We forced a game six and lost games in Houston by 1 and 3 points on two occassions, 'splain to me what you mean by 'highly competitve'?
But you have nothing to do with the team's success. I don't understand, how is criticizing the team for not meeting your constantly-changing expectations "keeping you striving for more?" Striving for more sports-related unhappiness?
I'll see your 1 and 3 point losses with two HUGE blowouts. Houston controlled this series from front to end with a better game plan.
game plan my arse. They controlled the game with better execution, exploiting matchups and generally putting all their playoff experience to bear on a young team that hadn't really been here before (Ruffin, Blake and Joel have 15ish games between them doesn't quite count). Portland's plan was fine, they just didn't have the personnel/experience to pull it off.
They were blown out! they choked bigtime. Homecoming? I have better things to do, like re-paint my mail box.
I don't really know how to respond to this, cause I gotta go now. But I still don't understand the point of welcoming/greeting/applauding a team that just lost in a blowout. OK, the season was a success overall, and we already acknowledged that with the pre-playoff rally.
To be fair that was pre-internet. but overall I am kind of shocked at how hard people are taking this.
Yeah, I'm not suggesting you do or don't go to the homecoming. I just didn't follow your point about "it keeps you striving for more." That statement makes sense in terms of setting higher and higher standards for yourself. I don't see how it's relevant to evaluating the success of other people that you have no influence over.
As far as the "they just got blown out" argument goes. My reason for wanting to go is that it was an awesome season that I enjoyed a ton, and I won't get to really see them again for quite a while. I figure one last journey won't hurt, and could be a good experience. Hell, I might even meet HCP.
If I could go I'd be there. Game five showed they didn't just row over. Ok, they lost game six, I kind of expected them to. They came close to forcing a game 7 in game 3 and 4, especially 4. They loss this series when they loss game 1. That was just a lack of experience. Lesson learned.
am i the only one that thought the rally was way over the top and shouldn't have been done? i would have much rather seen them go with a rally after losing this game. i might've gone to a rally in pcs tomorrow to congratulate the team on a season well done. neither is ideal or really a good idea, but i contend it would have made more sense.
Celebrating successes is never a problem for me. If we had a rally for Rudy breaking the 3pt record, that would be fine with me too. It shows the communities support for the players and this team.
i am all for supporting the teams success, it just seems a rally for them when they exited the playoffs wouldn't have come off so hookie. i guess anything the team did was going to seem kinda small townish (not that that is a bad thing)
Portland is "small-townish" in comparison to other NBA cities because we are a one-trick pony. We won with players the community couldn't support off the court, then we cleaned up but starting losing more games, then we were losing games with players we couldn't be proud of, but now we are winning with people we can proudly say are citizens of Portland. Not only that, but these guys are young, and have the potential to do some real special things, and having a community that acknowledge their accomplishments could only encourage them to stay here, keep working hard, and stay on the up and up. Nothing wrong with that in my book.
You know when your kid does something stupid and they know it was stupid and you know they aren't going to do it again, so you just tell them you support them and they'll get it right next time. That's what meeting them at the plane is. If I didn't live all the way down in Eugene I'd be there right now. If you don't want to support the team if they lose, fine. I don't like Bandwagon fans like you anyway.
I was at the rally. Am I the only one who DID NOT see the rally as a celebration of making the playoffs? I viewed it as a "Go Get 'em Blazers! We've got your back." more of a positive sendoff into the post season. Maybe I'm just odd, like enormous.
That's a fair comment. But it was during the talk radio era... and when the team lost we didn't just destroy them and take it as a personal affront. There's this weird attitude certain people have these days where they take a loss by a basketball team they like very very personal. It's embarrassing.
