Refs screwed us with the no call on Howard's obvious traveling and then the foul on Lopez after Howard's elbow (Lopez was doing to Howard what Beverly was doing to Lillard all game long)... but the refs gave us a gift with Howard's 6th foul. Freeland was hugging him.
The first two Houston possessions in OT, the refs put them on the line with phantom fouls. Right then I knew the refs were not going to let us win. They kept screwing our guys, and our guys kept rising to the occassion. The Blazers cannot be stopped OR contained! Team of destiny? (/Kingspeed)
I must be the only one on the planet that disagrees with this, but I strongly disagree with this. I saw it in live action. Howard pulled the vet 'grab the defender and pull him toward you, then fall back and act like the victim' move, that works 9 times out of 10. Howard wrapped up Freeland with both arms, then pulled Freeland into himself. The ref made the right call.
We got screwed out of 2-3 goaltends by Howard, 3-4 8-10 seconds in the key and travelling... don't get me started.
Would be Hero Harden???? The guy missed 20 shots, including the game winner in regulation and the game tying shot in OT. The Blazers out shot the Rockets: From the field: Blazers 43.3% Rockets 41.0% From 3-Point Range: Blazers 33.3% Rockets 22.9% And the Line: Blazers 74.4% Rockets 65.0% And the Rockets fans are trying to blame the loss on the refs? Really? Try making some shots, then we can start talking about the refs. Seriously, when you shoot that poorly, you have no one else to blame but yourself for a loss. And the thing is, all those numbers are BELOW the Blazers' season averages. We shot below average and still won, because the Rockets shot horribly. We missed 10 FTs, which is very uncharacteristic for the best FT shooting team in the league (chalk it up to Game 1 gitters). BNM
I will say this about the difference between us and Houston fans. I think by and large we give the Rockets their due in here. We may bitch about Harden's flopping and Beverley's mind games, but as a fan base we think Houston is a really good team. The Houston fan base came into Game One thinking we were the Milwaukee Bucks. Zero respect for us. Everything we got was lucky, they owned us in the regular season (forgetting we were one Wes Matthews FT away from 2-2), Beverley owned Lillard, blah, blah, blah. The amazing thing is, Game One only reinforced that point of view for them. They still have no respect for our team. It's all about what they didn't do rather than what we did do.
Yeah, I will admit I was nervous about getting swept, and my brain said we'd lose in six. I'm still worried then fans will get too cocky and get stunned in game two and slip in game three. I do think there's a good risk we'll lose one at home too.
My favorite excuse was that Harden/Howard were too hyped up for the play offs and just need to settle down. That cracked me up... they've both been to the NBA finals!!! And Lillard had never played in a play off game before. It's odd to me because the teams have the same record and have played close games all season. Did they really think their teams was that much better than Portland's? The teams are so evenly matched talent wise it's going to come down to things like coaching and mental toughness... if I was a Houston fan I'd be nervous about that. Harden looked absolutely lost on that last play.
Yep the whole "They didn't beat us, the refs beat us" or "They didn't beat us, we beat ourselves" What a load of crap! Aldridge scores 48/18/2 and Lillard 31/9/5. That my friend is what sets a superstar from a pretender. Howard is a pretender superstar. He will never be able to lead his club to a title because of his fragile ego and mental strength. Harden has the tools and that's it.
I wouldn't be surprised see Houston blow out the Blazers in a statement game and I'm fine with that. This team is resilient after losses and now all we need them to do is win their home games.
It's pretty funny over there. Their board is--quite rightly--being plastered with tweets of the NBA saying Freeland fouled Howard and the refs messed up. I have responded in three different posts that I await the NBA's apology for calling a foul on Freeland when Howard threw him to the floor, which would have resulted in Howard leaving the game earlier than he did. Not surprisingly...crickets. Bottom line, it was a BS makeup call. The easier response would have been to call the proper foul on Howard after the missed free throw.
