Blazers' Robin Lopez after losing 2 games to Spurs

Lillard on the Spurs...

“Their screens hurt. They actually set real screens,” Lillard told CSNNW.com. “They do a great job of setting and holding screens. It wears you down. Chasing Tony Parker is one thing. Getting hit every single time is another thing. It takes a toll on you.”

Another angle... we didn't make them work hard enough defensively.

 

Rockets are SOFT. Period.

 

We don't like setting screens. ISO and 4 dudes standing behind the 3 point line is good enough for us in the regular season. Since it works for most games, it must be good enough. More pop also helps. Stupid ass Spurs and their mid range shots.

Next year, we just need more pop.

 

Not going to disagree with you on McHale, though I don't think he's that bad. He's just not what this team need.

Now, on to the last critical possessions of each games.


G1 - Lillard drove by Bev for 2 and 1. 3 points play. They went from down 2 to up 1 in the last min of OT. Bev made a critical mistake. Game over.

G2 - Harden made 3pt shot to get us within 3. 30 sec left and Lin fouled, pretty much sealing the game. We went from down 3 to down 5. Game over. But to be fair, we weren't up so I wouldn't said Lin mistake was critical to our loss here.

G3 - Harden lost the ball, Lin recovered and passed to Daniel for a 3. We went from down 2 to up 1. Game over. Great play by Lin. Clutch shot by Troy.

G4 - Up 2 with a few seconds left. Lin grabbed the rebound and instead of calling time out, dribbled and got it stolen resulting in a 3 pointer by Blazer. Like game 1, they went from down 2 to up 1 in the last min of regulation. Lin made a critical mistake. Game over (in OT). This to me is the most critical mistake of the series.

G5 - comfortable win.

G6- Up 2 with 0.9 sec left. Harden motion Parson and Bev to switch defensive assignment. Lillard easily got loose and took a wide open 3. Like game 1 and 4, they went from down 2 to up 1 in the last 0.9 sec. Parson, Bev, Harden, A through Z made critical mistakes. Season over.

4 of 6 games basically went to the last possession. We lost 3 of them and won 1. This is why it sucks so bad.

Lin made the most critical of critical mistakes (G4) but he's far from the reason why we lost this series or is the reason why we lost 2 of these in end of game situation.

BTW, it's not luck that the Blazer won the series. We put them in a situation to win... we were up for most of the series, but keep losing lead due to poor defense and too often, bogged iso at the wrong time.

 

^^ Good summary.

However, if the Rockets had played better defense or made adjustments quicker, these games would not have went down to the last possession. We had the talent to blow Portland out.

Game 2 is the most frustrating for me because Aldridge went off for another career night, with the coaching staff having no clue how to hold him in check. I would assume top teams like OKC, Spurs, and the Heat would've made adjustments by half time of Game 1. It took us until Game 3.

 

Just watching Brooklyn beat Miami last night you can tell that our coaching staff is inferior to even Jason Kidd, who just became a coach. Brooklyn on offense constantly moved the ball until they got an open shot, the Rockets could not seem to do that for some reason it's like they think they don't need to.

 

When they lost game 3, what did he say ?

 

I agree with everything that you said here, but also:

It is freaking ridiculous that people keep saying that Lin lost game 4! The bottom line is that game was NOT over even if we called a timeout. Many things could have still happened.

1) We could have not gotten the ball inbounds
2) We never have good plays out of timeouts, so we could have had a turnover
3) We could have been fouled, but missed 1 or both of the free throws
4) There could have been 2 or 3 more possessions for each team with fouls and time outs that could have gone any number of different ways to determine the final outcome

Basically, even if he calls a timeout, there is NO GUARANTEE that we win that game...just the chances are increased. The chances were highly increased that we would win Game 6 when Parsons made the layup with .9 seconds left, but we found a way to LOSE that game also.

And not to mention, THAT WAS NOT THE GAME ENDING PLAY!

First, the whole team could have played better defensive and actually gotten a stop and a REBOUND after the steal and first missed shot.

Second, we had a whole FREAKING 5 minutes of overtime after that mistake to win the game and the TEAM didn't get the job done. Lin didn't play at all during that overtime, so don't blame him

Was it a mistake by Lin to not immediately call timeout after HE got the rebound that no one else on the TEAM got? Sure. But the whole freaking team could have tried to call time out, NOT TO MENTION THE STUPID COACH.

I also didn't see any of his teammates yelling that Mo was coming from behind to steal the ball.

I hate taking up for Lin for a mistake that came at a bad time, but when I see stupid people try to blame that whole game loss on that one play, it irks me.

How about Bev and Harden not run up the court down the same sideline in overtime and Bev get the ball stollen from him, so that we actually get up a shot to try and tie the game and send it into double overtime? NOW THAT WAS THE GAME ENDING PLAY!

 

When Portland lost game 3 Lopez said, "I wish we weren't so try hards against the Rockets, all that hard work only to end up getting swept by Spurs"

 

Its hard to argue our offense since we scored pretty well all season at a good clip..we all know how bad our D was though...

 

Some poster said they lost 2 games because of Jeremy Lin. Rockets actually won 2 games because of him and had a chance to win two more (Games 1 and 6) in part because of his effort. These playoffs revealed that Houston wasn't able to do anything until they gave Lin and Asik (the two guys McHale demoted) a lot of playing time.

 

And yet....you were watching the games? If so, you should join in on bashing McHale. Pull up a pew.

But then you go into something where I'm nodding my head, Yep. Preach it.

It isn't as if McHale is 100% clueless. He knew the ball had to move around. But he did ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ABOUT IT. He let Harden ride roughshod over him. He never seems to pull James aside and just scream, "Look, f*** it. When I say 'we', I mean 'you'. We all know you're the best scoring guard in the NBA, we got it. Now quit masturbating the basketball and get your team involved."

Maybe McHale was forever traumatized by his relationship with Lowry. Maybe he's trying to avoid another Lowry-rolling-his-eyes scenario. No, I'm not being serious, but it's really something. McHale has no balls.

Anyone watch San Antonio against Portland last night? It was beautiful, it was magic, watching Pops still screaming at Parker. Parker made a turnover and Pops s*** a brick on him from the sideline: SPLOOP! KLUNK!

 

Please watch the 2 games where we didn't need an overtime, or a bucket and Jeremy made the most costly mistakes of the series.

 

Since we are assigning blame in this thread, there was one Rocket player who, for whatever reason (perhaps not even his own fault), not only did not step up his game, but regressed from his season averages in a dramatic fashion. The Rockets, as currently constructed would not have beaten anyone in the West when one of the all-stars was a physical/mental no-show for 95% of the series.

People are discussing bizarre plays and weird ref calls when the fact is that none, not a single one of the losses, would have even been a close game had James Harden bothered to show up. We can't see the forest for the trees.

 

All this bashing of the offense is the same junk they said about Rudy T's offense before the championships. Funny that they weren't saying the same thing when they were celebrating the championships on the Richmond strip. It's simple, effective offense. Give it to your superstar and let him dominate single coverage. If he gets doubled, pass to the open man. In short, our offense is not the problem.

 

game 1/4 - game 4 Lin had a bad TO but we went to OT tied 0-0 we couldn't come out with the win. Game 1 Lin basically put team on his back in OT kept fighting we couldn't win so that one makes up for that bad TO game to me.

Game 3 WIN - harden saved turnover in clutch time, pass to daniels

game 5 WIN - Lin game 5 at home, brooks & blazers team said Lin play off bench was reason they lost. Everybody at TV knew what time it was in that win only game we actually looked dominate.

However Howard had a MAJOR games especially game 2 (barbecue chicken) but we lost, harden had a big game 6 but we lost. If Lin is so bad as you say why did it take him to a solid game or make a game saving play for this team to come out with win this yr in playoffs ? Why didn't we win when harden & Howard had big games ?

 

Are you being sarcastic?

 

This.

People who say that Lin lost game 4 with less than a minute to go in regulation are basically saying that the Rockets were incapable of winning in the overtime. These people are saying that Dwight and Harden have no heart, or are incompetent.

Lin acknowledged his error after the game, though his was not by far the only critical error made by the team. (How about Harden pissing away an 11-point lead by hogging the ball and bricking all of his shots in regulation crunch time?) But Jeremy took responsibility because that is what a leader does. Leaders face the music and accept the blame, even if the fault was not entirely theirs; they don't duck the press after a bad game, as Harden often does.

 

I hope you're not serious. First of all, Rudy had the privilege of coaching one of the greatest post-up players in the history of the game. Secondly, Rudy coached Dream in an era where illegal defenses were enforced. So not only did he have the best big man(and overall player in Jordan's absence) at his disposal, but other teams were required to single cover him until he got the ball.

So please enlighten me. Who is McHale supposed to give the ball to and let him dominate single coverage? Harden? That didn't work out very well in the playoffs. Portland pretty much shut him down and when Harden did eventually pass off to another teammate, they usually failed to make the shot or extra pass. Howard? The problem there is that Dwight can't dominate for 48 minutes like Dream could. And when he gets to the foul line, he's unreliable. That cost the Rockets dearly in Games 1 and 6.

It looks like McHale is in fact running the Rudy T offense of letting your superstar ISO. But he doesn't have Dream on his roster and he doesn't coach in an era where there were stricter rules on what the opposing team was allowed to do defensively. In today's NBA, if your players are just standing around watching the superstar hold onto the ball, rest assured you are not winning in the postseason.