9-38 shooting

TMac at this point is becoming a volume scorer meaning he scores by taking a ton of shots (like Allen Iverson most of his career). Rafer has never been a good shooter except for the streak, and when Yao went down, he has taken it upon himself to be the 2nd scorer. He needs to realize he does not have the ability to do that. Unfortunately I don't think thats gonna happen. This team is good when both of these guys are hitting jump shots, and since we are gonna have to rely on them in the playoffs to hit shots, getting out of the first round is going to be next to impossible unless we play Denver or GS or Dallas which isn't going to happen.

 

During the streak, Alston was shooting 42.5% at 14 FGA. A good shooter has to shoot better than that.

This team will be good if Rafer just not shooting more than 10 times a game.

 

Scola should be the 2nd option now.

I don't know any other playoff team whose 1st and 2nd option are both primeter players except GS. Especially, Rafer's fg% is too low to be the 2nd option.

 

the more alarming stat for me is 1 assist by Rafer. One assist whole game? Are you kidding me?

 

In the first bolded section you said something that made alot of sense but I would question why he is in that role more than why he is playing badly in it. It is somewhat of a chicken or the egg question but you can't expect for a role player to put up star production.

In the second bolded section there is something alot more interesting though. What you're saying about Alston jump starting our offense seems correct also but why is it this way?

I don't quite understand what you mean by tmac being dissenterested but I think the skill level of our team, in general, has been blown out of porportion. The rockets really aren't that good. I'd have to agree with the media 'haters' in some degree because we have this year (and ever since the Franchise era) been depending on subpar players to play way above their heads.

How much do you expect to get out of these dleaguers? I think it puts so much stress on our stars to try and carry the team every night. It's possible that their skill level is blown out of proportion also because of the very mediocre talent around them.

 

No wonder his shots are off so badly. He needs to continue practising his shots an hour early prior all games.

 

I think he's been practicing trash talking before games instead

 

it's a no brainer that if rafer hits his shots houston has a better chance to win. but whatever problems tmac has and rafer has are entirely unrelated. mac takes a lot of ill-advised shots under pressure and offbalance. the vast vast majority of rafer's jumpshots are good open looks. entirely different.

for a shooter like rafer it's simply not sound statistical analysis to break out 10 games or a small part of the schedule. rafer is not rookie, he's a mature player. jump shooters like him, barring injury or age-related decline are going to shoot consistently... with NORMAL EBBS AND FLOW for jump shooters across a season. game to game and block to block numbers will fluctuate but you really get a proper view if you look at the entire season

look at alston's stats the last 3 years

05-06 37.9 pct
06-07 37.6 pct
07-08 39.9 pct
career 38.7 pct

pretty consistent. if anything rafer is a bit above average this year... mainly bumped by hot shooting during the 22 games. you can probably expect him to end the year in the 38 range like the other years. he's 35.1% 3pt this year against a 35.7% career average again pretty consistent.

this is the nature of basketball. it's plain r****ded to go after a dude for not being hot... jump shooters will SHOOT HOT AND COLD does not mean anything needs to be changed or CAN be changed. again rafer is a guy who mainly shoots open 3s and jumpers, not a guy like tmac who has wide discretion over his shot selection.

consider what's in this 10 game streak you keep mentioning. go back 10 games and we're still IN THE STREAK. if rafer's shot selection is such an issue why didn't the streak end 3 games EARLIER at 19 when rafer supposedly went into this 10 game tailspin.

also in that those 10 games of folly is the 104-92 win over LA where he went 8-11 from 3pt and dropped 31 points. rafer almost singlehandedly delivered that game with hot shooting yet this game is smack dab in the middle of the 10 games slump that correlates to losses...

you can play with stats and create any fact you like. as mark twain said, there's lies, damn lies and statistics. you CAN find a correlation between rafer and wins and losses because he's our PG and often our 2nd/3rd shooter. but you can easily also blow up his culpability beyond what's actually there

the most logical and more causal link to Losses is the fact that in the last 10 games we 1) played the two best teams from the west/east, played the team atop the west, and played the top up and coming team... most of them as away games. 2) came off the emotional high of a big streak.

IMO rafer and tmac of course are factors but a larger factor is our intensity on defense and having a 3rd scorer stepping up. what's truly beyond me is the propensity of this board to harp on rafer's hot/cold shooting. I'll be honest from his early season slump to the 22 game streak rafer's shot has looked the same to me. shooters hit and shooters miss, I really do not see anything where rafer is forcing his shots or altering them... he generally takes what the defense gives. tmac is a different story he can always use better shot discipline but rafer is simply a matter of a guy being hot or not. if he's hot logically he'll come down to earth sometimes. if he's not hitting now... obviously he'll pick it up later down the road.

 

Now we are back to Uncle Les who apparently wants to surround Yao and TMac with "discount" talent. Thanks to Morey, there is more quality talent or at least talent with potential in the mix this season than in years past. Frankly, TMac is not what he once was. He has his moments, but he is becoming like the "fat" kid in the pick up game who thinks he is a superstar and chunks the ball up every time he touches it. (to be fair, he makes some niffty passes) Occasionally he scores big, but frequently, he doesn't. Ming is clearly too injury prone to survive an NBA season in one piece.

Yes, the Rockets aren't the most talented bunch in the West; they are overachievers. But, sometimes overachievers succeed. The streak proves that. I still agree with Magic Johnson, in the off season, either TMac or Yao should go if the Rockets can get an infusion of talent from trading one or the other. The TMac/Yao experiment has proven a failure if for no other reason than they can't stay on the court together for any length of time.

 

QUOTED FOR TRUTH

Someone started a thread titled "after 2 games whats wrong with the offense" I dont have the search option so I wont bump it, but basically we were harping on the lack of ball movement immediately after the second NO hornets game...thats when the ball movement died...we got flammed but we were right....WE NEED MOVEMENT

 

Regretfully, I have to agree with everything you said. When I say "regretfully" I mean that your words are a little hard on my beloved Rockets, but so very true.

I don't mind being a fan of a bad team with no chance for the playoff. I just enjoy being a fan.

But when we have guys like Tracy and Yao, and all that goes with them, and not ever see a full season with those two, damn, it's worse than being from Atlanta.

A bad team doesn't offer expectations. A team with Tracy and Yao offer TONS of expectations. And that's the part that hurts the most.

I bold the line that I stared at for a couple of minutes. I've seen it before and disgarded it. But now the facts are real (or maybe I'm just finally accepting them). Tracy is not getting better and Yao will only increase his efficiency marginally. I'll follow the money and see what we get for Tracy.

(christ, I was so sad typing that )

 

Well, I didn't mean to depress you! I feel terrible. But, realistically, unless there is some kind of incredible run in the playoffs, then the TMac/Yao era will be remembered for the "streak" and Yao played virtually no role in it. The streak also illustrated one of Yao's downfalls, he is soooo slow. In his absence, the game speeded up significantly, and for the better. I think it is time to move on, and mix some new veterans with the youngsters. TMac or Yao should net an infusion of some veteran talent. BUT, all this could be wrong!

 

Your eyes hurt because you've never used them before. Welcome to the real world.

 

Don't give up the dream. Maybe I just refuse because I've expended so much energy on both of them and don't want it to be for nothing. We have suffered a lot of heartaches with them. And not all journeys are meant to be with a silver spoon ... some of the most turbulent journeys have the sweetest endings. Morey is going the right direction. Let's see what he does this off season to getting that second scorer/play-maker.

 

Wanna make up some more "Nicknames" to down grade the rest of our players,,or would you like me to give you a Dallas Mavericks forum site.....
Maybe they will wanna hear ur bull****

 

BS! Mac and Yao will be back next year...

 

oh yeah and another thing...since Yao and mac have been together only 2 teams have won it all, Miami and the spurs...thats the only thing that matters...does it really matter if we lose in the second round or lose in the first??? the only thing that matters is if you win it all...

 

I'm not sure that you've been reading my posts carefully man. When I say "fools' gold", I simply mean the WAY we win is unsustainable, not the wins themselves. We cannot DEPEND on Rafer and T-mac continuously shooting hot, just as we cannot depend on Mike Harris scoring 12 points in a quarter to win. I agree that we were playing well during the streak, but it was a style of play that we couldn't keep up. That's what I mean by fool's gold. It was a temporary thing. Sooner or later, T-mac and Rafer would come down to earth and play back at their average levels. We cannot depend on them shooting consistently well enough to make our offense work, just like we cannot depend on Mike Harris to score 12 points in a quarter to win.

And also, we keep talking about the 22 game win streak, but in reality the first 12 games of that streak are now irrelevant. They were with Yao and therefore should not be used to judge the power of this *current team*.

The reality is we had a 10 game win streak following Yao's injury where we played a good, but unsustainable brand of basketball, relying heavily on hot shooting from our guards and in general increased temporary level of play from some role players. There have been many cases where role players step up after the star player goes down, but usually this cannot last forever and things revert back to the mean.

Hopefully, this clears up my point to you. If not, then we'll just have to agree to disagree. Have a good one.

 

Oh, one more thing. I'm simply trying to judge the capability and power of this current team. I'm not trying to discount the effort they put in during the 10 game win streak. They played well... in fact, like you said, they were playing at a "superhuman" level.

You've essentially proven my point. We have to play at significantly above average levels in order to win. Teams can go through stretches where they play this way, but sooner or later things revert back to the mean.

I try to analyze the Rockets for what they are right now in order to figure out if we have any chance at all to get past the first round in the playoffs, that's all.