I only caught the first part. - Mavs vs Rockets...best team won. - Rockets beat themselves, but Mavericks straight up won game 7 (duh). - Rockets got outran. - Yao was too tired from running, and hence missed the crucial freethrows down the stretch in game 5. - Rockets need younger players. - really impressed with Amare's growth during 2nd part of the season. basically the stuff we already knew.
Also said he believes the Rockets can win a championship with Yao and McGrady, and said that he is a firm believer in having the big man as the focal point of a team's offense. He was talking about how he as a point always wanted to keep his big man happy, and he thinks the Rockets should always look to establish Yao early and often. He talked about how much he liked Yao's documentary movie when he saw it, and that he was amazed at the level of pressure on Yao every single day he plays, he said it is like "Having a player on the FT line taking the last shot to win the championship, it is that kind of pressure he faces everyday of his life." Calvin was his old self, joking around and having fun, while giving pretty decent basketball analysis. It is nice to see he still "has it" after all he went through. I absolutely hope the Rockets get Calvin back with Bill, they are very good together and make the TV telecasts worth watching.
Calvin Murphy has that old-school basketball mentality that I really dig. I wish we WOULD establish Yao down low early every single game. It would open up the perimeter. Not to mention Yao gets a better % shot than anyone else on the court. Establish the post. When the defense collapses, the outside game is much easier. If it's not working early, what better safety valve can you possibly have than TMac? Dude can score wherever and whenever he wants.
Agreed. We really need to start getting Yao involved early, it opens up a lot of things for other players. If it's not working like you said, just go to TMac. But I think the Rockets did that too earlyl and often and they forget about Yao.
thats what got us into trouble in game 7.. we fell in love with out perimeter shots.. and forgot to feed yao.. should have pounded it to yao early in the game instead of jacking up too many outside shots, at least there's better than 50% chance that he was gonna score..
Everytime I hear "we need to establish Yao early" i get flashbacks of the the 6-11 team when that was our style of play... I believe the PnR should be worked on to a mastery of the likes of Flopton and Karla. It can be unstoppable with a good summer practice of variations with it. With that said, I support the notion of getting the ball to Yao more, but we will need more creative ways of doing it than a traditional entry pass, we all saw how that worked.
Rolo, to be fair, we went 6-11 cuz we had Charlie Ward, Lue, and a ton of other scrubs on the court that were traded before we got into winnin g form. It's not that going inside slowed us down, it's that going inside and having an open perimeter translated into nothing when Ward or Lue couldn't hit jack or MoT and JJ were struggling. If we try the inside out game again next year and stay with it, I guarantee we won't suffer like we did during the early part of this past season.
The court of law often differs from the court of public opinion. Ask Julio Lugo. I never liked Calvin in the first place and pitied Bill Worrell -- the consummate professional -- for having to endure his childish amateurism on the broadcasts. Now that we have purged ourselves from Cynthia Cooper, let's not take a step backwards and hire Mr. Oops Upside the Head again.
What?? i love it when he interjects with some passion....c'mon now...do you want a bland, vanilla telecast or some excitement and emotion with your ROX ball??
Calvin Murphy is YOF, please ban that troll! Seriously folks, that goes to show you the irrational hatred quite a few people has for Yao, some of them right here on this board. Everytime a few of us posters wondered why Yao was often ignored in long streches of games for no particular good reasons and we got crucified for it . The name calling begin with the vengeance when the name Yao comes up, we heard everything under the sun except what's really going on with why Yao often was not involved in the offense. You have witnessed first hand in this playoff series how valuable Yao was/is. TMac is a fantastic talent and a top 3 players in the league, but let's face it without Yao, TMac would not have come here to Houston. Case in point during Game 7, we were making a comeback in the 3rd by playing the P/R and TMac was finding Yao on multiple ocasions for easy scores, we cut the lead down to 13 and then Tmac stopped looking for Yao and tried to take over and VOILA! game over...Dallas won. I hope TMac learned something from this series, to be a winner you have got to trust your teammate, Yao will continue to improve and eventually dominate, this I have no doubt as my faith in Yao is unshaken, TMac and the rest need to trust and help Yao according to Calvin , I believe in this duo so much, I know we will have many championships with the right pieces surrounding them!
Calvin is the anti-Bill Worell, he is funny and enthusiastic and the perfect balance to Worell's lack of enthusiasm and character. As I said before, they both work perfectly together. The Rockets telecasts just haven't been the same without Calvin.
McGrady took a three pointer that wasn't a bad shot, but in fact it would have been a HUGE momentum shot if he had made it. But he didn't. The fact that he took that shot IS NOT why Dallas came back and started knocking down all their shots on offense and blew us by 40. To blame THAT one position for the loss is simply stupid and ignorant. I think you need to go back and watch the series to see that McGrady involved Yao A LOT and gave him tons of layups/dunks that made his shooting percentage as high as it was in the series. Go back and watch game 2 if you want a good example of that. Even Magic Johnson was marveling at how great T-Mac was playing, and how his passing ability was involving his teammates and making everyone better. I think some people here need to remember that as good a passer McGrady is, he is STILL not a point guard, and won't just keep feeding his teammates and not look for his own shot. IMO, McGrady achieved a perfect balance between passing/scoring if you consider the overall series. He is the one guy on the team that looks for Yao the MOST, and the fact that he takes shots does NOT take away from Yao's shot attempts. What takes away from Yao's shot attempts is the other guys like Sura/Wesley/MJames, who tend to go stretches in the game forgetting that Yao ever existed. With that being said, however, Yao DEFINITELY should and WILL be getting more touches in the future. I think they tried it earlier in the season and he was clearly not ready for that responsibility yet, and so T-Mac had to change the plan and take over offensively and relieve Yao of that pressure that was put on him. I have no doubt that beginning this upcoming season, Yao will FINALLY be ready to dominate offensively, and that will give his teammates the necessary confidence in him to make that interior pass without having to worry about Yao making a mistake. This playoff series we just played, I think, has made Yao a clearly dominant post player that his teammates now finally have to throw it inside to him, because they are more confident in his abilities. Next season, with T-Mac and Yao practicing together in the off-season, that PnR MUST be utilized a lot more and that will help out Yao more than anyone else, because it will give him easy layups/dunks from McGrady's passes like we saw all series long.
Hey Tiger, easy on the stupid and ignorant rant, you got body orifice just like me, everyone is entittled to theirs! I never just blamed our loss on that one position, it's just a good lesson for TMac to learn as well as other players, in hoops, you ride the hot hand to give you a chance to win, more than a few people agreed with me that Tmac took those bad shots at an inopportune time, Yao was rolling at that moment and we got the lead down to 13, what do you think would happened had TMac continue to go to Yao, we may or may not win that game but at least we had a chance. I am in no way unhappy with TMac, without Tmac there is no way we could have put together a surprise and interesting season like we just had, but TMac like Yao and other supertars, they too have shortcomings. So don't be so quick to spew out your adjectives my friend!
That was bad shot selection on T-Macs part but we've seen him make that shot thousands of times would I have liked it if we move the ball around a little more on that possession? yeah but you cant do anything about it
