I totally agree. This loss like I said is on the Coach. He is not just very good if you ask me. Von was doing every thing right, then you take him out and Artest pretty much lost the game for us. After 15pts in the first Q, he scores 4 points down the stretch, turns the ball over with a forced pass to Yao, lets roy go off, and then misses all his shots down the stretch. We had a guy driving to the lane and getting to the line, you replace his with someone who shot 1/8 from 3PT land. Without artests 1/8 we go would have gone 6/14 from 3. I do not have confidence in this coach, and he just never takes responsiblity like JVG used to. Can you teach the rockets to play more physical with Roy? just shameful
my thought exactly. Except if Yao does't go nuclear for the upcoming games, I think we'll probably lose the next three games and go fishing!
Damn it. Did you see RA had a plan to run through Yao in the game? No, I dont think so. I guess it's not because Yao was not battling for the position, but because they had a plan which is when Yao's fronted, run the PnR or pass the ball to the weak side and attack the basket. I really think Yao wanted the ball if not for the game plan before the game. I dont balme Yao or Ron or Battier(for not guarding Roy well) for the loss. I think we would win the game if we could make a few more fts and make a bit more open shots. Scola needs to do better next time.
If we could establish Yao earlier and give them blow out, officiating wont be our barricade of moving forward. But the real problem is we gave up our biggest guy and all things established aroud smallest AB.
Other than the Deke injury, which was demoralizing, the Rockets are in good shape. Even with the poor officiating, misses at the foul line, and Yao not getting too many touches, Houston was in it until the end. I doubt the Blazers can play any better than they did tonight and they still barely won. It just seems the Rockets can't escape the injuries that are always haunting this team. Deke's absence will hurt on the glass and in not allowing the opponents easy baskets. Everybody needs to step their game up a little more in his absence and win it for him at least. I still think the Rockets will win in 6. Stay aggressive and beat Portland twice at home and take your chances back on their home court and if the Rockets lose, beat them in game 6 in Houston.
Ok I'm not blaming the game on the refs. We couldn't hit our free throws. We couldn't get Yao the ball. We couldn't stop Roy. However that last play with Fernandez was complete and total BS. Lowry didn't touch him. There was little contact before he tripped himself up, but after that Lowry literally didn't touch him. I could see the shadow from Lowry's arm on Fernandez jersey, meaning there was space. Fernandez's foot caught his own calf and he tumbled to the ground. He fell on himself. If anything it should be a foul on Fernandez for tripping up Lowry as Lowry had to jump over him. More realistically it should have been our ball with 1.5 seconds left. We didn't do everything we need to do to win, but we got ****ed on that last play. Thanks Joey, I appreciate that.
Here is the funny thing, Yao was fronted for almost 48 min. He had to pop out and hit 15 footers before he could get his first 2 points. How come the coach could not adjust for 48 mins? If we loose this series, I say fire Adelman. On the flip side, I think Yao really needs to now expand his game if he cannot seal his man and be dominant with the fronting issue. Z in cavaliers makes 15s footers, dream used to make them as well. He just need to be able to expand his range, then we would not have to worry about it again.
And his clean face guard of Roy that resulted in 2 FT's, or LA hitting the ball out of Scola's hands and being awarded the basketball resulting in a Roy 3. All the calls down the stretch went to the Blazers.
also to point out, yes ron sucked ass after the 1st quarter, but on his 1-8 3's sounds worse than it seems. I think maybe 3 or even 4 were late shot clock shots that were passed to him by AB. AB dribbled a lot, and our offense wasn't running very smooth. They have 3 days to beat this fronting even though we knew it was gonna come tonight.
I see the only fans blaming adelman, brooks, artest, moses, and robert reid. At some point can just say, the other team just won? I see battier pulled his usual, scola got abused like in the regular season, my crying about no size came back to hurt us, and after all that, the team couldve still won. The gameplan was solid, but when you're a defensive team and the opponet shoots 51%, you're probably gonna lose. Tough game, some bad calls, but the lack of rotations on offense really hurt. BTW, did Battier play tonight?
Rox must solve the Feeding Yao problem not evade it just like tonight. Just wait Ron creata his own shots....that anything was going to tough... i think Rox need to intend some effective plans for Ron,Sorla to let Proland get hurt continually for they fronting Yao, btw,i just like what Wafer done tonight!keep it up VON!!
