If this team was banking on a 60 year old man to help win a playoff series, then they were doomed from the start. Now if we lost YAO, that'd be cause to hang one's self.
Deke barely played all season. He's not the turning and point and he's one of my favorited players. Landry is going to have to show up and every time Scola has a game like tonight we usually lose.
I think that's a little extreme. As long as we win at home, we will in the series in 6. If I was a Portland fan, I'd have zero confidence in winning on the road. Scola's not going to play this bad maybe the rest of the series. I expect Chuckwagon to play more, since Scola will have to play the 5 some. LMA and Roy carried them to the win. That will absolutely not happen on the road. Fluke game if you ask me. We will miss Deke against the Lakers though. God damn that is awful. Absolute injustice to Deke.
I actually don't think the Trailblazers fronting is as effective as say the Jazz or Mavs. They tend to foul way too obvious and they don't physical up on Yao like those other teams. That plus the Blazers being a young team on the road, I think the Rockets chances are still very good. Also the Blazers defense is pretty weak which allowed all kinds of Rocket players to penetrate and score.
Also it took 40+ points from Roy to beat us WITH a bad game from Yao. What are the chances of that happening again in the playoffs? Playoffs are about adjustments, Portland made theirs and were actually lucky the Rox missed their FTs. I still have full confidence we'll take these next two games.
Yep, maybe I'm rationalizing it, but I'm not very concerned yet. We haven't seen an average game from Yao yet, we have looked a bit out of sync for stretches, no has really had an explosion game except maybe Brooks and Yao in game 1, and we got a split. It took Roy going off for 41 points in a game where Yao did not do much, Aldridge getting red hot for a stretch, and being at home for them to barely pull out a win. If Roy has to keep carrying them like this, he will be spent by game 4 or 5, and I really dont think their bigs can keep up with Yao over the course of a series the way they are trying to play physically. Hold court at home and we are in great shape.
Agree with OP. Roy and Aldridge are good but both played above expectation tonight (LMA was on fire in the 1st half, BRoy in the 2nd). Those two are basically Portland's offense and the odds of them playing as well here are not as high. The loss of Deke obviously hurts but I think we have enough with Landry and Hayes beat Portland. There is also no way that Yao and Scola both have sub par games at home. Basically, we blew them out in one game and lost a close one to a young, talented, athletic team that plays a lot better at home than they do on the road.
yes. losing deke was our biggest loss in game 2. i predicted we take it in 5. now it may take longer. i still feel we can win this series, but our chances against the lakers just got worse.
we split, which was a good outcome. now, is the hard part. this series is all about holding homecourt for us. if we win the next two at home, we will be in fine shape.
And how did he play like crap? He shot over 50% with zero turn over. Do you haters ever watch the damn game?
it was down to the wire before the oden put back, which is late in 4th quarter on their turf. This series smells way different from that of 2 years ago. I would like to see if roy can keep up with this shooting and worse aldridge swooshing down shots in houston
Thank god a reasonable thread! People need to chill out. We played awful, couldn't get Yao the ball, shot terrible free throws, had inconsistent shooting from our roleplayers, let Brandon Roy go off for 42 and STILL could have won the game with just a few stops. To me, that's a good sign, and very encouraging. We knew the Blazers would come back hard, and they weren't just going to roll over and let us kick them out of the playoffs. I think the fact that we got their best shot and gave a bad one and nearly pulled out of Portland 2-0 is something to be really pumped about. Chill, dudes. It wasn't going to be a sweep.
yeah I don't think roy and aldridge could of play any better than they did tonight. Yao ming need to put up more stats thou
