[Ball Don't Lie] Behind the Boxscore: Rockets vs. Pistons

i agree with his point about artest and the fouls on yao and also scola's 3 second violations lol

 

Balls do lie.

 

yeah, I agree with that. Detroit makes us play slow.

 

KD, if you're still out there everything you wrote is exactly how I felt watching the game.

One thing I haven't seen discussed is that despite AB getting two bad defensive calls against him, he had a terrible game. Huge 3 in 2nd OT, nailed his FTs and came out with a decent stat line.

But if he plays more than one game like this in any series in the playoffs we're going to be in trouble. I have thought the calls for Lowry to start over the last 10 days were way premature, but now I'm hoping Lowry changes everyone's minds in the next couple of weeks.

 

That was a long and interesting read. I agree with KD in most cases. Hubie Brown was very good last night, although I can feel that he had hoped Piston to win the game.

 

He was commending everyone. Detroit deserved major props for what they did last night. He gave them their due. Then we deserved it when we played outstanding half-court defense time and time again, which he gave us.

He's one of the few color commentators who is not result oriented in his call. Other commentators will simply see whether or not the ball went in the hoop and base what he says on taht. Hubie saw everything that happened out there and recognized players for fantastic effort, even if the result was not favorable for them. I love listening to him.

 

I don't disagree with you. In fact, he and Doug Collins are two of my favorite commentators of the game. They are knowledgeable, sharp and objective in most cases. JVG whines too much, but can be fun at times.

 

That was an excellent recap. Thanks for posting it.

 

I didn't hear that at all. He called every single play w/o a biased opinion.

 

Well, I could be totally guessing here. He mentioned during the half time that despite Pistons were shooting 37%, they were only down by 4. They were hustling and boarding themselves into the game. He could see Pistons steal this one from Houston that night. Then I felt that the tone leaning toward Pistons very slightly. I felt that Hubie liked Piston's energy and tenacity. I don't blame him.

But Yao and co. are clutch! A win is a win is a win!

 

He called the game impartially. But he did say near the end that it was too bad the Pistons were letting the game slip away in the 2nd overtime after they had played so hard throughout the entire game. I do think he was kind of pulling for them. And that's alright ... he's human, and they were the underdog.

 

And they were out hustling us.

 

great article! thanks for tha post.

 

I love Hubie-loves every timeout-Brown and Doug Collins and JVG. Those are the big three in my eyes. The problem I have with JVG is sometimes the way he commentates are things that should be reserved in a team's defensive gameplan and not for the whole nation to know. For example, in the beginning of the season against Dallas, JVG kept harping, "I don't understand why defenses don't front Yao. That's his weakness". He kept saying that crap over and over again during every Rockets game and lo and behold, pretty much every time is fronting Yao.

 

"This is the sort of contest that I would scoff at ESPN for wanting to put on air, especially back in July when they put these sorts of schedules together. Much respect to Detroit and Houston, but these are two teams that hate to run, and the two of them going against each other is usually box office poison.

But in reality, goodness, what a game. I still stand by my original scoff; as most of these pairings (since the league slowed considerably in the late 1990s) are horrible to watch. Just think back to the 2005 Finals, if you can remember (and a lot of you act like you cannot). You can respect the hell out of the teams in question, and the series might go seven, but the game-to-game back and forth is usually pretty horrid.

Not on Wednesday. The Pistons were without Rasheed Wallace, Allen Iverson, and Rip Hamilton. That's about $45.5 million in salaries, out. And yet, the team worked. It competed. It hit the boards, the offensive glass, hard. The effort was so strong ... and it wasn't as if they were going up against a Rockets team that could not have cared less about pulling in those defensive rebounds. Detroit just got to them.

And the Rockets put points board on the board quite efficiently. It may have taken this team two overtime periods to reach the century mark, but this is why we use per-possession stats. 50 percent shooting, good ball movement, and about 113 points per 100 possessions. To anyone who called this game's offense "ugly," stop it. It's never ugly when a team uses 23 of the 24 allotted seconds before nailing the shot.

(OK, sometimes it's ugly. But if the team is hitting half its shots, it's not a bad offensive game.)

Yao Ming was the full tasting menu, here. He had the accurate compass. He had enough rations to make it to Oregon. He wasn't too drunk to taste this chicken. He was awesome, and he had the ball. That last part is important. None of the other stuff that I wrote, was.

31 points on 22 shots, 15 rebounds, two assists, two turnovers (in 45 minutes, very good for Yao), and four blocks. So fun to watch, from stem to stern.

Ron Artest also tossed in 26 points, and he did it on 24 shots. Not the end of the world. A pretty good game. Not bad at all. Not happy with it, but the bad shots went in on Wednesday. I don't know where to start, so I'll just stick with the sentence fragments. He's such a tough one to try and talk about.

You see, Artest is a nutter. He put up points, he played fantastic D, he worked his tail off, but he probably broke that last play in the first overtime (Scola is supposed to meet the ball in the high post with Artest staying in the corner, possibly to later come over for a reverse high screen and roll), and he just takes bad shot after bad shot. And this has been the case from Chicago to Indiana to (especially) Sacramento to Houston -- the man breaks plays.

And he also makes some curious decisions. Also, if you've noticed, a trademark.

At one point, in the second overtime, Aaron Brooks was crumpled under the hoop on the opposite side of the court after falling while playing D, and Artest went for a one-on-one move while the Rockets were playing four-on-five.

The ball went in, everyone clapped, but that doesn't mean he stops there. He'll try it again, and more often than not it's a wasted possession that will result in a missed shot or turnover. And on a team that struggles to score as much as the Rockets do, you can't have these sorts of wasted possessions.

(With his team playing four-on-five, he went one-on-one! Essentially, one-on-five!)

His heart's in the right place, it really is. He's a selfish git in all the right ways, but those ways often turn wrong, wrong, wrong. Tonight, it worked.

The officiating ... not so much. Lots of clutching and grabbing and outright fouling on both ends, usually to the detriment of the impartial fan.

Artest was man-handling players out there. Two-hands in the stomach any time a post-up player turned to face up and drive, with lots of contact on reach-ins. I appreciate his aggressive nature, I really do, but those were fouls. This wasn't why Tayshaun Prince (4-17 shooting) was struggling so much, Artest can shut him down playing cleanly, but there should have been a few more calls. Also, Luis Scola got away with several three-second defensive violations that weren't called.

On the other end, Yao Ming had to deal with a series of post-position fouls that weren't called, and how is it that when Shane Battier pulls the chair out from under his man, doesn't touch him, his guy falls to the floor, it's Shane that is the one called for the foul? How does that work?

This may seem like more calls went in Houston's favor, but the severity of the Yao calls evened things out, to my eyes.

(I hate that I appear to be dumping all over Artest, who wants to win badly, but I can't live with myself if I don't point this stuff out. And with just three games on Thursday, I can't keep it a secret today and take it out in some random player in a passive/aggressive way in some other giant BtB, ripping on Ronnie Brewer for no reason.)"

http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/blog/ba...e-NOLA-knows?urn=nba,149080#remaining-content



Kelly, that was an absolute pleasure to read! And I agree with pert near all of it. Rock on!

edit: that's a partial quote. Click on his column!

 

And what about that isn't true? I think what he was trying to say is that it's a shame for them to fight so hard for so long and then get blown out in double OT. Not that he wants them to win over the other team, but that its really deflating to lose by as much as they were behind after the entire game. I agree with him, the Pistons played their butts off.

I do see what your're saying, and we're arguing over silly little semantics, but thats what the internet is for