Apr 27 2009
Pointing Fingers
A whole lot of wrong occurred this weekend. What makes it worse is that it wasn’t the case from game one where everything that could go wrong went wrong. It was a case of a plan of attack being put into action and then executed, but still falling that one point or three points short, just enough to know the Blazers are as good or better than the Rockets but not quite enough to win the series. They were only one play off.
That’s the worst part of these deficits. Any one play could have been it. That could have won the game. Luis Scola obviously hit a shot after the 24 second clock went off yesterday - THAT COULD HAVE BEEN THE GAME. Brandon Roy didn’t step on the baseline Friday night - THAT COULD HAVE BEEN THE GAME. The shots that rimmed out, the free throws that didn’t go in - THAT COULD HAVE BEEN THE GAME. See a pattern developing?
It’s easy to press on the panic button here. We’re one game away from having our season ended, forced to endure a summer of Timbers soccer and Beavers baseball (along with a Mariners game or two if inclined to our northern neighbors), salivating for the next summer league game. It’s easy to think that we have no chance to win this series. Honestly, if we could only take one of four from this team, how could we expect to take the next three? It’s a self-defeating mindset. If you think this series is already lost, don’t bother watching it. No one wants to be near a sour attitude.
The THAT COULD HAVE BEEN THE GAME mindset from the last two games does have a silver lining. It means we executed our game plan. The Blazers didn’t play their best basketball but they still took Houston down to the wire in both games. The theory behind what they want to do (sandwiching Yao, trying to run) is working. Houston had a few lucky shots and hot games from unlikely and unseemly sources to put a wrench in the works. They are beatable. The Blazers know it because they’ve almost done it twice. Still, a few things held them back.
It’s easy to point fingers now, but what’s the point? The season isn’t over yet, but it will be in either the next week, or the next month. We’ll have until November to point fingers and describe why a player isn’t worthwhile, or why a coach isn’t right for the job. Let’s not waste breath, words, or time on this silly activity when we will have time for dissertations on the relative utility of a Jerryd Bayless drive during the summer. Things won’t change much for the rest of the series, for better or worse.
Now I’m going to break the rule I just wrote. There is one group that we all can point our fingers at and feel justified. It’s the referees. There’s a school of fandom out there that describes whining about the referees as the last resort of the loser. They’re right. However, that doesn’t make the loser wrong. There’s something wrong in a game where the entire center corps of a team is removed in the first quarter due to ticky tack perimeter fouls while a 7 foot 6 behemoth can initiate contact an entire game and pick up one foul. It’s wrong when Houston shoots 50% more free throws than the Blazers despite the Blazers taking more inside shots. In the three losses of the series so far, it hasn’t been the Blazers or the Rockets who have set the tone in the first quarter - it’s been the referees. In the last two games, the calls became more consistent and even throughout the last three quarters, but the damage had already been done. The Blazers have been digging out of a hole in the first for no discernible reason, aside from wearing the wrong name and the wrong stripes on the front of their jerseys.
We can blame the refs, and we have the right to.
