T-Mac,Jon Barry,Mike James,David Wesley and Bobby Sura are all in a shooting slump as of late. What do you think is the reason for this?
Most of the shots were falling short of the rim during the games vs NO and PHO. That's usually a sign of dead legs and fatique. I think playing like 7 games in about 10 days is catching up with the team. Rest assure, the team will be ready for the playoffs.
i voted for other. I think that shooters just get into slumps it happens it happens to the best of the best. i think it will be over pretty soon.
I voted other. I think that if you look at tapes of the previous games in which the guards shot well, you'll notice that very early in the game they got very good (long) looks at the rim before shooting. As the game went on and the other team rotated faster, the guards were confident and were still making their shots. Now when you look at the last few games, the guards look rushed from the beginning, miss their shots as a result and quickly lose confidence to the point that by the 3rd quarter, they're missing everything regardless of how "open" they are. I think JVG said it best. The team is in a "passing slump" whereby the outside shooters are not getting the ball fast enough to take their time and hit the shot in order to build up some confidence.
I tend to agree with the idea of fatigue. The team hasn't had a decent break for a long time now, with a ton of traveling around. You just can't stay sharp all the time for the duration of a long season. If the Rockets can get back to form for their homestand at the end of the season, everything will be fine.
Pretty simple. They're all streaky shoters. They are either hitting all of their shots or none of them. When Wesley first came here, he couldn't hit anything. During the streak, he couldn't miss anything. Now he's back to bricking every shot. Mike James is the same way. Ask any Bucks fan that watched him play the first half of the season. There really are no pure shooters on this team. They are very unpredictable. It's anybody's guess which team shows up during the playoffs. One of my biggest gripes about this team is that it relies too much on outside shooting. There are not enough slashers/penetrators. Wesley, James, Mcgrady, and Barry are all predominately jump shooters that rarely take the ball to the basket. The only slasher is Sura, and the problem with him is that he’s such a poor shooter that defenders just back off and invite him to shoot. What makes a team like San Antonio such a great team is that they can win games when their outside shots are not falling. This is because they have a great slasher in Ginobilli and a great penetrator in Parker. When the shots aren't falling, they take it to the basket. That's what the Rockets are missing.
Name one player in the history of basketball that hasn't had a shooting slump. It just happens that all of the Rockets guards hit one at the same time. There is no reason. I'd rather they be in it now than 2 weeks from now.
Pretty good points, most of the guys have been career backups so none of them are all star talents that have consistently put the ball in the hole at a high percentage. The penetration is horrible, there were so many layups that were missed yesterday, I couldn't see Parker or Ginobilli missing some of the opportunities that James/Sura and Wesley missed yesterday
Injuries to the players (besides Tmac and Yao), age of our guards (tiredness toward the end of the season).
Shooting is contagious (much like hitting is in baseball). Nobody knows why the hell this happens... and if they did, they'd be able to fix it and nobody would ever be in a slump. T-Mac said it best in today's chronicle article... normally, when he's going good, it gets everybody else going as well w/ their shots. He doesn't know why it happens, but it does. Definitely 'other'.
I don't mind that they are having poor shooting nights, but it does bother me they shoot so much even though they are shooting poorly. McGrady shot 21 times and had only 13 points. Sura shot 15 times and scored only 10. James also shot 15 and scored only 7. Wesley was slightly less atrocious at 11 and 8. Meanwhile, Yao scored a fairly healthy 19 points on 16 shots. 16 shots is respectable and more than he ordinarily gets, but can you imagine if our guards let Yao take their shots what that would have done to the game? They were wasting possessions left and right. Ordinarily, I'd counter, You take what the defense gives you. But, this quote from Wesley pissed me off: If Phoenix's defense was so bad, it shouldn't have been too hard to get the ball to Yao to score in the paint, right?
Not necessarily. His point might have been that Phoenixe doesn't do transition defense well (which has nothing to do with Yao as he isn't going to be on too many fast breaks). Note how many layups were missed by the Rockets in transition. He could also be referring to the fact that the Suns were doubling and triple-teaming Yao and trapping T-Mac to the point that they didn't rotate quickly to the guards, but that the guards just missed their shots. Once again, this has nothing to do with Yao.
Agreed. This is the last stretch of the regular season, you better believe that those guys are tired and fatigue is setting in. Guys like Wesley, Barry, James, TMac, Sura, have all played a lot of minutes this season, and I guarantee that they have never spent so much energy on defense in their entire lives than this season.
Not if they abandon their man. Without being able to see the game, what popped out to me was Ryan Bowen is in double digit field goal attempts. I like what Bowen brings, but even the Chronicle mentioned JVG had to tell him to shoot. If Ryan Bowen is able to score double digits on Phoenix, imagine what a guy like Juwan Howard, with actual post up moves and a more consistent midrange shot, could do given the same looks. What would happen would be more and better looks for TMac and Yao. Following along in chat it seemed like the refs were more maligned than usual, but Bowen was also the only one with more than 2 FTAs. That's just uncharacteristic, and obviously not all of that could have been the refs.
I've got to agree with fatigue. When you've got tired legs the shooting is the first thing to go. Then you add that to the fact that you don't have quite the quickness to drive to the basket and it makes for a lot of bricks. Barry, Wesley, and James are all capable of penetrating in the lane...pretty much anyone who is a good ball handler is. I think it's just a combination of being tired and them being in a slump. The contagious thing is also true, I believe. Once one or two of these guys gets on a roll, I think it will happen with the rest of the team.
This is what I was thinking as well. Also, when you're in a slump your confidence goes down and it adds hesitation which can hurt shooting. Hopefully with some rest this will pass.
