Stop blaming individual players for last nights lost. We played a good game and a game we could have won easily....the major problem last night were the missed free throws. points alone would have put us in the W column, but momentum wise it would have put a lot of pressure on the young Blazers. If our 5-7pt lead was ballooned to 10-12 pt lead with the rox making a portion of their misses. Ahhhh that was frustrating Oh and that ridiculous flop they called for Przybxyzgorilla was the sign of how blazers planned to stop Yao that night...Horrible call refs We played a good game on the road that we let slide. Don't think this will happen at home. Go Rox Get well Deke
Someone need youtube that flop, i saw AK's epic flop on Dirk everywhere, we should do the same to Przybxyzgorilla.
This is true. But we still have to maximize what we can control. And last night was below average at the line.
Also the refs were not helping either. An obvious goal tending call late and many phantom fouls on Yao being called by the ref 30 feet away from the play. Anyways, the blazers played their best game and we played average. Even with the refs and the Blazers stars shooting lights out, we almost won...on the road no less. We sweep the next 2 home games and this series is over. The Blazers will pull out the big can of quit. Blazers were in a MUST-WIN situation. Tip your hat that they brought their "A" game but without the ref's help and the Rockets FT shooting, they would have lost.
*raises hand* i seriously wanted to get out of the 1st round with ease...to rub it in all the haters faces especially ESPN and Tmac haha. Seriously Rox get no love...Cavs beat 8th seed detroit by 20 and they are all excited and licking lebrons nuts...meanwhile us beating the 4th seed at their home by 27 we get a short blurb
I didn't even though I thought they could have won last night! I know NBA analysts are a bunch of douchbags but there's a reason 9 out 10 pick blazers to win the series. Blazers didnt sneak into the playoff because of luck. They area good young up and coming team. You people need to respect your opponent a little sometime.
Guys, don’t get me wrong. I’m as frustrated as you about the horrible FT’s last night. We’re #5 in the league in FT percentage, that’s supposed to be our STRONG suit, not our weakness. No doubt we win the game if we make half of those 10 misses. Just saying that’s not the only reason we lost. We had no answer for Roy. Artest was 1-8 behind the arc while our most consistent 3-point shooter (Shane) only attempted 1 all night long. But I think our team defense was the main reason we lost. And you know….I’m NEVER one to blame a loss on the refs because I don’t believe in conspiracy theories, plus I think it’s a copout….but a LOT of calls/non-calls last night really make me wonder…
not making free throws on the road is definitely a problem and not making it last night hurt us. but there were also bad ref calls that (i.e. two fouls on roy by battier and the pryzbilla flop) changed the momentum of the game. not to mention the constant fouls that were overlooked on yao. i thought i was watching UFC with pryzbilla putting an arm bar technique on yao. and substituting von wafer out when he was beginning to light up didn't help either. thanks alot adelman
So now we know. Now we know that the Blazers can beat us. Now we know that when Roy scores 42 they can beat us. Now we know when Aldridge scores 27 they can beat us. Now we know when they execute their defense to perfection on our best player and thus he only scores 11 with only 6 shot attempts they can beat us. Now we know when Artest starts playing against the crowd and is missing shots they can beat us. Now we know that when our entire front court (starters and subs) combines for only 27 points they can beat us. Now we know that when all of that happens they can beat us by 4 points. Let me tell you what else we know. We know we are coming home to H-town and still have HCA (if we win the next game it would be like we were up 2-0 and they stole a game at home by 4). We know that when our best player is rendered useless, we have other guys that can step up. This is incredible, we can score 103 on these guys without much from Yao. We know that as fans we must match or beat Portland's crowd. This reminds me of some past Rocket playoffs, we won but it took incredible performances from Tmac. When that happened we could pull off these 4 point victories. When they limited Tmac, other teams could overwhelm us. It is scary to have your best player go off for a historic night and only win by 4. 15-27 is difficult to maintain an entire series, we just have to make adjustments. Oh and Aldridge is the guy I would rather have "beating" us offensively. He won't really pass to get others involved and his shots are very difficult sometimes. He is not great at drawing contact yet and thus won't really draw too many fouls. Limit Roy to his average, single cover the best we can with Aldridge, don't allow others to really contribute and we should be set. We can not let other players step up and we cannot allow Roy to get to the rim that easily. If that means going under screens to force Roy into jumpers... that is what we do. We must treat him like Lebron and throw both Battier and Artest at him over and over again. Offensively, we need to attack the rim. A few layups don't rim out (Lowry and Wafer) and we could have had this. So now we know: 24 on 9-9, check says the Rockets. 42 on 15-27, check says the Blazers, this one is for #55, checkmate says the city of Houston. -V
the refereeing was tight but fair, IMO. We nearly fouled out two of their centers and were in the penalty the whole first half. Portland just hit some incredible shots, I mean the dagger 3-pointer by Roy was exactly the shot the Rockets would have settled for in the situation (pull-up, off balance, ron in his face, , a step outside the three point line) - he just hit it, nothing you can do about it.
A good thread because it speaks the truth. We missed easy shots from Landry/Scola (things they normally knock down) and we missed tons of free throws. We have to capitalize on the opportunities given to us. We didn't, so we lost. It's that simple. I expect Adelman so make some defensive adjustments to stop either Aldridge or Roy a bit more next game.
sure, we miss the PT that cause us a close game, but that sometime happens, what make me concerns the way we panic when the game is on the line- Artest was once again out of control, Brooks turnovers and bad desicion making, we;re out of timeout in the final minutes..... however, you have to agree, we played a not bad game despite yao only took 6 shots, at least, AD showed us what we were doing out there when yao is front and double team. Honestly, i thought portland has showed what they got , all most everything, they need Roy to play a amazing game to win 4 points in their home, i live with that! I just wonder why we didn;t double team Roy, if you gonna lose, let the role player beat you!
if this is true, there is no meeting between laker and rocket for sure. it is not incredible that rocket scored +-100 with Yao's +-10 but lost, it is not incredible that rocket scored +-85 with Yao's 20+ but win. it happended most of the time. it seems 2 points from Yao do more harm to opponent team than 3s outside:< I still prefer Lowry/Wafer much more than current start.
Good post. Reasons I think we'll win game 3: -We will make more FTs -Roy will not have 42 again (either we'll double team him / try different scheme as Blazers did with Yao) -Yao will get his season average of 19-20 (even with fronting, at home, he'll get more calls and FT, and we'll get him the ball more) -Home court
