Les Not Worried

[Jeff]

Just heard a report on 610 AM that Les Alexander, team owner, is not worried about the current Rockets' skid. He attributes much of it to lack of experience. He said, and I'm paraphrasing, "If you remove Glen Rice, we have the second most inexperienced team in the league and sometimes that comes out on the floor. There are just teams that are more mature than us and that inexperience creates problems sometimes."

Les still believes we are a playoff team, however, and that we will get the situation righted. He said that he is patient with the situation and isn't ready to panic.

[codell]

I heard that too Jeff. Glad that he gave the team a shot of support.

I also heard Calvin Murphy on 610 this morning with some interesting things to say.

Murph said, among other things, that he would like to see SF as the end option on offense rather than the initiator of it.

[JBIIRockets]

Originally posted by codell Murph said, among other things, that he would like to see SF as the end option on offense rather than the initiator of it.

ummm, can you say 2 guard.

[crash5179]

Originally posted by JBIIRockets ummm, can you say 2 guard.

My thoughts exactly! Now if we can just find someone that can run the offense.

[Baqui99]

I want to hear what kind of drivel came out of Rudy's mouth after last night. Is he taking the "we're still young" approach, or is he holding the guys accountable for their play. Unfortunately probably the former.

[meh]

I wonder if you take out the oldest player on every other team too, if we're still the 2nd youngest team in the league.

[R0ckets03]

I also heard that. A reporter asked Les if Rudy and his coaching staff still have his support (or something like that)? And Les without hesitation said "yes".

[GATER]

Originally posted by JBIIRockets ummm, can you say 2 guard.

I don't like Francis defensively at the 2 so I'm hoping Calvin didn't mean Moochie and the Small Ball Trio. Hopefully it's like let Posey or Hawkins or even Mobley initiate.

[Jeff]

Originally posted by meh I wonder if you take out the oldest player on every other team too, if we're still the 2nd youngest team in the league.

Even WITH Rice on the roster, we are the second youngest team in the league.

[Uprising]

Mobley's defense has been very good as of late, minus the two shooting fouls beyond the arc last night. He has been doing a good job at keeping his man at bay...meanin a great job of destroying any inside plays by his man. BUT...last night i just could not stand how often he left his man out and open on the Arc.


THe rocks are still above .500 and are doing way better thanlast year, they must wake up though and play atleast .500 ball...
I believe the can. They will.
-------------------
A little off topic

Rudy kind of got out coached in the third quarter last night. what i mean by that is he should have noticed the problem being caused by the Dallas small lineup. Yao had no big guy to guard. And so he was put on the Wiz...etc, players who can hit from beyond the arc. and that they did. It looked a bit like a zone defense execept other players stuck to their man. He should have made some kind of a change during the 3rd. Well....i am not going to stick with what I said about him being out coached. I have no idea what i would have done. I will have to think about that one, what line up/defensive mathups. The shooting was just unreal and the mavs were tooo open.

last night....there was just tooo many 3's and there was nothing Rudy could have done about it. The players just left their guys toooo WIDE open.

This is a young very young team.....both by the player's ages....AND how long they have played together.
~~~~~GO ROCKS!!!~~~~~

[leebigez]

Originally posted by JBIIRockets ummm, can you say 2 guard.

What Murphy is saying is that he should get everyone involved first, then at least result, take the shot.

[hikanoo49]

Originally posted by leebigez What Murphy is saying is that he should get everyone involved first, then at least result, take the shot.

Just like MJ in his prime with the Bulls. MJ gets the other guys involved first (Cartwright, Ho Grant, Pippen, Paxson) and he takes shots with the 24 seconds shot running down and in the 4th Q..

[Texas Stoke]

A team that is in the lottery year after year will have a young age average.

[LiTtLeY1521]

....Memphis Grizzlies?

Well at least Les, THE OWNER, is not worried. He is the one who owns this team. We can't do anything about the Rockets. He owns the team. He can do whatever he wants. If he wants to keep Rudy, then he will. We do not make any decisions at all.

Steve Francis should look to pass first, but the problem is none of our players can score. Cuttino can score, but I don't want him shooting every single time. James Posey, who had a terrible field goal shooting percentage, is actually pretty good on offense. He can score. Eddie Griffin is a little below average on offense. Yao can score, but he is just a rookie and is very tired. Also, Yao slows down our game.

This is just our first year of experimenting. The Mavericks and Kings have been together for years. So have Cuttino Mobley and Steve Francis. But everyone else is new. Especially our new center and future, Yao Ming. The Rockets still need to get more experience and learn how to utilize Yao. There is not much time left...

I'd rather have two big stars with good role players than two big stars and a ballhog along with average players who don't know their roles... But it takes time! Les is satisfied!

[harumph]

Originally posted by LiTtLeY1521 [BSteve Francis should look to pass first, but the problem is none of our players can score. Cuttino can score, but I don't want him shooting every single time. James Posey, who had a terrible field goal shooting percentage, is actually pretty good on offense. He can score. Eddie Griffin is a little below average on offense. Yao can score, but he is just a rookie and is very tired. Also, Yao slows down our game. [/B]

what really slows down our game is guards WALKING the ball up the court, excessive dribbling, not passing the ball to open teammates nor up the court, & taking stupid shots in the last 2 seconds of a play after having wasted the previous 22 on showboating!

You've also contradicted yourself on the "can't score" front with posey. in reality he has been the one player to shoot ~50% for the last several games. Yao can also score if he isn't frozen out of the offense. he got 20 pts in 2.5 quarters (on 7-9 shooting), then didn't take another shot the entire game.

You are 100% correct on with the "steve should pass" bit though. i removed the word first. i want to him to pass whenever in the play to the open (big) man, especially if they're near the basket.

all IMHO of course

[because24]

Quote:
Originally posted by LiTtLeY1521
[BSteve Francis should look to pass first, but the problem is none of our players can score. Cuttino can score, but I don't want him shooting every single time. James Posey, who had a terrible field goal shooting percentage, is actually pretty good on offense. He can score. Eddie Griffin is a little below average on offense. Yao can score, but he is just a rookie and is very tired. Also, Yao slows down our game.
[/B]

Yeah Yao slows down the game tremendously, but as he learn most likely he will learn how to keep up with the rest of the team tempo.

[Axeman]

You could have written half of the "we're doomed" posts found in this same thread at the end of the 1995 season, when we were the 6th seed and everyone was whining about how we sucked this year and we should have kept Otis Thorpe and we weren't going to get out of the first round, etc... etc... etc....

Boy, the bandwagon sure filled up fast after Game 7 in Phoenix, didn't it? Up until that point, the whiners were out in full force -- especially after we were down 3 games to 1 in the semis.

But, you'll all be welcome back on the bandwagon when this team puts it together. See you in a couple of years. Don't scrape your knees jumping back on!

[Free Agent]

Rockets owner's faith unshaken

By JONATHAN FEIGEN
Copyright 2003 Houston Chronicle


Leslie Alexander ached. He watched his team collapse in the second half against the Mavericks and -- showing again that he has more in common with his customers than many believe -- the Rockets' owner felt physically ill.

But even that, even the worst stretch of an incredibly inconsistent season, would not change Alexander's confidence in his team, its direction and its coaching staff.

"My faith," he said Thursday, "is not shaken."

Alexander blamed the Rockets' inexperience for their inconsistencies. Since beating the Lakers in the much-celebrated first meeting of Shaquille O'Neal and Yao Ming, the Rockets have lost five of six games, taking their three worst losses along the way.

The latest loss, in which the Rockets went from a 12-point lead to a 27-point deficit before a Compaq Center sellout crowd, might have been the Rockets' most discouraging. But Alexander said he still believes his team would make the playoffs and still believes in the way it has been rebuilt.

"When you take Glen Rice off this team, and we have because he's been injured, we're the most inexperienced team in the NBA," Alexander said. "I think when you're inexperienced, you have ups and downs because you don't have the experience to combat everything. Inexperienced teams always go through ups and downs."

Even with Rice, 35, the Rockets are the league's eighth-youngest team and second least experienced. Of the younger teams, only Indiana has a better record than the Rockets' 24-20. Only Denver is more inexperienced. But even if the Rockets' lack of experience might explain inconsistency, few teams have taken inconsistency to the Rockets' extreme.

"I hate losing more than anything in the world," Alexander said. "It turns my stomach. It makes me sick. But I know I have to go through it to become a great team. We have the talent to become a great team. We just have to get the experience."

Alexander said he is aware that there is more criticism of Rockets coach Rudy Tomjanovich and even some calls for Alexander to make a coaching change, an unusual step for a team with a winning record, despite its recent slump. But Alexander said he does not believe midseason coaching changes work, and even if he did, he said he has not lost any confidence in Tomjanovich and his staff.

"There's a lot of fuel about that," Alexander said. "I'm not contemplating anything like that. I would not even consider that.

"You don't have one plan, you're always adjusting. The players and the team are very inexperienced. I think that hurts. There are very few inexperienced players that can play as well as experienced players. Our center (Yao Ming) has played just 40 games in the NBA. Our power forward (Eddie Griffin) is 20 years old."

Alexander said the franchise would always look for deals that might improve the team, but he said the luxury tax threshold remains a line the Rockets would not cross. The Rockets believe their current salary commitment would fall just short of requiring them to pay a luxury tax after the season.

With the tax preventing the team from adding additional salary commitments, especially next season when Steve Francis' contract extension begins, it would be very difficult for the Rockets to make most trades.

"No, we wouldn't want to do that," he said. "But I would say, you never say never."

The Rockets, however, insisted that they could get back to where they have been. As maddening as their inconsistencies can be, they do at least offer reason to believe bad times can change if only because they always have.

"At times we play like we're at the top of the Western Conference, and at times we play at the bottom," Francis said. "Right now, we're going through a phase we're not really sure how to win big games. What can cause that, I think, is a lack of focus on yourself and worrying about everyone else.

"Coach said before and after the All-Star break is really going to be a pivotal point for us, what the rest of our season is going to look like. We have to live for the future. We can't look back at the games we've had over the past couple days. We have to think of something positive."

Tomjanovich said he would not suggest that his players avoid hearing the sort of criticisms that have become increasingly frequent. But he said that while going through the usual tape study and practice work to improve shortcomings and correct mistakes, he would also demonstrate his confidence in his team.

"I try to stay positive," Tomjanovich said. "What people say is their opinion. Everybody is entitled to that. That's what makes sports wonderful. People get involved. One thing people can't lose sight of is, we want it more than anybody. That seems to be forgotten. It hurts. It's painful.

"Going through Choke City was a tough one. We felt isolated, alone. How we got through that (the 1994 playoffs series against the Suns) was there was a calmness about how we did things. There was a spirit. I tried to use common sense and that spirit of belief. That's being shaken. You're shaken like that pretty dog-gone good when that hits you.

"When you lose games, all of a sudden the ghosts start coming up. I think it's this, I think it's that, I think it's this. It happened back in the championship years. Usually, what the players focus on is offense, `my shots.' Sometimes it is not making shots. Usually it comes down to other categories, defense, rebounding, giving away points."

Until Wednesday's second half, the other categories had been the problem. By Wednesday, the Rockets' defense became ineffective, and the offense lived down to it.

Rockets opponents have scored 100 points or more in four of the past seven games and more than 90 in seven of nine games. They had reached 100 in just six games in the rest of the season combined and 90 in just 13 other games.

The Rockets have lost three of their past four games by at least 20 points (the lone win was against the Grizzlies). They had not lost by 20 points in the season's first 39 games.

"It's been tough over the last ... two weeks," Francis said. "We just have to weather the storm if we want to come out on top. I'll say a quote from my favorite rapper, Jay Z, ... `When the grass is cut, the snakes will show.' When I say the grass is cut, that means we're not playing good. The snakes will show means the people that don't believe in us will come out."

Francis might be the first to ever quote Tomjanovich (borrowing his favorite "weather the storm" mantra) and Jay Z in the same breath. But by Thursday, he did that and at the same time, also managed to sound like Les Alexander.

"As far as I'm concerned," he said, "We're still the team we were two weeks ago."

[DaDakota]

Yep,

The ole "vote of confidence"

Pay no attention to the man behind the green curtain.

DD

[basketball]

I agree that they should not make any coaching changes especially they are still in the hunt for the playoff. It's not fair to the new coach to come in and tried to install his system in the middle of the season with the team fighting for the playoff. With all the years that Rudy had been involved with the Rockets, the least that they could do is let him tried to straightened out the team recent collapse. We can only hope that he can turn the team around.