this has to be up there on the all-time overreaction list. one call that cost a team one point before halftime? wow. i'm guessing there are 5 or 6 really bad calls in any basketball, football, or baseball game that potentially cost teams games. that's just how it is. to write a long article and to be so outraged is just amazing to me. if this isn't reviewable (it isn't) and there's no procedure to undo the play and reset the clock (has a play ever been undone and the clock reset, ever?), then what are the refs to do? just make a procedure up? according to the author, they should actually break the rules to try and make up for missing the call. yes, we all agree not noticing the 6 players was bad and cost the celtics a point, but every obvious miscall doesn't get overturned just because that seems like the right thing to do. and i'm guessing the celtics have had a call or two go their way that helped them. exactly. has nobody been paying attention throughout the entire history of sports? if the umpire doesn't notice a runner missing a base, or a ref doesn't see a holding, or a ref misses a guy standing out of bounds and stealing it from mcgrady, then it didn't happen. that's just how it is and always has been.
"In other words, the officials rewarded a team for the most brazen form of cheating." _____ Could this article be a little more over the top ? Who is this mysterious 6th man who has ruined the NBA !?
If performance relative to expectations really don't have anything to do with it, you are very unique and I've never met a sports fan like you. This is why EVERY Blazers fan is hyped about 20-12 and many Rockets fans are not.
really? I seem to remember quite a bit of hype over Portland before the season began... http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/dailydime?page=dime-PortlandPreview0809 20-12 is a respectable record, and currently the 5th seed in the WC. Nothing fantastic, but nothing horrible, which is about where I thought most people expected the Blazers to be. the Rockets....yes, they have underachieved, but the injuries, man....... Portland's future looks bright indeed, but I still believe the Rockets best bball is in front of them.
Even if you look at those ESPN projections, they average to making the Blazers the 7th seed. And nobody (and I mean nobody) thought they would come out of the gate at 20-12. Blazers fans lost their breath when they saw the first 24 games of the schedule. They are ahead of expectations by every realistic measure. It really isn't arguable. For them, 20-12 is "fantastic". The Rockets were a top 4 pick, as high as #2. I also seem to remember in a couple of pre-season prediction threads here, probably more than 1/2 the people that commented said the Blazers would miss the playoffs. Hopefully both the Rockets and Blazers have their best days of this season ahead of them. Both squads are yoyos, where you don't know what to expect from game to game. For a raw team like Portland, you expect that. For a veteran team like the Rockets, the inconsistent effort level from the players is discouraging.
Wait a minute, I think there's a little bit of confusion regarding the argument at hand here. Due to their youth and our age, Blazers fans would probably feel overall more optimistic about their team than we do. However, if we're isolating the argument to this season, I don't see how you can't feel more optimistic as a Rockets fan. We've been playing without our best players all year, historically have always made late runs in the McGrady era, and yet we are sitting at 20-12. Isn't it reasonable to feel better about the title hopes of an underacheiver than an overacheiver when both have identical records? As far as long term, I'm not sure I'm that big on the Blazers anymore. They have a bunch of really good players, and a 2nd tier star in Roy. Unless Roy makes the leap to Kobe-Wade level (which he won't, he's not physically gifted enough) I don't see them cracking into that "elite" on the strength of their depth.
Didn't the NBA order the replay of the 4th quarter of a Heat-Hawks game last year when Shaq was DQ'ed with only 5 fouls? If they can replay a quarter for that, I think this situation deserves some consideration as well. Especially since this play explicitly involves the number of points on the board.
Common sense should prevail, and they should have reset the clock and told the Blazers to rerun the play with 5 players. There's nothing complicated about it. I'm sure something like that has happened before. I recall the Rockets had to rerun a play that they scored on once, maybe 4 or 5 years ago. And didn't Miami and Atlanta have to replay the final minute of a game last season?
I forgot about that one. Stern doesn't want to short change his stars. We are probably looking at a replay of more than half a game in this case.
Wasn't it just last season that the Rockets started a second half, and the teams failed to switch goals? We scored on the first possession before it was noticed. Did it count? No. We started play over completely.
it was against the hawks i believe 2 seasons ago when i think it wasnt that we switched goals but the rockets we given the ball to start the 2nd half and they came down and scored and it was supposed to be the hawks who should have started with the ball
Yes, I've noticed I'm different from most fans. Really, my expectations (or rather my predictions, because i'm not paying anyone i don't expect anything) don't always coincide with others'. I didn't look at they're schedule but i thought the blazers would be a pretty good team this year. Their young guns were a year older, more experienced, and they were getting even more talented young players. As far as the rockets are concerned, with their injury history, i don't think this slow start is shocking. Their record is within the range i thought it would be as well. Yes, if i 'believed the hype' i should really be upset that the rockets aren't ripping through the competition but in years past this team hasn't showed me any reason to predict that would happen.
It's ironic that Boston is complaining. I seem to notice that they, the Lakers, and the Cavs have been regularly playing with 8 men on the court.
So this is the second instance of "cheating" by the Blazers this season. First the extra seconds against the Rockets and now six men on the court - both of which led to wins. No wonder they are exceeding expectations...
