is still our primary offensive boost. Without him our team does infact look sloppy and unsure of how to run the offense.. All in all we did play out a pretty good game considering our 2 main guys were out.. hopefully we'll get the next two.
Officiating has a huge effect when it's bad. There was a 16 ft difference today. If the Rox had 2fts more today, they're playing OT. And there were a lot more blown calls today than that. As a postscript, Rafer should have hit those 2 fts at the end. Then we just play some tight D and get it to OT.
it's public knowledge that the nba refs are a big joke. i thought that shiity calls having huge impact on a game was public knowledge, too. but obviously some wanted to pretend to take the morally high road. why can't we call it the way it is?
Actually, we average about over 4 FTs more than our opponents on the season. The Lakers average almost 5 FT more. There's no reason we should get 1/3 the FTs that they did.
its sicking to see the ft disparity when the rox were attacking the basket just at much if not more then the Lakers during the game. Even Coach said something along the lines of "we could not get a whistle if we tired toward the end of the game" in his post game interview. Yao, 1-1 from the ft line. ONE ft that was from a Tech on Kobe! are you kidding me. Von Wafer as much as he drove the ball to the whole he went to the line ....guess how much....Zip! Nada! a big 0! sigh...
If you just look at the team construction between La and Houston, who would you say are going to attack the rim and draw ft's more? They played without fouling tonight. The rox were so undersized, they had to overdue everything to compete. Ariza,Kobe,Odom are all slashers. The rox tonight had 1 and they didn't foul him. The played Ariza on brooks to cut down his penetration and battier,barry,alston and everyone else except brooks are standstill shooters..
I would tend to agree, but as far as this game is concerned, like others have said --- the fourth foul call on Yao really killed the team's momentum. That was the only one time during the game when it looked like the Rockets were starting to take control of the game, and the sequence of officiating in that quarter absolutely stopped them short. From that point on, the Lakers evened the score and kept it close till the end. The Rockets have themselves to blame, for sure. Landry for passing up a wide open jumper to tie. Rafer for bricking free throws. Brooks passing to Yao, and then Yao failing to pass back to Brooks. Overall, the entire team disappearing down the stretch and nobody willing to take the big shots when it mattered (hey super Von? What happened--0 points in the 4th?). I know they turned up the defensive pressure on Wafer but man, did he ever disappear. The only person who seemed like he was willing to try to do something was Rafer, and unfortunately it was ... Rafer. That said, perhaps they wouldn't be trying to draw up a desperation play to tie Bryant's miracle shot in the dying seconds if the refs hadn't cut short a rally that would have likely given the Rockets a double digit lead.
