Fans of Blazers, Rockets Probably Didn't Enjoy All Those Overtimes

Cherry Picking recaps the previous day's NBA playoff action.

That was some Game 6 between the Celtics and Bulls, wasn't it? Kirk Hinrich and Rajon Rondo mixing it up early, Ray Allen scoring 51 points, and the two teams taking three overtimes to decide that they're going to need a Game 7 on Saturday to ultimately sort things out. An absolutely epic NBA playoff game.

Unless, of course, you're a fan of either the Houston Rockets or the Portland Trail Blazers.

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You see, Houston and Portland were set to tip off Game 6 of their series at the conclusion of the game between the Bulls and the Celtics. The problem? That game in Chicago didn't conclude. At least not until three overtime periods had been played, and the Blazers and the Rockets were already into the third quarter of what ended up being Houston's first time advancing past the first round in roughly forever, and what was the Blazers' last game of the 2009 season.

And nobody saw it -- or at least the first half of it.

It's not like TNT could switch away from one of the greatest games, in one of the greatest first round series, that we've ever seen. But with all of the available cable channels and the ability to stream things online, shouldn't there have been somewhere for fans of the Rockets or Blazers to go to watch their teams play in an elimination game?

Of course there should. How about TBS, a sister station of TNT that was showing a re-run of an old chick flick? How about ESPN, who also has a national television deal to show NBA playoff games? What about NBATV, which (besides being a home for the awesome silliness of Gary Payton and Chris Webber) would seem to be the reason for its existence? Or even -- and this is probably the most logical option -- streaming the game online until TNT was able to go to it live once the Bulls had beaten the Celtics?

Dave at Blazer's Edge brings this point up as well, and it's a strong one: there should be contingency plans in place for when these situations arise.

I am neither a fan of the Rockets nor the Blazers, and there's no way in hell I would have turned off that Bulls-Celtics game, even if you paid me. But the NBA needs to realize that it's a league largely built around fans of individual teams. And if those fans are shut out of their team's final playoff game of the season simply because of a lack of poor planning, well, the league is going to have a huge problem on their hands, and it's one they might care about deeply: Losing loyal, paying customers.

Conference Calling

Thursday's Bulls/Celtics marathon was the type of game that will have fans talking for weeks, so naturally it seemed like a good time to fire up the inaugural NBA FanHouse Post-Game Podcast -- Will Brinson, Shane Bacon, Matt Moore and Matt Watson jumped on the phone for an off-the-cuff (and mostly factual) roundtable:



Doing Lines

Ray. Allen. Is there any such thing as a quiet 51 points? Because Allen's seemed to be that, at least for the majority of the game. Ray-Ray finished with 51 points in 59 minutes, on 18-of-32 shooting, while draining nine three-pointers. Wow. On the other side of the floor, John Salmons put up 35 points on 13-of-22 shooting, in 60 freaking minutes of action. Wow again.

Oh, there were other games? Fine. How about Rudy Fernandez of the Blazers, starting, playing 41 minutes, and ... finishing with two points, eight rebounds, and three turnovers.


Watching Film



Joakim Noah fouls out Paul Pierce in the third overtime, after stealing the ball and going in for the monster breakaway jam. Now I know Jalen Rose makes some comments about this ESPN highlight, but are his words that special that he should be ripping the clips to his very own YouTube account? I'll let you answer that one.

On the Blockquote

Blazer's Edge, discussing the unavailability of Portland's Game 6 on TV:

Hey, Turner networks. Hey, NBA. You just caused me to miss half of the last game my team played this season...a team I followed religiously for 87 games before this. This was a game I was looking forward to with all my heart and passion. It was a playoff game...the most important game my team ended up playing this year. You took a lot of it away.

I know you're both businesses and businesses nowadays don't give much heed when the number of people affected by a problem is relatively small, but we're out here. Thanks for not preparing for this eventuality and thus ignoring our needs.

The Dream Shake:

Well, there it is. Your Rockets did it. They won a playoff series. And while that doesn't seem like much for a team with higher aspirations, it most certainly means a great deal. Twelve years, folks - it was twelve years ago when we last won a playoff series. That number can go die now, because we finally took care of business on the line. We finally made the right shots. We finally made the big defensive stops. We finally got that damn monkey off our backs. And in the immortal words of one Gene Peterson, who summed it up so perfectly that I can't possibly think of anything better to say, "Oh, how sweet it is!"

By The Horns:

Think about it. And I mean think about it really hard. I can say with something like 100 percent certainty that you can't remember a closer, more competitive playoff series. In fact, by all accounts, there hasn't been one. It now has featured a mind-scrambling SEVEN overtime sessions. And yes, that's an NBA playoff record. In fact, it's more than any team in NBA history has ever played in an entire postseason. I'm going to have to track down the official numbers later, but there have been more than 100 lead changes and over 60 ties through six games, and I'm pretty sure that has to be a record too. Again, I'll try to research the final word on those stats. But man oh man oh man, this matchup has been nothing short of legen - WAIT FOR IT - dary! And Game 7 is on the way.

Random Pic of the Night