Totally agree with you Oski...From what I can remember, I thought I saw Padgett with his hands up and nowhere close to his back.
I turned the game on during the 3rd quarter. I very nearly turned it off with about a minute to go. I am so glad I didn't. What an incredible finish. I recorded it on TIVO, so I'm going to watch the first half tonight. Apparently, Yao kept us in the game in the first half. What an absolute, special treat! I doubt I'll ever see anything like that again. Up until the last steal, Spurs would answer every 3 (or 4) with two free throws. Everything had to fall into place. Padgett's steal and dunk. T-Mac hitting the 3 plus 1. Brown falling down at the end with T-Mac picking up the loose ball. Van Gundy not calling for a foul on that last in-bounds. Never again will we see that. On a side note, curse TNT. I only recently got TIVO, and i guess because TNT scheduled Celtics/Bailraisers (I like that), it stopped recording well before the end of the game. I'm glad I didn't do chase-play and start watching the game at the beginning. I would have really been pissed. I guess, in the future, I'll have to record the game after the Rockets if they are the first game on a TNT double header.
I thought the ref did a decent job last night, Yao did leave his feet couple times while guards running into him during the 3rd quarter and refs didn't call it, it could of been called another nights.
Man, I had some friends over and everyone gave up and left the room before the end except me. I almost did, but I thought, why not watch the last minute just for laughs... OH MY GOD!!!!! That was INSANE!!!! I yelled so loud...wow...incredible...
I think that this games shows that if JVG just lets T-MAC run the team and the offense, we can have a lot more motion in our plays and more of the players can flourish in it. Put less emphasis on defense and focus on how to open up the offense more. When T-MAC has the ball and is able to run without being forced in his slowed-up offense to pass to the big men and just stand there, great things can happen. Words couldn't even describe T-MAC's performance during the last 62 seconds. I wish I got off work a half-hour earlier so I would've caught it. 4 3's in less than a minute. Words can't describe that. Yao Ming's been improving steadily in his last few games and I think we're starting to gel as a team now.
up unitl recently T-Mac didn't know his place and didn't seem to want to force his position. Everything changes now --- T-Mac is the leader and that will only make Yao better (we still need a rebounding PF)
Rare late heroics like that are why I watch sports and why I NEVER leave a game or turn off a game until the final buzzer sounds. It almost never happens, but when it does it's like seeing alchemy: lead suddenly and impossibly being transformed into the purest gold. And the damned thing is, you never know when it's gonna happen. It's like playing the lottery: the odds are very much against you, but when it happens ... it's the sweetest feeling this side of orgasm. Tmac's insane one-man-gang act last night should be considered one for the ages.
The good: Yao has been playing great since JVG made some minor changes in the defensive shuffling since the game against the Mavericks. 27-10 (60% from the floor, 90% from the line) against Duncan and the Spurs is a great achievement for any center. Let alone that he helps hold TD to 7-22 shooting from the floor. TMac's shooting was off for 47 minutes. I wish that his shooting can be more consistent. Obviously, he is the clutch player that the Rockets need to go to at the end of the game. Just like LA, Kobe was the man in late 4th quarter, while Shaq got most of his points in the first 3 quarters. JVG made some changes which allow Yao to stay more in the paint, thus allowing Yao to get more boards. Yao's first alley oop basket since playing in the league! The bad: Popovich should have doubled Yao and TMac for the whole game, and let the rest of the Rockets play 3 on 1, especially since the rest of the garbage cannot buy anything outside of the paint. The ugly: 2-10 for Mo. 2-10 for Howard. Mo used to be a shooter who has decent range out of 20 feet, now he is a brick city. No other Rockets besides Yao and TMac can score more than 5 ****ing points. Even Yao + TMac combined for 60 points, we barely beat the opponent. BTW, Yao/TMac took 55% of the shots and scored 75% of our points, while the rest of the players took 45% shots and scored only 25% of the total points. Bottomline: Unless the role players decide to put more points on the board, we will not beat enough teams to make the playoffs. The Rockets obviously have the WORST role players in the league by a mile.
Maybe it is not a good timing to say this. I still think JVG is wasting our talents in T-mac and Yao.
This game really have me convinced! We are a championship contending team with Yao and T-Mac together. All we need to do is find some good role players that can knock down most of the open shots. We have enough hustle guys, we need some good shooters.
As I've said before, the rare treasures like this are why I watch sports. In the ebb and flow of many games, you might see flashes of brilliance, a player taking over for a stretch, getting his team back in the game. And you'll sometimes see this type of transcendant performance against huge odds to singlehandedly will a team from the dead in mere seconds. It happens ... but it's very, very rare. And it's certainly something to be celebrated and remembered forever. I've just had my PVR the last month and a half or so, but I learned early that you always add at least 1/2 hr to the end of any NBA game you're gonna record. Just manually adjust the end time ... it takes five seconds tops. There seems to be a lot of fouls being called this season (unless you're the guy being fouled and you're a really tall and from China) which slows down the game and extends the broadcast time as well. The extra half hour will get all the regulation game; make it 45 minutes to rule out missing overtime. Since you're a new TiVo-er, you should search on Google about ripping video from the TiVo to your PC. With the right connections, it's surprisingly easy, and allows you to save things (like this game, for instance) for long-term storage or editing.
Now I am an Idiot for having an opinion, look walking the ball up the court and slowing the game down, is not great D, the cavs in the mid 90's did the same thing but it got them no where, the knicks did it but they had hard nosed players like spree who would play D no matter what the system. I am sorry I am not drooling to the level that would please you, but next rockets win I will try a little harder.
