NBA 2008-2009 Season

[Headspace]

Derek Fisher: Point Guard Linebacker.

[Dimmauk]

Derek Fisher: Point Guard Linebacker.

How is he still allowed on the floor?

[Headspace]

Vujacic and Scola are fucking twins.

[Dimmauk]

Why did they toss Artest? That is bullshit.

[Dimmauk]

LOL @ Kobe getting called for taunting. Finally!

[Headspace]

This series is going to be fun to watch. Love me some physical basketball.

[Akiyama]

Artest getting ejected was bullshit in my opinion. Kobe got away with an elbow, and Artest gets tossed for confronting him? I guess they have to be protective.

And no, before any Laker fans ask, I'm not "hating" on Kobe. He clearly elbowed him, and he should get punished just like D-Howard did.

[Headspace]

I think there should be tackling in the NBA. Shit shouldn't even be considered a sport anymore.

[Kajii]

lol cry more about Artest. Rockets don't stand a chance.

[Akiyama]

lol cry more about Artest. Rockets don't stand a chance.

Lol. Why don't you keep going and homer it up some more? Really. It's entertaining. Just think if Yao didn't get in foul trouble playing only 26 minutes, and Artest didn't get prematurely thrown out. Houston's gonna play LA tough, and I wouldn't be surprised if they win the series.

[Demosthenes11]

i love charles barkeley. dude makes postgame worth watching. Raper alston needs to put on a dress for game 3. what a huge pussy lol

lakers are huge pussies from game 2 too. Cheap shots - and kobe acting like he didnt do shit. I hate that smug smile he has and his innocent face. I bet he gave his wife the same one when he stuck it in that white girl's pooper. Artest was awesome postgame in the interview. I hope this series stays this physical.

[Kajii]

Healthy Kobe. See the difference? Well Yao did get into foul trouble. Think Phil's not gonna learn and tell his players to drive in and make those fouls happen. Don't forget how many rings Phil has.
Artest as usual lost his temper, kept running his mouth. How is that not worthy of an ejection? You talk crap to refs then take shit into your own hands, you going to tell me that's not worthy of an ejection?
Rockets win one game and everyone thinks they suddenly stand a chance. Let's go ahead and just forget that the Lakers swept them in the regular season, and that the Lakers are the best road team.

[Correction]

Houston's gonna play LA tough, and I wouldn't be surprised if they win the series.

I laughed. Out loud.

[wyrmtung]

LOL. Listening to Fish lying thru his teeth on the post game conference. "I knew they were going to run a high screen and I was just going to run through the screen." Whatever. He's saying this crap while they show replays of him turning his head to look at Scola before he even makes his move and keeps his eyes locked on him as he hits him. For a guy who supposedly was trying to "run thru a screen" it sure seemed to me like he had no intent to keep running after the hit.

As a guy who knows the Lakers well, this was a move straight out of the Rick Fox playbook. I would not be surprised if Phil Jackson pulled Fisher aside and said to him, "Fish let's face it. You suck. You're 97 years old. You can't hit a wide open shot. You can't play D. It's like playing 4 on 5 when you're on the floor.

Remember what Fox did back in 2002 when he realized he was washed up? Why don't you do the same thing to their key player like Fox did to Christie. Maybe you take him out the game too or at least send a message. And if we lose you for the rest of the series then we benefit in two ways."

[Heavencloud]

Fisher really really does suck horribly. He shouldn't be on the team at all... lol. I don't like Scola but that was a ridiculous play haha.

[Stee]

lol at the people complaining about Artest being thrown out.

If you confront a player and make contact then continue to trash talk after the ref t's you up the first time your getting thrown out no matter what. No ifs, buts or maybes, theres no excuse.

And using foul trouble as an excuse is just stupid. How many times were the Lakers over the foul limit? 3 minutes into the 4th quarter and LA was over the foul limit, why don't you blame Houston for not taking advantage of that or not turning the ball every possession?

To Akiyama: The second you start making excuses for a team, any neutral position you considered yourself to be has gone down the shit hole.

[Demosthenes11]

oh c'mon, we all know the only reason artest got kicked out is because he is ron artest. he wasnt going to get kicked out until he made that motion about his neck - which looked like he was telling kobe he was going to kill him lol. But after seeing the play, he was just saying kobe was hitting him in the neck.
Kobe is a little bitch for throwing an elbow like that and then thinking he did nothing "it's just physical." It was a cheap shot

[Stee]

The length of time it took for Artest to get ejected was a long while, so I doubt the refs had a Artest vendetta.

I'm not going to defend Kobe on the elbow and if Artest did the same thing to Kobe tonight I wouldn't say anything right now either. These two do this every time they meet, these guys fight each other every game and have traded tons of elbows against each other. The only difference is this one hit Artest in the neck and also on a possession that equaled points for the Lakers.

[Kaeko]

Die hard Rockets fan for 10+ years here.

If the Lakers (and POR especially) had done their homework, they would know that you can almost completely stop the Rockets' offense with Yao Ming on the floor by simply fronting him (and would have saved them both game 1 losses). I cannot believe how many analysts still say shit like "Yao didn't show up again" acting all surprised. The Rockets can't handle fronting, for whatever reason, and it's been that way for about 80 games. If you do not front Yao, he will kill you, but if you do front him, you can completely shut us down. It's the absolute easiest way to beat Houston since we can't score much to begin with and it's worked in every instance I can think of with the exception of the last Regular Season game vs. the Magic where Yao was able to get enough OREB to make up for the fronting.

Pau Gasol plays Yao extremely well and always has. He gets a ton of steals when Yao makes a move, especially with that long dribble towards the middle, and he fronted him very well today. That's why Yao's numbers were down and why he had a horrid -28 +/- statistic if you check the box score. In the 4th quarter alone, the Rockets gave up 8 TOs, which is essentially around 1/3rd of their possessions. This was caused by fronting Yao and our PGs trying to feed him but not being able to, hence panicking or trying to create something not there (see Lowry driving into 4 Lakers about 3 times).

Statistically, the Rockets have to labor tremendously just to get near 100 points. I'm obviously hoping we win this series, but we have to play nearly perfect offense. We've had more TOs than assists both games (which makes me wonder how we stole game 1).

Also, I think the greatest fear Houston fans had about Ron in this series was Kobe getting in his head. Artest cannot match with Kobe, they are on 2 different levels. The more Battier is on Kobe the better because Battier is cool and calculating. If Kobe breaks 40 on him but takes 35 shots to do it, Battier will come away laughing. Ron doesn't think that way, unfortunately.

EDIT: also WTF @ VON WAFER play some defense and don't backtalk the coach. I love the guy but seriously his ejection by his own coach is the ejection I'm most worried about. Fighting the other team is 1 thing, but your own coach is another... Fisher will get 1 game off, Artest will get a nasty fine, but what will become of Von?

[Akiyama]

Healthy Kobe. See the difference? Well Yao did get into foul trouble. Think Phil's not gonna learn and tell his players to drive in and make those fouls happen. Don't forget how many rings Phil has.
Artest as usual lost his temper, kept running his mouth. How is that not worthy of an ejection? You talk crap to refs then take shit into your own hands, you going to tell me that's not worthy of an ejection?
Rockets win one game and everyone thinks they suddenly stand a chance. Let's go ahead and just forget that the Lakers swept them in the regular season, and that the Lakers are the best road team.

Boy I'm glad I woke up early this morning so I could get to this. I usually save rants for football talk, but I've been into the NBA this year for once.

First up, I'm sure everyone tries the "Let's drive the lane and get Yao in foul trouble." It doesn't always work, you know. We won't forget how many rings Phil has. You shouldn't forget how many rings Phil has gotten since Shaq left. People seem to conveniently leave that part out. Yeah Artest ran his mouth, but he always runs his mouth, yet he doesn't get tossed. The reason he got tossed is because he confronted Kobe, but as his post-game interview mentioned, he figured he'd get T'd up. It's not like he went over and shoved him. He basically went over there and said "You don't elbow me in the throat" -- I didn't see that as ejectable, just like I didn't see Kobe's flying elbow as something to get ejected for.

Also, the Lakers swept the Rockets in the regular season. Oh no, because you know.. the regular season has both teams playing at full strength in all four games throughout the season, and people actually care about the NBA regular season.

I laughed. Out loud.

Yeah, you would. Nice contribution to the thread by the way. If the Rockets push this to seven or win, I'll make sure to hold this over your head for a while.

lol at the people complaining about Artest being thrown out.

If you confront a player and make contact then continue to trash talk after the ref t's you up the first time your getting thrown out no matter what. No ifs, buts or maybes, theres no excuse.

And using foul trouble as an excuse is just stupid. How many times were the Lakers over the foul limit? 3 minutes into the 4th quarter and LA was over the foul limit, why don't you blame Houston for not taking advantage of that or not turning the ball every possession?

To Akiyama: The second you start making excuses for a team, any neutral position you considered yourself to be has gone down the shit hole.

I don't even know if Artest knew he got T'd up though, but I guess he did since he got a second T and then thrown out of the game. He was probably just caught up in all of the shit going on there. It was a rather large shitstorm.

And complaining about the foul limit? Who was. Yao got into foul trouble which limited his playing time, which obviously limited his effectiveness and ability to get into a groove. Any time someone has foul trouble and has to have shitty minutes spaced apart (ie: Kendrick Perkins for Boston), they don't do that great.

And Stee, how the fuck does me making "excuses" for Houston mean shit? I make excuses or pile on with just about any team in any league in any sport. You clearly don't pay much attention to sports threads outside of this one, or you wouldn't talk about that sort of thing when it comes to me. Anyone here, even people who dislike me, could tell you that I'm probably the most unbiased sports fan on this entire forum.

Also, just because I haven't made a ton of excuses for LA doesn't mean anything. I mean.. they are the best team in the NBA, right? They shouldn't need excuses, even if they have had zero production from Andrew Bynum. Wasn't he supposed to be the difference maker, and the reason they lost the title last year? Just curious.