I would like to add to what you have just posted--- I noticed that JVG was reluctant to ever put in a fresh pair of legs when we were struggling towards a finish.
You forget one thing though....all 3 players WANT to be here this year. Bonzi had the option to opt out, but he chose to stay because of Adelman. James has always wanted to play in Houston, this is his home. Last year, I think he realized what a mistake he made by not choosing Houston, so this is like a second chance for him to redeem himself. And Francis spurned better offers from teams like Dallas (much better record), Miami (Shaq and D-Wade), and thr Clippers (best friend and business partner) to come play for us.
If it came down to one possession and the Rockets had the ball Mike James, Luther Head, Tmac, or maybe Steve could make it. Some people mentioned Brooks or Scola, but I haven't seen them play enough to judge that.
Yeah I know, in 05 playoffs vs Dallas, TMac didn't come through in games 3 and 4. He should have put Dallas away at home, up 6 in the 4th quarter. INstead he settled for jumpshots and missed them and then Mike James lost confidence in him and tried taking things into his own hands.
it seems like whenever we lose, u put the blame on tmac. u cannot seriously put all the blame on tmac for that dallas series. the jazz series i can't argue.
for orangerowdy, tmac losed out games 1, 2, 6 of that series. so u want him to close out 3, 4, 6, 7 too of the dallas series? NO ONE, and i mean NO ONE, can close out every game. it's impossible. there's a reason kobe has a 23% fg in the last 2 mins of games for the past 3-4 yrs. u win some. u lose some. we can always pinpoint at stretches where our best player can play better. but a superstar will take over 50-60% of the games he plays in. sure tmac doesn't close out games as good as like a wade or a kobe, but it's not like he's pathetic at it. sometimes u need OTHERS TO STEP UP and take over once in a while. like all the great players do (jordan w/ pippen; shaq and kobe; wade and shaq; bird and mchale; hakeem and cassell or whoever hot). tell me EVER SINCE TMAC HAS BEEN HERE, that u can name one playoff game where ANOTHER PLAYER has truly outshined tracy mcgrady? FOR ONE GAME? u can't.
Yao needs to be the clutch player at the end. he is a mismatch everytime he catches the ball. he just needs that mentality, that killer instinct.
i agree with alot of posters, Tmac has had some clutch times in his career, the 06-07 season however was not one of them. I think alot of it had to do with conditioning. He hoisted up jumper after jumper, and even when he drove, he first step was slower and defenders could easily stay with him. Another thing i figured out is why the Rockets ran the Pick n'roll so much last yr. Tmac needed a screen almost on EVERY single play because he did not have the explosiveness or confidence to get by his defender. Tmac seemed so guardable this yr, because you knew what he was going to do on every possesion. Again, if Tracy devotes some offseason time to cardio work and getting his conditioning up, alot of these problems can be solved.
Yao has had some great games, but yeah between his rebounds, assists and scoring i think tracy is putting something like 27/8/8 in his rocket playoff avgs which is ridiculous. sad thing is that our 'role players' in the playoff last year totally disappeared all of them offensively. battier scored some 3s in game 5 and 7 and rafer took his share of shots but they werent shooting at the same %. and this against the jazz who for the most part did not play the greatest perimeter defense. i remember the rockets having a lot of wide wide open shots and nothing going in it was like the role players all collectively went into the worse shooting slump of the season at the worst time. like i said it will really be on how quickly the coaching staff defines roles for the players and how quickly they will buy into them. the talent is there to win it all (though I would like to see them get another serviceable front court player), but the one thing that separate the elite of the west (spurs,phoenix, dallas) and the rockets is chemistry. you look at the core of these teams and the key players have been there for more than just a season...spurs (td,parker,gino,bowen,horry,finley) phoenix (nash,marion,amare,barbosa,diaw,bell), dallas (dirk,terry,harris,howard,stack) you can have the new talent but outside of yao and tmac no one else has been on the team more than one season. in the jvg era there was literally this revolving door of players around esp yao and also tmac, some due to injuries some due to front office mistakes.(getting old vets who had a short nba shelf life around tmac and yao) adeleman will have a tough ask at hand but i do believe he is up to challenge. the one great thing that an earlier poster mentioned is that all the 'new' guys all are coming back to win and play with tmac and yao and know what to expect.
this year the reserves won't get hammered, and guys like Francis, wells, scola, james can hold their own, we can give tmac and yao more rest and let them play for final 8 mins. and we won't be down 10-15 and have the two pull as back by themselves. also this year it won't be tmac and yao vs the other team, they won't get wear out as much.
yao def. has had some great playoff performances. i'm just saying, can u guys name ONE game where one guy other than tracy (and outshines him even) carried this team to a win in the playoff? JUST ONE GAME. that's how bad the supporting cast has been. this is what josh howard had to say about the rockets b4 the playoffs start: question - name one guy on their bench howard - hmmm, i didn't know they had one.
nah man, that pick and roll play is a play to get the OTHERS involved, not tracy. when tracy scored, it's rarely off the pick and roll so why would he need that to get by his man? tmac is doubled 99% off of the pick and roll so the 3s are designed from that play.
Since there seems to be so much love for JVG out there, just thought I'd add some fuel to the fire. There's a concept that Bill Simmons likes to call the Milton Berle Theory, which amounts to showing just enough game to beat your opponent. This applies mostly to football and Bill Belicheck, but I think another problem Van Gundy had was drafting up some of these late-game high-stakes plays to run in the final minute, something your opponent had no way of expecting or preparing for. Don't get me wrong, it was definitely a step up to go from Rudy T's one iso-play to JVG's 3-4 high-screen/low-post set plays, but my god it was annoying to listen to the whole team in the playoffs basically saying, "At this point both teams know exactly what the other team is going to do, it's just a matter of execution." Now, a Jerry Sloan-led team I can understand saying that: it's worked for him for twenty-plus years. But damn, what a boring sport this must be, to hear that from both sides. With Adelman at the helm, our offense should be much more fluid, and even the players themselves won't know what they will do. They'll just play off the defense the way Phoenix and the old Sacramento teams used to, and unlike last year's Rockets improvisation will not be limited to TMac/Yao passing it to Battier/Rafer/Head for the open three. Adelman might not necessarily have the trick-up-his-sleeve play to help us finish games, but the fact that opponents won't know exactly what we are doing every single play should bode much better for us in those final seconds of close games. I can already see it: McGrady feeds it in to Yao, who shimmies a second before dumping it off to a cutting Francis, who then drives to the basket until the weakside help comes and promptly bounces it in to Scola who dunks it home. Easy basketball. And they'll actually have to guard everyone this time!
It seems to me that most fans and "expert analysts" really forget and/or fail to realize two very key things with Yao. 1. Yao never gets the calls from the refs that he should be getting, he's being fouled multiple times, usually simultaneously by multiple players when he's "always turning it over." Other players get that call. Especially other players of his stature, particularly all other "dominant" bigs got that call. 2. Yao is by far one of the the most money players on the foul line, even one of the most money star players ever on the foul line. In particular never has there been a center at his level in NBA that could shoot the free throw like that. This is in fact something that if he actually gets those calls, potentially puts Yao above any other "dominant" big ever. It is a weapon that very few fans seem to grasp, just how huge the magnitude of that is, if he just gets the calls he SHOULD be getting. This isn't Kobe or Wade or Magic or Reggie or Bird or T-Mac at the end of the game, this is a 7-6 with skills, he WILL be in position to go to the foul line every time at the end of the game, if he just gets the calls he SHOULD get. With these calls he would be much more dominant than Shaq was for that simple fact. That is just how huge this is, that the refs have clearly been purposely not giving him that call, for whatever motive or on orders of whomever or whatever. It just seems that very few people seem to understand the magnitude of that, what it means to have a weapon that size that can shoot the foul shot like that, because if he gets the calls he SHOULD be getting, instead of "a turnover machine at the end of the game" he is now the most feared weapon at the end of the game since Jordan, and maybe even more than Jordan. This is a simple fact to anyone that understands the game and how it simply works in pure form. Whether anyone wants to believe it or not, the NBA refs have prevented this so far. So guess what? After this Donahgy situation those foul calls will now actually be called, maybe not throughout the game, maybe not early or mid-game, but at the end of the game, there is no way Stern would even contemplate risking it not being called. And once teams realize it will be called, they will be totally helpless. Because he will be in position to score without being fouled, pass to an open teammate without being fouled while passing, or simply they will foul him and say "beat us on the line." To which they are putting a guy on the line who has shown he can shoot 86 to even 90 percent. This is a weapon far more potent than Shaq ever. And instead, because people fail to understand what impact refs have, people don't even think Yao can handle having the ball at the end of the game. They argue "yes but Shaq was fouled too." Exactly, that is the point, he either got the call or was allowed to score by fouling back. He could not hit a free throw if he went to the line. He actually was a detriment and needed Kobe at end of games because of this. Refs went out of their way to tailor calls to him. Now that they will have to call the foul, Yao will either get a good shot, be able to make a pass without being hurried and having players cause him to make a poor pass by being all over him, or he will simply walk to the foul line and knock down two shots. Believe me, the ref scandal is THE turning point in Yao's career. He will now become the closer, and will be very clutch, he will take over at the ends of games (also because Adelman will keep him much fresher in a variety of ways) and he will most certainly become the game finisher. That ability at the foul line, now that the fouls will actually be called will in fact separate him from just about everyone else in the league in the close, even Kobe and Wade, particularly because he will get a higher percentage shot and also will be in easier position to make a pass. There will no longer be any ref that will dare to not call the fouls at the ends of games in key situations now on a player the magnitude of Yao, because everyone (including FBI) will be watching them like mad dogs. Yao will be unstoppable period.
