No refs have ever beaten a team by 27. Portland would have lost either way. If anything, Portland should understand just how much more effort they need to put into the next game, and if it was called unfairly, and gets called fairly the next game, the effort that would be enough to win despite such circumstances would be overkill.
Some of you people really do not unerstand the game do ya?! Do you not understand that once the refs have set the tone for the game, theres nothing to do. We tried to come back, we went to the hole, no calls. Joel battles for position and its ft's for yao b/c we were in the penalty with 6 min to go in every quarter. Its hard enough to come back 15 on a playoff team, but when you CAN NOT play the same style of D as the opposition, you have NO CHANCE. That line was drawn early on in the game..what else could the Blazers do? Yes Houston shot the lights out and we shot only 40 some percent, but the tone of the game showed major favoritism to Houston. Perfect example..Blake shoots a 3 in the 1st, gets ran into as he's releasing it..no call..Roy stumbles into Battier 3 seconds after he shot (didn't really touch him either mind you) and TWEET. You know what, maybe we don't win tonight the way both teams payed, but it would have been much closer, which I would have preferred.
Toko's got the bottomline. Yeah, if you want to play the ref card, you could say having the differential in fouls, and the way it was called made it tougher on the Blazers, but when the game ended the difference was only 10 in free throws attempted. We got smashed tonight. The Rockets shot lights out, and Roy was the only one to show up until Oden made an appearance in the second half after it was over. Blaming the officials is just a cop out for not getting it done. You don't control the officials as an athlete. You control your own game, and they didn't perform the way they needed to.
The refs didn't let Houston shoot 80 plus percent in the first quarter. Our defense was horrid, and the Rockets were simply on fire the whole game. I don't like using the ref excuse when we clearly looked outmatched by a veteran squad, and got beat by essentially 30 points. None our guys, outside of Brandon and Greg, came to play.
Blaming the refs is very weak on our parts. Man up and defy the odds. It's the playoffs, not intramurals.
Nah, or you could stfu with the trash talking and watch the game more carefully and maybe in slow-mo. Rockets out hustled Blazers, hence why they got more free-throws AND 14 more total rebounds in the game. And about 10 of those points in the paint were from Greg Oden, the easy dunks and the layups (including an and1 layup) - which was pretty much the only contested one and he squeezed 3 points out of that. oh, and yea .. howdy.
Just like Antonio said on 95.5 fm. You can't blame the refs for this one. The more aggressive team was Houston tonight and ended up getting the calls. Outlaw and LA were awful tonight. Lots of video tape will be in the works the next few days.
Rockets fans have been making the exact same complaint with Yao for years. The calls probably favored the Rockets in game 1, but that should even out over the course of a 7-game series as long as both teams are committed to playing aggressively. That's the nature of the playoffs: the more physical, aggressive team will be allowed to play.
Problem was that as a young team we panicked when we weren't getting calls. Why didn't Nate get a Tech in the first half? It was a combination of bad reffing and lack of experience that produced the debacle. But you could see Roy fighting in the 1st half. I think if we get an evenly called game in the first half, the outcome could have been different. So, while you can't blame the loss on reffing, we were the home team and were not getting the calls Houston was getting. Houston outplayed us, but the bad reffing in the first half sent us into a downward spiral. Last time I checked Roy was a 2 time all-star and he was not even getting a fraction of the respect that Yao was given. I expect a better game in game 2.
Goddammit people stop blaming the refs. This game was lost in the first 15 minutes when the Rockets came out and monkey-stomped the Blazers into submission and broke their will. Give the Rockets just a little bit of credit for their game plan, execution, poise and toughness and the Blazers a little bit of blame for failing to show up.
To be clear I am not blaming the refs, I am saying that the reffing wasn't even in the first half (part of that might have been the fact we didn't have veterans who got the refs respect) and the team was inexperienced and didn't know how to handle it. I think that if the team was getting the calls they were used to, they wouldn't have panicked as much and played a little more even keeled and the style of Basketball we saw at the end of the regular season. I do think Nate should have gotten into the ref's face a little bit. It might have settled down the team a bit. I really don't think that we will see as bad of a showing by the Blazers in Game 2.
Well, think about it this way, even if we got the same number of attempts as Houston and made 100% of them (we only made 62% tonight, our regular crappy selves), we'd still have lost by double digits.
It wasn't so mch the refs, per se, but how to play the refs. Look, this is now playoff officiating. That means holding, grabbing, hitting with your chest to knock a player off stride and proper flopping is the name of the game. Houston did it right and we didn't. Had this been a regular season game, 11 Rockets would have fouled out. But it's NOT a regular season game. Houston gets it, we don't. Another thing- if we don't knock Yao to the floor a minimum of 7 times next game, we're pussies and I'll give the series to the Rockets with my compliments. We have to do just what Houston did- flop better, grab, push, hold and hit players. The waltz is over, my friends. It's now WW III and we better start acting like it.
We had 50 points in the paint, they had 32. Almost always the FT disparity will mirror that stat, except when "ref manipulation" is apparent.
Are you ACTUALLY claiming a conspiracy by some or all the refs?...are are you just lashing out? (understandable)
