ClutchFans Game Thread: Rockets @ Cavaliers 3/5/2007

Don't forget Bonzi playing great in playoffs also! which I believe he will!

 

If our role players play to their strenghs, we have a legit chance, no doubt. We have players with nice skill sets complementing each other. With Yao back to the lineup, they need to find their roles again, especially head and rafer. They should be shooting outside more, Rafer can drive but not head. I want to see Battier more involved in the offense.

 

I was hoping him to take that fade away 3p J. Let him take that, I dont freaking believe he can hit it with a 33% accuracy.

 

actually i checked the rules there is a reset of up to 5 seconds or more (if more was on the clock) in cases for jump balls in this case it hurt the rockets. If they didnt go digging for the ball lebron probably would have been able to secure it and called a timeout with about 3-4 seconds left on the 24, still better than 5 seconds

 

i cant effing believe no foul was called on that. It wasnt a loose bal situation!!!!! Yao had possession!@!!

 

rafer made a bone head play. who cares if it was clean. dont give the ref a reason to call a foul. if you gonna play hughes just put a damn hand up. 9 times outta 10 the ref is gonna call a foul with the game on the line, especially in certain angles were it could have looked like a foul. rafers no star player so he aint gonna get any courtesy "no-calls" from the ref. in my opinion rafers ass needs to be on the bench on key defensive plays. i've seen him do that exact same thing in other games where the ref called the foul. Is it rafers fault he's got low basketball IQ? hell yeah. but i say its jeff's fault for not realizing this after rafers done this time and time again. i'da put synder or kill bill (little guy is scrappy) on hughes. but no, van gundy refuses to give the guy meaningful minutes. he just throws vspan out there when were blown out. we need to go get mike bibby or send bobby sura's ass to that voodoo doc mgrady goes too.

 

This one was on Rafer. Further proof he is not a good defender. With 5 ticks on the clock, Hughs caught the ball almost half court, never ever ever tried to steal the ball and gave him the lane, just keep him in front and let him shoot that 30 ft J. He gambled and got burnt.

 

First game Yao's back, Tmac has a bad shooting night. But he didnt pass the ball like he did when we were playing small. It seems the offense is crowed in the paint, other than Shane, our three point shooters are not taking the right shots, especially Luther. He had 2 or 3 open looks and he chose to fake and dribble. Luther has to understand he's a damn shooter, and he is effective when shooting the open 3s.

 

Exactly

 

You got the point. Alston got a crack brain sometime.

 

yao's playing with all heart. we can see that in his eyes.
we did lose the game,but the good thing is yao's returning with a decent play.

 

That slapping has become a bad habbit of his. How many times he fouled unnessarily with just a few seconds left.

 

I've never understood "fans" like you. Might as well quit watching the season now, then, right? If you really feel this way AND you still watch our games- you sure do waste a lot of your time.

Anywho, pretty crappy game, but I honestly expected it- adding a big (and I mean BIG) piece back to the lineup like Yao is going to make everyone shift their playing styles, and some of our guys are going to have to find their roles again. In the first quarter, I saw flashes of how different of a team we are when Yao is back out there, and now our bench is suddenly much deeper.

However, one complaint. T-Mac. Where have you been? SLASH. Cut to the basket. Don't settle for fadeaway 18 and 20 footers. Be the T-Mac again, not Tracy McGrady. I love the guy, but sometimes I want to believe what the naysayers spout about him, when he plays the way he has been lately.

 

man. battier needs to teach rafer how to face guard people. it's more important to get a hand in a shooter's face rather than go for blocks

 

?

He drove in the Denver game, many times in fact.

San Antonio game was just a bad game but he didn't play too poorly.

Although tonight, he shouldn't have kept shooting if he couldn't make it, he should have drove it in, agreed.

However most of those shots he normally makes and he DID heat up in the end to give us a chance to win.

Anyways glad that Yao is back and give the team 3-4 games to adjust back and give him 2-3 weeks before he's 100% baller like he was.

You can tell, that spin move was MUCH slower than it normally is, and it still almost burnt Z. He also airballed the hook shot, he missed easy buckets, etc. but it's all in rust so he'll shake it off. Also, I like how the team went right into him, knowing he probably wouldn't make it. They need to drop a few games now and get him back into game form if the team has any chance of going anywhere.

Test driving the big guy, so to speak.

 

Yao (B) : Started the first quarter very cold offensively but was solid on defense in the early going, appeared to find some offence in the start of the 2nd quarter but after he made his first field goal and a couple of free throws he went back to flat mode missing all the shots he took. The second half started more or less the same with Yao not being a factor on offence but in the 4th it was a different story, Yao started producing, hitting big shots and making key plays. Should have had a foul called against him when he was brought down by Ilgauskas and made a nice play when he grabbed an offensive rebound and then dished out for Tracy who hit a 3 towards the end of the game. Overall his performance in the 4th was a good sing of things to come in the next games.

T-Mac (B+) : Probably the worst half I have seen T-Mac play, he was flat out ice cold shooting.
He was not simply missing his shots he was bricking them left and right, didn’t adjust his game and drive more so he continued to shoot one bad shot after the other and going for 2 for 12, ouch... On the defensive end he didn’t do much better with the exception of a few boards. But for a second consecutive game he had one awful and one excellent half. This time he saved his big game for the 2nd half scoring big buckets down the stretch and did better job on his man defensively.
However it seems the Rockets at the moment need him to play better through out both half’s.

Battier (B+) : Started off well pretty well offensively scoring 7 quick points.
Defensively he had his moments and slowed down Lebron somewhat but one rebound no steals and no blocked shots is not a very impressive stat sheet for the half. Continued along the same lines in the 2nd half, he drained couple of three’s and tried hard on defense but was not really able to slow Lebron much, to be fair to he did force Lebron to take a few very difficult shots that end up going in anyways.

Alston (C+) : Had an average game overall but did things out there to helped. His shots were not going in and did dish only too assists on the positive he grabbed many boards and hustled through out and got 3 steals.
Not an impressive evening in the end but he was not the reason the rockets fell short.

Howard (D) : Quiet performance by Juwan, failed to make his presence felt at any point during the game. Varejao gave him problems with his high-energy game and Juwan didn’t find any kind of feel and rhythm against him and turned the ball over a few times too. He tried to bang his way through at times but gave up shortly after a few failed attempts.

Head (D) : Not much from Luther tonight either. His shot was off again , defensively he was below average and had crucial turnover late in the 4th with the scored at 84-80.

Mutombo (B+) : Played a good first half was very active on the defensive end blocking shots, grabbing rebounds. He continued his solid first half in the second. He also proved he can have 100% efficiency with a rare dunk on the run.

Hayes (B-) : Good 1st quarter showing he was a good fit to play along Yao. Scored early points and was active on both ends of the floor. However down the stretch he didn’t contribute much and that’s why he gets the ”-“. I expect him to be a regular starter from now on.

Snyder (INC) : Didn’t play much and was positive for most parts. Would have been nice if he played more especially considering how poorly Head played.

 

If Tmac he gets B+ on a 10 of 32 night, you might run out of letters in front of B when he shoots 15 of 28 on the other nights.

 

Old school, solid and intellegent defense doesn't show up in the steals or blocks columns. No, Mr. Alston wouldn't want that.

 

Even though this wasn't the outcome I hoped for, I was halfway expecting it. Yao is not going to save the Rockets on his own. They have to save themselves first.

Horrid shooting by just about every Rocket, but I'm also FURIOUS at the refs for giving Cleveland all the calls and none for us when it really mattered. Even if we didn't touch LeBron, he got to the FT line. When Luther came up with a loose ball, he was fouled, no call, and they made a last-second 3 as a result of the no-call. McGrady was fouled a couple of times on his jumpshot, no call. Of course, as poorly as he was shooting, he should have been driving to the basket. Both LeBron and McGrady are superstars, so why don't they get the same calls? Why is it that the Rockets attempt the least free throws in the entire league? It's a combination of bad officiating and our lack of driving to the basket. Then again, why drive to the basket if we don't get calls?

The part that baffles me is when Yao was absolutely tackled in the last minute of the game and fell down VERY hard on his left side. He had his legs completely knocked out from under him, and I was scared that he might not get up. And what did the refs do? ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. They were too busy running the court to see King James show off with an alley-oop. If there was ever a time to call out the officiating, that time is NOW.

The Rockets have 22 games left. They need to go at least 16-6. At least.

 

HOW CAN U NOT CALL THAT A FOUL...man i am so mad right now. HE FELL FLAT ON HIS SIDE...let me guess ..they thought he lost his balance and fell.