ClutchFans Game Thread: Jazz @ Rockets 4/21/2007 (Playoffs Round 1, Game 1)

we played a crappy game and still won. Shot under 40%, but played pretty good D. On the positives, Rafer didn't take too many horrible shots. Luther Head made a cold blooded 3 that absolutely killed their team, Tmac was crazy good in the 2nd half, Yao was pretty decent in the 2nd half!! On the negative side, we got killed on the boards, Okur and Boozer just seemed to miss open shots, Deron Williams is really gonna kill Rafer in this series, too many 3's. But a W is a W, and we can definitely improve!

 

What did he say?

 

both him and memo took too many mid range jumpers over yao. that is not going to give you good FG%.

Yao's itimidation is huge tonight against Utah's good post players

 

the jazz showed a real weakness mentally today.

if you get up on them they lose their focus.

in game 2 i'd love to see tmac come out swinging and the rockets give them an early knockout punch.

 

do u watch our game? that's JVG's pack the paint defense.

it's hard for us to rotate b/c the jazz are a good passing team. fortunately, they're not a great 3pt shooting team like the suns or warriors.

we miss a lot of open shots ourselves b/c sloan employed pack the paint too.

both teams missed shots they should make. but we have the stars to make tough shots. utah doesn't.

what we need to improve is rebounding, and shoot better. we let them have A LOT of 2nd chance points.

 

Tmac is dressing really smart in the postgame press. Shall we buy Harpring some boxing pants for the 2nd game?

 

i dont think it's intimidation. yao's 7'5, plus when he jumps his 1ft plus his arms, that's like shooting over a building. yao's just too tall.

 

I wish a truck run Harpring over. Screw this mother****er

 

if TNT broadcast this game, i guess barkley will say , "yao got anotherundominant 28/13 game. they will still lose to dallas, anyway."

 

T-Mac is back! We'll sweep jazz

 

WOOOOOOOOOOO!!! How sweet it is! It's just one game, but it's the start of something special. Lame first half, but T-Mac was just unstoppable in the 2nd. The turning point was definitely their 3 on 0 missed layup. Rockets didn't play that great and it still wasn't close in the end. Good sign, good start.

 

i promised myself not to log on the message board during the game... wanted to avoid bad energy and senseless posts...

posts like "needed to pick up the defense"

we held the Jazz to 33 2nd Half points- 11 and 22

and posts like "tmac will be our problem during the playoffs"

T-Mac got hot and what happened? Our team took a 14 point lead... 8-11 in the 2nd Half for 22 points

wake up and smell the Playoffs people, We are up in the series and have History on our side!

Great Game... Great Intensity... great Defense... Great T-Mac/Yao Combo

 

my thoughts about this game:
TMac tried too hard in the first half. Obviously he put himself under too much pressure by saying "it's on him". But he made it up in the second half, which is huge for him because that really boosts up his confidence, and people now do believe it's on him.
Yao was great on boards, much more agressive than usual. Defensively, he almost shut down Boozer completely. But offensively, he missed several easy baskets. He is still not as dominant offensively as pre-injury. Expect him to get his monstrous offsensive flow back in next couple of games.
Battier was a bit disappointing on both ends. His minutes were limited by his performance. It's probably ok for this series because Utah really do not have a swingman who is their consistent scorer.
Chuck was exactly what we expect. great hustle plays and rebounding, not so great at finishing baskets.
Alston was ok on the 3-pt line, maybe below his average. His biggest problem was being too hesitant on the entry pass to Yao inside.
Head did what he needs to do. That 3-pt at last second of the clock was sick!!!

I do not like the time management of JVG though. It's almost like he's trying to limit the time TMac and Yao are on the floor simultaneouly. He let Yao play the first 5-6 minutes in the 4th quarter, then Yao off and TMac on (maybe there was 1 minute or so overlap), and didn't bring back Yao until less than 2 minutes left. At that time, Yao was completely out of his rhythm. And in the entire game, there were too few that powerful PnR play between TMac & Yao.

 

On top of that, the refs are letting the players be much more physical (now that we're in the playoffs). Yao can get away with a stronger defense than he could ordinary play.

 

Everybody seems to only focus on offensive production to gauge success. However the key to this game was DEFENSE. The 75 pts total Utah was held to was impressive, but Check out the Utah's big3 frontcourt stats Boozer, Okur, and AK47 --> 7/34.

Let me repeat 7 for 34!!! About 20%FG shooting!That stinks, and is a tribute to our team's and especially Yao's suffocating defense!! We'll sweep them at this rate....

 

This team does not need him to prove anything or make his point BIG TIME. We need him to be consistent, put in the same level of urgency, energy and passion throughout every quarter, and not just an eruption in 1 to 2 quarters. That made life unnecessarily tough and difficult for the other team mates.

We were sort of lucky in this game.

 

great 1st win but there needs some improvements in defensive rebounding, utah 15 2nd chance pts to 3 from rockets. But good defense and offense in the 2nd half. the first half glad yao is not having playoff gittering

 

Tony brothers did a nice job today. He usually is the ref against Yao.

 

it would be really hard for us to contain their pair front court as 6-31 shooting. We need improve our O-side

 

I dunno if Boozer normally shoots like that, but it seemed like all his jumpshots were hitting the roof. It's amazing that any of them go in...