ClutchFans Game Thread: Rockets @ Blazers 4/28/2009 (Playoffs Round 1, Game 5)

You are so right!

In the whole season, I did predict a win for every rox's game.
So, in this season, my prediction= 53/82=64% accuracy.

 

This team showed me they have balls and are ready to fight to the end in Game 4. It was the king of games and response I was looking for in this team. In years if we got into the fourth down chalk it up as a loss. But we didn't fold under the pressure. If we maintain we should wrap this up tonight and give those Lakers a rude awakening they haven't been played tough and we know the Lakers are soft. Their like the new Suns they score a lot. But everybody Knows defense wins championships.

Rockets 95
Blazers82

 

Didn't think this was worthy of it's own thread so I'm posting it here. Good stuff from the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/28/sports/basketball/28rockets.html?hpw

April 28, 2009
Taking Unexpected Route, the Rockets Are Poised to Advance
By HOWARD BECK
HOUSTON — To secure a victory and inch closer to the second round of the playoffs, the Houston Rockets needed one big defensive play and a handful of free throws.

They got the stop when their backup power forward drew a charge on one of the game’s most dazzling scorers. They got the win despite missing some of the free throws.

“That’s our season,” Coach Rick Adelman, slightly chagrined, said Sunday after the 89-88 victory against the Portland Trail Blazers. “We don’t ever make anything easy.”

The Rockets have a 3-1 lead over the Blazers and are one win from their first playoff series victory in 12 years. Houston began the season with a star-studded lineup of Yao Ming, Tracy McGrady and Ron Artest and championship aspirations. The script has been heavily edited along the way.

That All-Star group started only 14 games together because of injuries. McGrady’s season ended Feb. 9, two weeks before he had microfracture knee surgery. Along the way, the Rockets traded their starting point guard, Rafer Alston, a move that seemed tantamount to a concession speech.

“We’ve had a lot of evolution,” forward Shane Battier said with a smile and a tone that made the tumult sound much more pleasant. “Our lineup for the first half of the year was so dynamic — every single night was a different lineup. We had to come to the gym to find out who was playing that night.”

Yet the Rockets had one of the N.B.A.’s best records over the final two months and could reach the Western Conference semifinals for the first time since 1997. Their first chance to close out the series is Tuesday night in Portland.

None of this makes much sense until one watches the way the Rockets methodically carve a path to victory behind a lineup of largely anonymous role players. Game 4 was illustrative.

The Rockets closed the first quarter on a 24-9 run, including a 9-point burst in two minutes from Von Wafer, a reserve guard. Wafer joined the team last summer after failing to stick with four other teams (including Portland) over the last four years.

Houston’s point guard in the fourth quarter was Kyle Lowry, who until February had spent his three-year career with Memphis, fighting for playing time on one of the worst teams. He was acquired in the three-team trade that sent Alston to Orlando.

The Rockets’ other key reserves are a pair of undersize, overachieving big men, the 6-foot-9 Carl Landry and the 6-6 Chuck Hayes. Landry had a key jumper and two rebounds down the stretch. It was the barrel-chested Hayes who made the most memorable, and risky, defensive play of the night.

With 10.7 seconds left, and the Rockets leading by 2, the Blazers’ Brandon Roy drove hard into the lane and plowed into Hayes, who just beat him to the spot. Roy, a two-time All-Star, was called for the offensive foul. That unlikely play should have secured the victory, but the Rockets added some drama when Aaron Brooks missed 2 of 4 free throws in the final 10 seconds.

Brooks is another surprise star in the Rockets’ reconstituted galaxy. A late first-round pick in 2007, he had not started an N.B.A. game until this season. He was handed the job in February, when the team traded Alston. Even Brooks was surprised.

“People were going around saying: ‘What are the Rockets doing? Are they giving up on the season?’ ” Brooks said. “I was nervous. It’s a big role for me.”

He has handled the pressure with a steady grace, averaging 16.5 points and 4.8 assists in the series, hitting 3-pointers when the need arises and using his incredible quickness to create scoring chances for Artest, Yao and Luis Scola.

Yet the most striking feature of the Rockets’ rise is who is not contributing: McGrady, who on Sunday watched from the bench, dressed in a dark pinstripe suit.

For years, McGrady has carried an unfortunate burden as one of the N.B.A.’s biggest stars never to win a playoff series. He is 0 for 7 in the first round, including three tries with Houston.

Now that the Rockets seem ready to end their postseason drought, McGrady is a hobbled spectator, helpless to erase the fat asterisk on his résumé. Worse, his absence has fueled the notion that perhaps Houston is better without him.

“That’s crazy,” said Daryl Morey, the Rockets’ general manager. “Are we better without the injured Tracy? Yeah, he was playing on an injured knee and he could barely jump.”

Yet the Rockets are undeniably different. Artest and Battier are two of the top perimeter defenders in the league, and they now spend more time on the court together.

On offense, McGrady dominated the ball, like most superstar guards, which could make it tougher for everyone else to find a rhythm. Without him, the scoring load has been spread around. Scola and Artest are more prominent. Yao is the uncontested first option. Battier is getting more chances. (He hit two huge 3-pointers in the fourth quarter Sunday.)

It is impolitic to say that the Rockets are better without McGrady, who has averaged 22 points in his career. But as Blazers Coach Nate McMillan noted poignantly: “When you take away scoring like that, it forces that team to play together. And playing together wins.”

This is not the season the Rockets had envisioned. It may, however, prove much more memorable.

 

wow ur embarrassing

 

Rockets by 10.

 

It's been a while for advancing....! O yea, GO ROCKETS!!!!

Eagerly awaiting start time, win by lucky 7.

 

ESPN.com had a poll on who will win. Only the state of Oregon primarily believes the Blazers will in 4-3.

 

Hopefully the Rox win by a good margin because a close game might spell doom on the road

 

The people in China will watch Yao on Chinese networks, not the US TV networks.

 

...it'll be on CCTV5 and plenty of other Chinese TV stations/online streams

 

I'll be very surprised if Yao gets the calls today, look for the usual physicality from Flopzilla and Olden without the whistles. You know how the NBA loves to extend series.

 

Cmon Rockets beat them and advance!! GO ROCKETS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

ATDHE , Streaming site link---->>>>>>>>


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I hate these late games.

 

i'm confused! idk who's going to win..i'm rooting for the rocks casue thats my team but their on the road in a close out game and idk if they can handled it..lakers!! here we come!! (i hope)

 

i don't care how, i just want the win

 

We need to focus mentally to win this game. We could easily get blown out from lack of focus, or they can easily get blown out for lack of motivation and lack of effort.

I do expect a blowout, I just don't know from which team.

 

I do not have NBA TV and am across the country in MA, so I am completely without access to this game.

Is anyone able and willing to record game 5 onto a DVD for me, please?
I'd be happy to cover shipping and handling...

Let me know!
Thanks,
BattiersBaby.

 

Rockets will crush the Blazers.

Yao goes off for 35. Dunks the ball late in the 4th with Oden hanging on his back...Oden storms off the court in a wild temper tantrum while Yao tries to calm him down.

 

Well taking my first shot of bacardi 151, goodbye everyone hopefully i see the game