I mean it's not just a matter of our wins and losses, we have really slipped in play the last few weeks. I think not acquiring Mike James might have been a mistake now. In a way too, I kinda miss Stromile Swift too cause of all the athleticism he gave us. Tonights loss illustrates a pattern though. Against mediocre teams, we have been very poor. ATL, Orlando, SAC, and now Toronto. This is becoming a pattern, and I think JVG really needs to get the attention of his players
Let's face it. Rox is not in a slump. They overachieved. Deke and Howard played like they were 20 years younger. Now they finally hit the wall. They are out of gas.
Our 7'6 shot in the arm can not come soon enough...hopefully even if Yao is not 100 percent from the first game his presence will inspire the other guys to believe in themselves and this team...Van Gundy needs to hammer this loss into their heads... we can ill afford to lose anymore games like this...we need fire...I understand some vets are getting tired but with Yao back the frontcourt will catch a breather... I think our backcourt has enough players and youth to kick it up but the vets are the leaders....Tmac did this before in Orlando...he had to do everything just to get the Magic into contention and have respect in the league... that Mac didn't have any Yao to come back...this one does... Get that edge back get Yao back and start winning games...homecourt and seeding is just too important this year. -V
Now is about the time of the year we start to think.... sure would have been nice if JVG could have worked some of those younger players in, especially while we were winning games. Kinda have to put some of the blame on him for having to rely so much 8 guys, including Deke and Howard. Any team with a rotation deeper than ours will kill us.
they are starting to run out of gas because JVG's 8 man rotation with the same guys for what ~20 games in row? bound to catch up when you have an older team
Concur ... as I told bnb. This is not the start of a slump but perhaps the end of our playing over our heads.
I think it's been 6-7 straight games our defense hasn't showed up... We are up to 91 points a game on defensive scoring. I think this would be a great topic for a stats wiz like duvarsa to calculate our defensive stats the past couple of games and make an analysis.
Gosh, I can't believe losing a couple would make you miss Stromile. All the losing in the world would never make me miss that idiot. Anyways, the Rockets are just playing against very athletic teams. It's too bad that we are losing, but at least this will help us prepare better. Man, you people give up fast. How cannot acquiring Mike James now be a mistake? Seriously. Just stop. We did need to make a trade, but we didn't so get over it. Accept your team for what they are. This is the team we are taking to the playoffs, plus Yao, God willing. So you better fine a way to gather the negatives and turn them into positives instead of whining after every loss.
We have stopped playing good defense. That's the main problem. Not coaching/personnel/strategy. Just bad, uninspired D Every year we hit a bad patch and stop playing D and we lost 3-5 games quickly. Better now than later. It will be corrected