If, in fact, Glen got plenty of touches, then I stand corrected. I just missed it, I guess, but he didn't seem to be a part of the offense. If, however, my observation is correct, he is just not being given a chance. I am not a Rice fan and would love to see Boki given some playing time. But if the Rockets are going to make Glen a starter and pay him a considerable chunk of cash, I don't understand why their is no effort to get him into the flow of the game. What I recall from my unheralded days on the court is that it is very difficult to get a rhythm going, much less build confidence, if one is NOT in the flow of the game.
Rice was hurt coming into camp last year. He has the foot surgery where he couldn't work out during the entire offseason. Then when he started to get his feet under him then came the season ending injury. People it's going to take time for him to get his feet under him. He was hurt in New York, but he didn't get the surgery until after the season because New York was in the playoff hunt. I'm pretty sure that if it wasn't for the fact that New York needed him because he was a double-digit scorer he would have gotten the surgery during the season. This is the first time he is fully healthy, and it's going to take more then a few weeks for him to get into a rhythm.
Rice is an asset when 'on'...will he ever be 'on' again (say, two games in a row). But when is shot clanks instead of falls he brings nothing else. Sad, actually...and he'll take playing time from guys who should be out there.
Actually Rice is a credible rebounder (about 4 rpg), and he is a good passer. The offense looks good when he's out there because he knows where to pass the ball. And at about 6-8 he can easily get the ball into the post, as he did once with Ming. Rice's passing and experience will help this team even more then his scoring.
No matter what he does, at some point, he'll HAVE to start making shots, because that's what we need from him. If he's not our 3-pt specialist, who is? Cat is good, but not a specialist. It's time for Rice to score when he demands the ball.
I saw on five different occassions, the two man game with Rice and Francis (Rice setting the pick and rolling to the 3pt line). It worked well, but Steve did not give the ball up to a wide open Rice very much-actually did twice and Rice missed it. The other three times, Steve dribbled and scored once and missed twice. Rice was wide open on those occassions too. In fact, Steve and Rice were smiling after a couple plays like this and Rice gets this smirk going as if to say, you are lucky to hit that, just feed it to me next time. 1/6 tonight was tough to swallow, but let's try and feed him a little more to see what he has. A couple times tonight he missed wide open threes and I thought GS could have been buried on those attempts.
