It's not that, dude. Only LET Yao and T-Mac score? Are you kidding? They tried to shut both down, because they could gear their entire defense to the pair while not having to worry about the other 2 who showed up to play tonight.
They have been crap for 3 straight games. Thats what worries me. 2 is a coincidence, but 3 isnt. Tmac does deserve some blame though. His shot selection throughout the series has been very questionable. He has to stop jacking up threes and start looking for more actual plays. If you watched the first two games of the series and thought we could win the same way today and so on fo the rest of the series, you my friend are foolish.
Hayes did a decent job on defence and rebound. But the thig is what a crap Head is. He can do neither defence nor offence, in addition to idiotic mistakes.
LOL. But I'd still blame our two stars. They are the leaders and they have been shooting like crap all three games.
TIME TO BRING SNYDER OFF THE BENCH..AT LEAST HE HAS THE STRENGTH AND ATHLETICISM TO GET SOME BASKETS...
Why do you guys insist that Juwan can be a good role player beside Yao/Tmac? Here is what is working against him.... -He has been in NBA 13 playoff seasons...yet only 3 playoff appearances. -He was dumped by Dallas (soft team) which needed an inside presence, after just 1 season -It has been proven time and time again that he makes Yao worse when on the floor. In today's high speed game, you cant afford two slow footed players on the floor at the same time. -He never gets any blocks and regularly gets abused by younger players on the block. -Yao/Tmac need an enforcer type to play beside them. Only time Juwan is an enforcer is when it comes to contract signing time. ALL THOSE ABOVE ARE FACTS!!!!! UNDENIABLE FACTS! Do you seriously think that all of a sudden he is going to overcome all that and be the answer for Rockets in playoffs?? What are the odds of that? I want Rockets to win. I dont care if there are 5 chipmunks in a Rocket jersey. If those chimpunks get the job done, its all good to me. Juwan Howard is not going to get the job done. He is getting exposed in just Round 1. JVG and Juwan lovers are willing to sacrifice Rocket's success just so they can give Juwan a chance to redeem his career? My God....
This lost was expected. It takes hitting bottom for this team to have it sink thru their heads. The onus I beleive is still on our star players. They both stunk it up again. Shooting under 50% for a center with 8 turnovers while the other one goes off on 9-23 dont cut it in the post season. Post season take mental fortitude and toughness. The role players particularly our crappy role players feed off the stars. If the stars suck they will suck magnified. None of them have the confidence and identity to persevere on their own. They are wholly following the trend and pace set by our supposed Franchise players. If they see our stars getting stripped, pushed around and embarassed they get deflated faster than the Hindenburg. Our crappy role players don't have post season experience to any appreciable degree hence they are more susceptible to the tone set by our stars.
Ugly...ugyly...ugly..the board now, and this game. Great points Jeff, you're spot on. Game 4 is still to be played guys...and I think most of us would be estatic if go into game 5 up 3-1. I refuse to believe that we'll continue to shoot this poorly...but man the Bench has got to show some pride and give us something...anything.
1....2......3 Cancun. They want have to worry about being cold for too much longer, if they keep playing like this. I say it's between 2 hr. flight south into another country vs. 50 min flight North.
If I were Jeff, I would let Vspan drive the Jazz to death. They don't have two players quick enough to guard Tmac and Vspan. Anyway Head can't defend his men or make any shoot. Why do we bother to let him off the bench? Vspan just cannot do anything worse than Head.
In fairness to the stars though, we can't win games when our role players suck like this because it completely ruins the spacing on the floor. You can't play 2 on 5 and expect to have a good offense. All they did tonight was disrespect our role players by sagging off them and making Yao and Tracy's nights hell. It almost looked like our role players were told not to shoot and to get the ball to Tracy and Yao every single time. Either that or they were scared to shoot.
The role players on this team absolutely suck. They have NO 3rd scorer, no legit starting pg, a severely undersized PF (although I like Chuck a lot). The only player that is worth anything is Shane and he really cant do a whole lot offensively besides hit 3s. The organization has not done a good job of surrounding tmac and yao with the pieces it takes to win.
I blame all these on JVG, he is really sucks on O. He don't know how to adjust when his 7 or 8 rotation are cold. From the season start, we fans all said he need develop new players and give them confidence, he is a confidence killer for new players. Novak can not hit any more, vspan allways worry his TO. Bonzi.... So when we met difficult like this, he has no plan and nothing can do. He is sttubern, he don't know how to use more than 8 players. JVG sucks
And, it may get alot worse if they keep playing like this. Face it, while most players attempt to elevate their games in the playoffs, the Rockets have successfully "declined" their play. TMac's shot selection and overall shooting has been abysmal. Yao looks very hesitant and tenative, has yet to elevate off the floor since the series started, and looks to be moving in slow motion. The role players have completely disappeared with the exception of Battier who occasionally makes an appearance. The Rockets are up 2-1, but have played very poorly especially on offense. IF they get out of this round, prospects don't look good for round two. I have been disappointed since game one, I expected an inspired performance from the team, but, they are definitely not in "playoff mode." They have worked too hard all season to be playing like this.
As we discussed in chat, it's official per TNT: NBA PLAYOFF RECORD: ONLY 4 PLAYERS SCORED Some of you still want to put the whole thing on Yao and Tmac? They still ended up w/ 26 and 24 pts, respectively. Despite how 'poorly' you think our 2 stars played, if you think Yao and Tmac held our other guys back from making baskets you better watch this game again. It's PLAYOFF time. Stop making excuses for the role players. They don't need their stars to motivate them. Everyone is a professional and knows their job. Stop acting like they're children who need to be led by the hand. I'm not denying Tmac and Yao didn't play a good game. But they still kept us in it despite ONLY TWO OTHER PEOPLE SCORING. As an entire team we've shot poorly the entire series. Two games, ok. Three? I'm a bit worried. This entire season a major part of our game has been 3's. Nothing's changed and we need to knock them down, period.
The series is about four borderline all-stars(Okur, Boozer, Williaom, AK47) + great bench vs 2 franchise players + nothing. All eyes are on JVG now. We will see is there adjustments from JVG next game! I expect the series to go game 7!
