We would've won that game in early November to have homecourt against Portland. Anyhow like the games we lost against sub-.500 teams this year, it came down to execution in the fourth quarter. We just did not deliver and it cost us home court advantage in the first round where as if we won, we'd have home court advantage for two rounds. This is not the worse case scenario in terms of seeing the worst playoff matchup in the first round. Dallas would've taken us to the limit even if we have homecourt. Jason Terry, Josh Howard, and Dirk Nowitski is enough to give any team fits in the first round (excluding the Lakers) if they were all on their game. If New Orleans actually fouled Finley with 4 seconds left before he got the shot off to tie the game, New Orelans probally would've won and we'd play the Spurs in the first round. Not something you wanna see even if you have homecourt and they're without Manu. Their experience would've been enough maybe to off set that.
No doubt it was huge,and resulted in the difference between home court and being on the road but the team has to step up to the challenge. As great as that shot was there was no one near him.Defense first and good offensive execution can get the job done. I'm not implying it's going to be easy by any means,but we have an opportunity to wrest the advantage that they have right now.
One of the highlights of the year... and hopefully the last one of any major consequence Roy gets on Houston for a long time. Roy is a great player. Hard to not like the dude.
Oh, you mean the illegal shot? I still contend that this shot was invalid and the last few minutes should have been replayed. I know this issue has been beaten to death and i'm sure Rockets brass investigated their options, I just still think the evidence was compelling enough to warrant serious action or a more serious review. Forgive me for needing just a little more proof than just the NBA's word that their "sophisticated equipment" broke it down and issued the correct, indisputable call. The search feature is disabled right now otherwise i'd link in my last rant on this.
I'm glad we don't have homecourt b/c in my estimation the rox go in feeling a bit more desperate like a team trying to tie a series and force a game 7. Had we secured HCA, I think we would have relaxed and might not have fought as hard for every possession. We just need to hammer them in game one or 2 and the series is ours.
Other people, including myself broke it down frame by frame. It was close, but legit nonetheless. Let's just get over it already.
You used a stop watch. As did John Hollinger, who it's safe to say came to a different conclusion than you. I know I need to get over it, it's just hard to swallow such an iffy call in a season where one game is so important.
If we won that game, maybe we would have lost another one. Maybe that loss inspired the Rockets to grind harder in the next game. I don't know for sure, just saying that "what ifs" are pointless. Changing an event in the past would affect other events. Plus, every team loses a few games each season they should have won, including playoff teams. Examples: "What if" the Hornets played the last possession of regulation in their last game more wisely? "What if" we didn't make some big shots late in other games that we ended up winning?
The time to reflect on the regular season is over. Let's just be thankful that the Rockets made it to the playoffs (remember earlier in the season that wasn't a given) and that the opponent they face is one that they play well against. I can't wait for Saturday night!
I would if the search feature wasn't disabled. I forget exactly what your argument was outside of the stop watch. Kind of blurry, I know. But still....it's fairly obvious he's caught the ball, turned and began his jump without any time expiring. http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=157133 Again, I know I need to get over this. I'm just amazing that [to my knowledge] there wasn't a more formal review of this or official statement released other than the NBA issuing their one sentence declaration that their "sophisticated equipment" got it right. That's pretty cheap in my book. Feel free to correct me if i'm wrong on this but did the NBA front office issue the Rockets a formal statement or present any evidence outside of this lone statement. Anybody?
The game is not all that relevant to the matchup, IMO. Ya'll had T-Mac, Alston, and a far different rotation than now. Oden for us was out, and Rudy and Batum each played at least half the game... which I think was like their fourth or fifth NBA game, period. Those kind of shots even out over the season, anyways. About a month later, Hedo Turkoglu banked in a 25-foot 3-pointer with 0.3 seconds to beat us by one. We lost a couple OT games this year, and I'm sure Houston suffered an equal number of losses that just for one or two different bounces the results would've been different. Saturday can't come soon enough. . .
You guys have a really exciting young team and a depth of talent. The future is bright for the Blazers and their fans.
It was like Artest and McGrady had no idea on who to guard. They had a miscommunication. The Rockets had plenty of games like when they had a ten point lead with five minutes to go and lost. The game in New York, the game in Chicago, and the game in San Antonio where Manu and Parker wasn't playing. Its going to come down to basic execution of our offense when the pressure is on in the fourth quarter. Will we falter or rise to the occasion? How will our guards perform in the playoffs given that they have little experience? I think the one thing that is really key to the Rockets is Ron Artest. He has to put the ball on the floor when his shots are not falling and get physical. He could also set some screens for our little gurads to potentially penetrate to the lane and get easy shots. He needs to average at least 15 PPG for the Rockets to win the series.
I really don't care to rehash this again...but for one last time, it's more than obvious that the clock started late. Everybody knows the clock was late. The argument is how long it took him to catch and shoot the ball, and that has been proven to be just a hair under .8 seconds. That makes the clock irrelevant. What it boils down to is that TV is broadcast at 30 frames per second, meaning that 1 frame is 1/30th of a second. From catch to release it took Roy 23 frames of video. That's .7666666667 seconds. Is it close? Hell yes it's close, but in my opinion when you're talking about hundreths or even thousandths of a second to determine whether the shot was good, it's time to just tip your hat to Roy for a great shot and move on. Continuing to think that we got robbed of that game doesn't help anything. Alright, that's it. I vow to never argue about this on the board again
