I believe Portland will win by 10+ in game 4, and Houston will win 10+ in game 5 and Portland will wrap the series in game 6 by a few points. I believe Houston blew there chance with the first two games.
McHale should be open to giving DMo a shot at guarding LMA. Next game Aldridge is going to drag Asik out even further from the basket, and Asik may struggle to keep up just like in Game 2. I think DMo will be making an appearance next game. Edit: Basically, I hope we plan thoroughly enough for the next game with new strategies for Portland's countermoves to this game.
Our starting line up needs to be Asik, Howard, Harden, Bev, and Lin with Daniels and Parson's subbing in and out of the line up depending on the situation.
got the Blazers figured out? They blew another double-digit lead in the 4th. Was down 4 in OT. Won the game after the star players turned it over, and by chance the ball bounced to where Lin could get to it and pass it to some guy who most people prayed they wouldnt have to see when it was originally thought Bev was not coming back in the series. It's not like the Rockets just dismantled the Blazers.
Portland got some lucky break again. That lucky shot by Lilliard while drawing foul and Aldridge does the same and there is some broken plays that went their way.
We by no means have the Blazers 'all figured out'. However, having said this, the outcome of game 4 (and the series for that matter) is completely on us and how WE play. I truly believe that we are only beating ourselves up at the moment. Portland isn't doing anything mind-blowing exactly (except for Aldridge who looks like the second coming of Hakeem, Jordan and Wilt combined in those first two games), but its our own ineptness that is resulting in us losing games.. Harden is playing horribly, but so is everyone else except Howard and maybe Asik. We're just not hitting our shots. I don't feel like Portland's defence is making us take that many difficult shots or making us uncomfortable on the offensive end at all. Many of the shots we miss are good/decent looks that have been going down in the regular season but are just not falling for us now (perhaps due to players being a little nervous, who knows). Our defence hasn't been any worse that it was in the regular season either, but we manage to go up 3-1 against them then. If anything, I'm actually seeing some solid patches of GOOD defence on our end. What's killing us is trying to grab the damn rebounds. Minimising their offensive rebounds would go a long way to us winning the series. I'm not sure if we can we two straight games in Portland, but if we do win game 4, then i do believe that we'll win the series.
We dodged the bullet. I think we have weathered the blazers' knock-out punch (6pts? OT lead.) That was the series right there. None has climbed out of a 0-3. 1-2 It is a very different series now. The Rockets can do this. Game 4 is a blow-out. The blazers are demoralized after letting that 0-3 slip away.
