Weak

An elbow to the throat is very dangerous, Ron said he had spoke with the officals about Kobe' other dirty deeds, and no response, if you look at the tape the offical was right there and no way he could have missed the elbow, so Ron had to act out now maybe they will start to look at Kobe with true eyes and see all that he is doing, this may work in our favor? They need to turn up the heat and if you heard their interviews after the game you can count on that! Go Rockets!

 

This thread is weak.

People talk about how they got into our heads.

The Lakers didn't play mind games with us, people!

They pretty much beat on us, until we cracked. Getting beat physically is wayy different from getting beat mentally.

If someone makes fun of your sibling, you'll just return the verbal insult.
Someone hits your sibling? You wanna kill 'em.

Whole different story.

 

Disagree 100%. This is completely opposite of how I feel.

If anybody thought Lakers prefered to play physical, slow the game down, and make it foul-ridden, I'd say you're lying. They want to run the ball up and down the court, get easy fast break points, and score in the 100s.

We got into their heads, which is why they are doing things completely uncharacteristic of the Lakers teams, aka pushing, shoving, whining.

I also thought it was funny that Kobe was shooting right out of the gate. When Lakers were up by 16 in the first quarter, I thought having Kobe taking all the shots were playing right into our hands. I wasn't slightly worried about the deficit, because they were only leading that much by shooting over 80%, and it had nothing to do with our defense.

To be honest, I believe this is the best 13 point loss we can ask for. Sure, we had a ton of turnovers in the 4th when we lost all our playmakers, and the whole Wafer thing is r****ded beyond my imagination. Deep down, it's pretty obvious that the Lakers aren't going to think about the Denver Nuggets any time soon.

Before the series started, I suspected that Lakers have a shot at taking a game in Toyota Center, so I really thought we needed to steal game 2 as well. We didn't exactly accomplish that, but the LA roadtrip is still a sucess. Now we just gotta play our game and protect home court.

Go Rockets!

 

i disagree. this game was ridiculous, the refs were outrageous. we weren't winning this game, ron artest knew that, i wish every single player said something after this game, because imo it was just plain stupid. 1, 2, 5, bad calls....ya ill live, but as many as there were tonight...i dont think i can watch another game in this series without being fully disgusted with the way the nba has become

 

What came of that?...more dirty play. Shane got knocked around, bled all over the place and guess what, game 2 was more like round 2.

Ron made a statement.

I doubt we see any more elbows flying at Ron's neck.

 

technicals and ejections don't earn you any respect. beating your opponent by scoring more points than they do earns you respect.

the op was right on.

 

5 stars, Will. Right on!

Always thinking yourself a victim is loser mentality. We can be a winner even against Lakers! But our players have to truely believe this.

 

It would have been dumb for Ron to come out swinging but he was just trying to get his team fired up. Same thing Fisher was trying to do but not dirty. Crawford overreacted.

 

i feel like there are two kinds of fans...mental fans and emotional fan and will is a mental fan. i am an emotional fan

 

I think it bears repeating that Artest should NOT have been ejected for his actions. The very man he stood up to even thinks so.

 

It's interesting to see how some posters adamantly agree while others disagree.

I actually think we're mentally really strong. I was impressed by how we stuck in the game and came back in the 2nd quarter.

Aaron Brooks needs to make some adjustments, as they adapted to his play from Game 1. We also need to get Yao back in it, we need that killer instinct we had in Game 1 where we were out to win, and we were in control.

Wafer was really emotional in Game 1, and I think he handled it better this game on the court, yet something went wrong on the bench.

But I'm not sure how you can call the play and demeanor and attitude of Lowry, Landry, Hayes, Scola, Yao, Battier, Artest, Brooks..mentally weak. They're really playing tough, and they're mentally strong to me.

Scola didn't back down. Their whole team came to talk to him. He asks them What'd you say? He held his ground. That's mentally tough.
Artest wanted to make known that there was an unjust call made. And he went to Kobe to basically confront him about Kobe's blatant elbow (maybe not intentional about hitting the throat, but maybe). He's calling for justice. I think that's mentally tough or strong.

Also, after Fisher's blatant, intentional knockout of Scola, you think we should keep quiet (which we did), and just "send a message" back in the next play or some play in the future, to reciprocate? Or with the Kobe incident, just elbow him back? I think that's mentally weak. This isn't a wrestling match. It wouldn't be basketball. That's like the Jazz. We don't want to be like the Jazz. If we just give them their own medicine, we're just as dirty and cheap and sleazy as they are.

I hope the Rockets don't stoop down to Lakers level and resort to dirty cheapshots. Sure, we might lose the series, but at least we played the right way. (But I'm hoping that we play better at home )

We're playing with physical toughness and mental toughness, and we're playing "fair and square", as Artest says. Hopefully we keep it that way.

 

FAIL for you thinking that was even CLOSE to being an ejection.

Kobe was smiling cause he got away with an elbow and didn't even get called for a foul. Artest did not deserve to get thrown out. Shane played it passive on Monday, letting Kobe knee and elbow him off that loose ball, what did the NBA do? Call it a tussle. By Artest drawing attention to what happened, the situation gets replayed millions of times, and the NBA has to say SOMETHING.

If Artest walked away, it would've been a foul and no one would've reviewed that situation. We were not going to win this game, regardless.

 

I'm pretty sure this isn't going to happen. He won't make a fool of himself at home. I think emotions ran SUPER high, PLUS we were in Staples, with everyone booing him.

 

If Artest punches Kobe, Kobe is going to get a broken Jaw and won't be able to even laugh or play a game.

 

Artest himself said "it's not going to get worse." And I believe him. Why? Cause we have a coach that can control the guy.

Will, he DIDN'T DO ANYTHING. He went up and confronted Kobe. What is wrong with that? All this attention has now been placed on the elbow.

As a fan, we clamor for someone to call what we see. Well, now they might.

 

Sorry man, but what ron did, he did not deserve a ejection. He knew he was going to get a tech but an ejection? No, even kobe said so

 

Phil would use all means necessary to win this game, so did kobe. It's too simple to consider they get a W simply by an elbow. Laker prepared very well to defense yao and got tons of TO from him. I think that's the key of game 2. Even Ron seemed play very well, the game already tilt to Laker when Yao is neutralized. Ron may realized that and try to get something useful out of the game. How can houston defeat LA if yao is a nonfactor. Weak? Yes, more on coach side.

 

I wouldn't mind us pulling a Miami Heat and stage a fight with Kobe on the floor. Make sure it goes down far away from other players/refs so it gives Kobe maximum amount of time to punch back. That would be automatic suspension.