Why do you think we failed to get past the first round?

They can't hold the LEAD.
They were up 5 in the 4th qtr.

 

role players

shooting

pnr defence

 

straight up... we need a more athletic pg and pf. they dont even have to be better than alston or juwan offensively.... just the same... at least then they can stay in front of their man and box/rebound.

 

That's JVG's and our PG's fault. Alston only passes the ball to Tracy, he finishes games wit 20% shooting from wide open positions

On the other hand JVG cannot use superstar players. He just gives the ball to tmac and just let him go...

 

and let the management off the hook.

After the Hakeem years, what has the Rox done? failure after failure in drafts and free agent signings.

 

You saw our answer right there in the poll.

 

1) Van Gundy did not adapt to the matchup.

2) Yao played like a little girl in game 7.

3) Tracy shot fall away after fall away.

4) Role players couldn't throw it in the ocean.

5) No bench production in the series.


thats why we're going home.

 

Well his coaching is good enough to win some game in the regular season but not the playoff.

 

No good role players =/= zero bench production.

By and far, I do think our role players are decent, bordering on good even. You can hardly say they don't do their job well, because they do for the most part.

But when it counts the most in the playoffs, they wilted. Blame it on them being too one-dimensional or what you will, but you HAVE to step up and at least play your role in the playoffs. How many dagger 3s did we see Luther hit during the regular season? How many did we see him hit in the playoffs, if at all. Rafer suddenly couldn't control the team, not pushing for breaks, not probing the defense, and just bringing the ball up and passing it off to Tracy. Hayes couldn't get free for offensive boards and cherry-picks near the basket.

Our stars did plenty. It wasn't enough, it wasn't mercurial like Tmac in the Dallas playoffs, but they did plenty. The role players have GOT to keep up. They were playing like scared chickens all series long, other than game 1 when Rafer held Deron in check, and game 5 when Chuck took the charge from Fisher.

 

JVG ran his players into the ground.

JVG did not develop a bench

JVG did not make adjustments to hide his players shortcomings

JVG is the problem, he is the roadblock to Rockets success.

DD

 

Van Gundy and the Rockets' management made themselves totally oblivious to the NBA favoring quick and athletic players. Yao is among the NBA's best players...he's almost probably the slowest and least mobile of any starter or rotational player. The lack of recognition of these two facts resulted in slugs like Battier, Hayes and Alston.

It's easier to get athletes to play passing lanes, get around screens and closeout on perimeter shooters than it is to get players like Alston, Head, Hayes and Battier to get easy baskets in transition.

This one is not on TMac or Yao...it's Rocket's management. They built a team on a flawed concept of one-dimensional spotup shooters.

 

Defense.

Utah is not known for its offensive fire power. We let them score more than 100 points in a game 7.

It's not about effort, not in game 7. Is it about not having the players who could stop Boozer and Williams? Is it about JVG not being able to adjust defensively?

 

1. JVG's system does not work - ie. gestapo coaching, weak execution, does not use bench / 2nd string players, no offense, game revolves around tmac as playmaker, overplayed starters, etc.

2. Our role player suck. they would never see playing time on a elite team. Rafer is the weakest link. He is not worthy to be called a pg. Howard is too slow and can't hit open shots. Actually none of our role players can hit open shots. Overall, we have little to no athleticism.

3. Yao is a little soft. and a little slow.

4. Tmac is somewhat inconsistent.

 

Oh yeah, the rox have no idea what a FAST BREAK is.

 

i don't agree with u on 2 points: i would rather say Yao played a tough game and Tracy tried his best at last.

Also it comes to me one point that the whole teams are not mature enough yet though Jazz looks much "younger" than Rox. Sure many of us say Yao is (too)slow and T-mac is soft, but both of them did what all they can do, they tried their best with their hearts, Jazz is not a worse team, they are much stronger and faster than we are, its not a shame to lose a series like this, its a feeling of pity imho. i don't think "Battier trade was a bust", ps i think what makes me happy most this year is "we got Battier", he is the one i like most, u could not find even one player of this team that is capable of entertaining each fan. i think the most important thing is to shrink Yao/Tracy...'s shortcomings and magnify their advantages. Its not wise to hit the stone with the eggs. The coach should be very clear about that and know what to do and handle kinds of situations, also it is not suitable/worthy to compare Roxs' shortcomings with the opponents' advantages, Yao is slow, Tracy is kind of soft, Rafer is unstable, Head cant pass, Chuck is incapable of shooting etc. We all know that...i will not say fire/stay JVG now, what i can tell is: Jeff is a good coach but not a coach could lead Rox to th 2nd round of playoffs with the present crew.

Our greatest glory is not in never falling but in rising every time we fall. This is the 3rd time i post this sentence in Clutch forum. There come 29 losers and 1 winner each year. Success tastes much sweeter with tons of loss.

 

Wow, lots of options there.

I think more than anything is that this team is built on a "house of cards" setup where we are only optimal in a vaccum where we have Yao+Tmac+JumpShooters. But when one element is off, we fail. We have no wiggle room. Everything offensively is in the half court setup.

The "wiggle room" we need to offset some trouble nights is to have
1) Fast Break points. Easy points
2) Have players other than Yao+Tmac to create shots, to get offense on their own.
3) More "team speed" to make up for Yao being slow.

This team just needs to add more athletes and more scoring.

I think defensively this team is very good and plays at a high level in that regard. But we just dont have enough OFFENSE to win.

I don't know the exact stat, but our winning % when we score over 100 points is very high. And that's because the defensive is solid but the offense puts us over the top. The only time we get that 100+pts is when everything is ON in terms of shooters. But that doesnt happen with enough frequency. By adding more scorers we up our percentage of us scoring over 100pts more often, and thus make us a better team.

 

10% Yao/McGrady,
20% bad role players
20% Van Gundy,
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50% MANAGEMENT
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- For years EVERYONE has known Yao is too slow footed and limited vertically to be a great rebounder. Forget the whole he's 7'-6" thing, Yao has deficiencies. Also he can hardly play 30 minutes without huffing and puffing...
Management has done very little to surround Yao with good frontline help. Not that huge team salaries equate to being a great team (see Knicks, Playoff Mavericks), but they seem too concerned at times not getting into luxury tax land. Might need to do some rethinking on that. Its been 10 years since the last playoff win.

- Role players...the freaking POINT GUARDS Rafer and Luther...Then Juwan and the disappearing Battier..
Even the Kobe & Shaq teams tried to get a Glen Rice/Mitch Richmond type...or Karl Malone/Gary Payton. There hasn't been a 3rd guy anywhere close to that in name or talent for the Rockets in quite a while. Bonzi was a "name" player, but it took him being boneheaded passing up good money to sign here...

- Van Gundy because he works with management. And insisted on going with some of these bad role players, and not going or "developing" any others...(Why would he want to develop players when he knew he was toast after this year though?) His scheme, while not totally outdated, could use a bit of refinement to the "new" NBA I guess...But he and management need to recognize better you still need a liiiittle offensive creativity no matter what scheme is run. Was there a more offensively inept team players 3-12 in the postseason?

- Yao and McGrady could get very little of the criticism, or they could get all of it, depends....again Yao didnt come up great on the defensive side, but we kinda knew what Yao was (though technically he still outscoured Boozer in the series...)
McGrady he talked it up, and tried and tried. Point is he didnt come up to his usual playoff scoring standard of 30 points a game this postseason. Needed that super-human McGrady to come through, but why RELY on that? Especially a player with potential injuries waiting to happen to him.
It was on them to pull through but Yao and McGrady can't make roster moves.