We ended the 4th quarter with some momentum. Our guys aren't just going to lay down and give up. GO ZERS!
No. Its not ours, we need to earn that shit. Blazers played like shit tonight with a nice run at the end. No excuse for that first half AT ALL.
We have to come out stronger at the start of quarters. We went scoreless in the first 4 minutes of both the third and fourth quarters - blowing big opportunities to make a run.
Blazers need to stop going one-on-one so much and play better team basketball. Point guard play is crucial as is post play.
Yao 24 in game 1 Yao 11 in game 2 Yao 7 in game 3 We figured this team out tonight, but just missed our oppurtunities. Houston can't feel real comfortable about how things ended, and I think Nate and co. will devise a game plan to build on what happened the last 18 minutes of this game.
Agreed. Portland will win game 4. All the signs point to it. The margin of victory was much smaller than the margin at halftime, which means that the Blazers outplayed Houston in the second half. We've figured out how to play Yao. We've overcome the jitters of playing in Houston. And Roy will not have another game like this on Sunday, you can bet your life on it. Our lapse at the beginning of the second period killed us tonight. It won't happen again in Game 4.
All signs is bullshit. Portland needs to kick themselves in the balls hard. They played and went out like bitches tonight. Plain and simple. Zero excuse for that sorry display of hoops. If Rudy wasn't hitting miraculous 3s that were outside the offense, this shit wouldn't have been even close. there are systemic flaws in the blazers that aren't getting fixed.
I feel confident in game four if the following things happen: 1. Rudy plays more than Travis. 2. Greg plays as many minutes as possible depending on his fouls. 3. Blake inserts a brain for the final five minutes of a crucial game. 4. The rest of the team steps up their rebounding game while Greg bangs down low with Yao. 5. Yao can get a foul in the entire second half of a game.
Please - our defense alone was a good sign - the adjustments we've made on Yao have been tremendous. The execution on offense was brutal at times - but part of that was both our stars being off and throwing everything out of whack.
Our defense was wack. Yao wasn't even get the ball fed all that much, but the thing was we didn't close out...Scola hit a lot of those top of the ft jumpers. He shouldn't have been given as much space as he did in the first...really bad.
I don't think that's really necessary. What hurt us tonight was BRoy's tendency to go into ZBo's old 'hold the ball until the defense gets set' mode. He needs to quit being so tentative, and take Mark Jackson's advice of "not giving their D too much credit" and go hard.
The unsung heroes of the game for Portland were Oden and Pryzbilla. They played tremendous defense on Yao, and shut him down after the first quarter. This also bodes very well for Game 4.
With LaMarcus it should be they need to run that pick and roll with Greg until Houston finds an answer.
The defense could've been a little better, but holding the Rockets to 86 points isn't bad at all. Scoring only 83 is a big problem. I see the glass half full and half empty after this loss. On the bright side, the Blazers played like crap for an entire half, and had a fleeting chance of stealing the game anyway. B-Roy can't play this badly again, and a few other players - most notably Rudy Fernandez - obviously found their groove. On the not so bright side, Yao had a lousy game, and Artest was held in check, yet the Rockets still won. The Blazers still can't seem to stop Aaron Brooks, even if he did miss more shots tonight than in Game One. In the end, I think the Blazers have come up with a defense on Yao that works, and while I think Yao will be a little more effective later in this series, he's not the problem. Scola and Brooks are. But the bigger problem is that the Blazers seem scared to death of going inside against Yao. They need to run those inside plays that force Yao out of position and send guys to the rim, the way they did three times in a row in the 3rd quarter. Game Four is within the Blazers' grasp, no doubt about it. But they need to repeat everything they did right tonight, and get a little more scoring out of at least a couple of guys.
They're scared to go inside even when Yao is on the bench! They shot jump shots most of the night, no matter who was guarding the paint for Houston.
There is nothing to suggest that Game 4 is ours. We had momentum at the end of game 2......with the momentum and played like we did in Game 1...as if they didn't learn ANYTHING. What it comes down to is execution and the blazers are not executing...they haven't in this series whatsoever. Game 2 was all on Brandon Roy just taking the game over. Tonight, it was a barrage of Rudy 3-pointers...the execution is still lacking. The team is not playing team ball, they're letting the rockets have relatively unconstested jumpers while they go 1-on-1 into rocket defenders. Its not so much the blazers are scared to death of going inside against yao...its that their offensive positioning is such that they take heavily contested bad shots and don't even run their offense. I absoultely put the blame on Nate and the point guard (since we only are playing one)
I don't think Rockets are too happy with the win. And thats exactly what they need! They know what they need to do because Blazers aren't the team from Game 1. Rockets played well throughout but that run towards the end IMO favors Rockets. Thats because they walked off the court with their heart beating fast and eyes open, unlike Game 1 victory. But same could go the other way, Blazers come out with intensity because they felt the pain of losing such a close one. Only time will tell... If that happens, you're right. But if things go Rockets way - that might be the game many people will look to?
