Something I've noticed that (might) not bode well for the Rockets...

I think it's more about just the other team having a lot of size than specifically a star PF. The Rockets are getting waxed by the Suns, who are pretty big up front, NO is big (but not particularly great up front even though West is an "all star"), Utah is big but slow, the Spurs are big, and we beat the Lakers when they were puny up front.

Big players just give our front line a ton of trouble. Mutombo isn't the best man defender and Scola can barely score on a bigger defender. Landry has trouble rebounding against them, and our entire team gets boxed out like punks while giving up a tremendous amount of offensive rebounds.

 

Nice analysis!
Yeah, this pointed out our deficiency of not having size up front. We lost in rebounding, which means second chance scoring or allowing them. This also means lack of spacing, allowing opponents to body up against our shooters, making it tough to score. We overcame a lot of it with hard work against lesser teams, or great teams without their stars. But ...

That said, Suns were shooting the lights out today - otherwise Rox might have a chance anyway.

 

Rockets are now officially the donut team. A cake with a big hole in the middle.

 

Our lack of size really hurt us tonight even though we put up a valiant effort. Shaq and that punk Amare are pretty big bodies and they just outmuscled us tonight.

 

naaa. i'm not buying the donut theory. it's shaq and amare. what do u expect. name a frontcourt that is bigger? (if u can, good for you, but name one u'd rather have other than them? that exists). it's not secret that we are undermanned downlow and have been small the last 5 or so years at the power forward spot. our last decent sized 4 man was who? maurice taylor? wasn't he undersized? it had to have been someone after him. nope. howard, hayes, scola, landry, am i missing someone? let's get barkley out of retirement. he might do it so he can "give us an identity" lol./

 

To summarize your analysis in one phrase, 'we're missing Yao'

 

its no secret we are going to get killed by any big frontline in the playoffs.

our only chance is against a smaller team (GS), or a team with a bigs that arent good at banging down low. (like the mavs, hornets)

but either way its going to be a struggle. guys like rafer are going to have to play above their heads for us to make it out of the first round.

 

Charles Buckugly must be laughing his ass off now

 

Unfortunately, the good Pf was a big problem even with Yao. Most teams only have one real center and they tend to go small at some point and when they did that the big man would just light up Yao.

The rockets really just need to find a way to score....alot...(they shouldn't ever score under 90 with two of the best scorers in the league). That was really the reason the streak started, when they put scola in the starting lineup and landry was playing big minutes they were constantly scoring. Their defense is always pretty good, even with their worst defenders on the court.

They actually were pretty good tonight, and if Kobe Stoudemire wouldn't have went 20-20 from the line and drilled so many jumpers over scola's great defense then they would have killed them. Even Shaq shot good from the line.

 

Chuck predicted today that the Rockets will go 5-8 in their last 13 games.

 

It's because we have no size or athleticism at that position. Especially with Yao gone we are very small. We are going to get dominated by teams with bigs, that's how it is. If you are hoping for a Phoenix matchup in the playoffs you're going to be pissed when we get owned.

Hope for GSW which is not likely, so at last resort, you'd have to hope for Dallas or Utah because they don't have any punishing interior-presence players. I don't know how we'd fare against San Antonio.

 

Nice observation. Yeah, as much as we have improved at the PF position, they still don't stack up against the premier PFs in the league. Scola has problem against physical PFs and Landry is not a good post defender, plus he is too small anyways. Chuck is a good post defender, but he is too small to defend some tall ones with good shooting touch and he doesn't give us much offense.

BTW, even though Scola got abused by West the first two times they faced, he fared much better against West in our last game against the Hornets. So there is still some hope.

 

I think GS would disagree with you...

 

Boozer?

 

Well, what do you expect from a team without their best player? The Rockets have done what they need to do and thats beat the teams they are suppose to beat. Most of those contender teams are healthy and if not, they should be at full health during the playoffs. While the Rockets will still be without their best player. This team can only go so far without Yao dominating down low.

 

Did anybody clarify Landry didn't play vs Boston and Nola.

 

Boozer is more face to the basket type of player with a jumper that attack the basket in pick and roll and get some points inthe offensive boards, We control him pretty well without Yao inside. Hayes and Scola did the best job last game in Houston.

 

rockets are missing the "new" rafer.

imo alston has been the no.1 player for the rockets during their streak.

rafer started to falter/revert against the hawks. the rockets haven't been the same since then except for the blip which was the lakers game where he hit an amazing number of 3s.