What? I didn't say Cato was better than Yao, and if you looked I agreed with MacBeth that for much of the game Yao was Rockets best player tonight. All I said was that Cato didn't turn the ball over as much as Yao, and did as much rebounding. Just look at the stats and you will it is accurate.
Some of the turnovers were due to bad passes from his teammates. I could clearly remember at least 1 from Cat and Moochie each.
I think our guys (1-4) shoud run into their jumper shooter every time (but don't foul him). Yao is simply too slow to rotate. He should stay under the basket and challenge the driver while other guys make sure there's no clean look for shooters.
A lot of the time, Cato gets rebounds that really are attributed to Yao. Yao will often pretty much have the ball, or perform the necessary block out, or have position, but Cato will take it. And Yao lets him. Which, in a way, is good... because there used to be times when they'd battle for the ball w/each other, and it would end up as a turnover. But, still, I think you should let THe Man (Yao) grab the board if he does the work. Yao doesn't steal Cato's boards the same way.
I have noticed the exact same thing. On the plus side, I guess it means we'll never have an ego problem with Yao, or need to worry about him being a stats guy, or not a team player. On the negative side, I am sure that this will cost us at least once or twice down the road when Yao thinks it's Cato he's deferring to when it's someone else...and perhaps more importantly, I would love to see what would have become of Cato had he ever tried to do the same thing to Shaq, Dream, Ewing, etc... He'd have been on his a$$ so fast he'd have had to ask for directions getting back up...not that he'd have ever tried it with them, I suspect.
Van Gundy is right on the money. However, he needs to SIT players late in games if they don't follwo the rules...they will get the message. Also, why is Wilkes not the backup PG, he is LIGHT years better than POOCHIE SNORES ! DD
Honestly I hadn't noticed that happening with any regularity, but I honestly wasn't looking for it either. I just imagined when I saw it that it probably went both ways and sometimes Cato sealed his man off by boxing out and Yao would get the rebound. But I will say that even if Cato does do that regularly I also see Cato usually being very active around the boards, and doing everything he can to keep the ball alive, get a rebound etc. So some rebounds he gets may not have been his, but I still see Cato putting forth the effort and saving the ball at times for his team.
yeah, no...on the year as a whole Cato has been a Godsend, especially on the boards. I was only really commenting tonight in terms of it being a common thing...
Yao's tendency to "tip it and keep it alive" is something I'd like to see him move away from. If Cato is there and manages to get the rebound, then all is well and good. Frequently though, I have noticed these tips becoming offensive boards for the other team-remember the Mavs game! Wasn't it Sir Charles who summed up his attitude toward rebounding with something like: "Just get the **** BALL!"
i love JVG's comments allways, he says it straite up! Thats the way it should be too, let his players know whats up and who the hell needs to do what. I just hope they listen before its to late. You never know the best buddies (Steve & Cat) could be split up
Thanks MacBeth. A very informative JVG comment and an excellent analysis of the game. I cannot say anything more. You simply made all my observations.
I didn't watch the game, so I have no idea how the game was played. I just get one question, how could Boki only take ONE f**king shot in his entire FIFTEEN minutes? Isn't he supposedly a shooter, a slasher? What's going on? --daoshi
since you were there, what did you think about van gundy's time management/substitutions? i just remembered watching and seeing the raps bench points compared to houstons. just recall it being ridiculously in favor of the raps. could the bench have played more? i'm sure that they could've done no worse than yao's seven turnovers, steves 33% fg shooting, or cat's six turnover and 5 for 14 performance... right? jeff's been a savior this season and i think they've over-achieved (simply because they didn't have the killer instinct of putting away the bad teams last year like they've done so far this year), but i think they could have over achieved a little more today. i mean c'mon... look at this: S. Francis: 50 Y. Ming: 50 C. Mobley: 53 K. Cato: 44 J. Jackson: 42 wtf? S. Padgett: 6 M. Norris: 14 T. Braggs: 14 A. Ford: 2 B. Nachbar: 15 ... and those mintues from pad, boki, and brags in TWO overtimes? if anybody needs to learn about "trust" it's vg. question: which three players on the roster have shown this season that they are most likely to draw a charge on an opponent? braggs, padgett, and boki... right? ok. there should have been no reason why two of their top players carter or antonio davis should have been able to survive a double overtime game with five fouls. one of those two out could have easily equated a win. what could they have done wrong that francis, yao, and mobley were already doing? okay... fine... they're your go-to players. then why not take out yao, cato, and jackson (since they have to play tentatively on defense because of foul trouble) and put in someone who could risk drawing a charge on carter or davis? well... at least the bench will be fresh for the second of a back-to-back on the road tomorrow. sigh. trust? pffft! he's still my favorite coach though.
Hey don't let JAG fool ya like that....Watching History Channel all day in b/t pornstars don't make him a Professor or nothing .
Steve, Mobley and Moochie are dumb to put it mildly. Every sane Rocket fan knows that. I never believed JVG's initial diplomatic praises of Steve's game in the first place. I have alwasy stated this intelligence thing in the past because folks around here of limited intelligence and small minds resort to name labels rather than focus on the real issue. I am in the minority of fans (TRUE FANS) on this forum who do not overlook mistakes or stupidity just because we win. Stupidity cannot be camourflaged by any amount of win or lose for that matter. There are a lot of zombie-like fans around here and others who just fail to see reason and common sense. Thank God for JVG - but enough already with the cheap talk - DO SOMETHING ABOUT THE PROBLEMS ALREADY damnit
