Basketball is a team game, and that's how we lost; however, Yao does hold some of the responsibility. As much as I hate to say, boozer was unstopable last game and none of the rockets could gaurd him. Trust me. That will never happen again. And could you please stop with the true fan thing. If we weren't true fans, we wouldn't be here now would we.
I hope Morey isn't controlling who we play at power forward with his Moneyball bit. Unless Juwan is being held out for a potential trade, but that would involve other players who did play (can't see Juwan as being an enticing trade but maybe someone will bite if they want one of our guards as well). Because Juwan would have been a better matchup against Boozer. Why is it that players always get their personal best against the Rockets, no matter in what era, no matter against whichever of our coaches? Boozer had to have approached or surpassed personal best in rebounds. We made him look like Elton Brand out there. Granted, he's taken a lot of s**t for what he pulled on Cleveland, and for that contract he signed, and for being hurt ever since he put ink to paper, and would probably want to come out swinging......but still, come on. Might as well have put Novak on him. If you're gonna let Boozer turn you into a patrol sock, let it be the rookie. Jeez.
16 of Boozer's rebounds were defensive. We did not lose the game because we gave up too many defensive rebounds (i.e. didn't get enough offensive rebounds). As Kim pointed out in another thread, our 10 offensive rebounds put us at about the same pace usually are at. Our problem was on the defensive boards. We're usually one of the best defensive rebounding teams in the league, but we simply gave up too many offensive rebounds many to Utah. But it's not like Boozer in particular murdered us on that end ... he only had 3 offensive rebounds. And Utah is a very good offensive rebounding team anyways; it's not like we got manhandled on the boards by a mediocre rebounding team. They were the best offensive rebounding team in the league last year, and in this game they had all of their big guys playing. Taking all this into account, what happened isn't something to make a huge fuss over. Van Gundy wanted 3-point shooting at the 4 position to provide better spacing for our offense, something that was sorely lacking last season. He decided to go with Padgett over Novak, because Padgett is better defensively and on the boards (he did grab 6 of them in 21 minutes, not bad). It was a calculated risk to go with Padgett instead of Juwan. This time, it didn't work out. If we're consistently losing with that rotation after a week, then we should try something else.
Hate to say it, Juwan needs to play Last night Juwan could have been perfect at the backup 4 or 5. As sorry as he is starting, 10 to 15 mins against other teams backups suits me just fine. At least he can create on his own shot, which none of our backup lowpost players can do. Somebody please tell Van Gundy to think.
i was thinking that too. in my thread "where's our depth" i mentioned how outside of uor top 5 players (111, shane, rafer, bonzi) no one can put up any points. the top 5 can produce maybe 85ppg which is a lot. after that you might not see hayes score, novak maybe gets 3 luther and snyder might only get a couple of baskets. no one can really add points. i hate to say it but jho will give you 10 points. play him the 20 minutes padgett got with the 10 minutes novak got and he would double thier point total and equal their rebounds. who cares about his defense? padgett and novak can't play defense anyway.
all i want to say is Tmac doesnt have the lift he used to have, but he is still shooting the same way he used to do. therefore most shoot he missed is short. imo tmac is at the same stage as amare, he need time to find back his game.
Juwan needs to play.......for another team. Juwan was one of the least efficient scorers in the entire NBA. He wouldn't double their point total or rebounds - at best he would probably match their point total and their rebounding -- on a GOOD night, when both those players had bad nights -- while clogging the lane and allowing defenders to collapse on Yao. A mediocre shooting night from Padgett and Novak > Juwan at his best. See: 2005-06 season for evidence.
Howard although aged should he ahead of Padgett,also that JVG should loosen up and play V Span a little.He will only adapt to the NBA game if he gets experience. Considering how badly we played V Span might have been an improvement!
Firstly, defense was our problem. We gave up 107 points. We scored 97 ourselves which is perfect. Last two seasons we held our oppenents to about 90-93 ppg. Secondly, Padget and Novak scored a combined 6 points. Juwan certainly is capable of that given that his season average was 11-13 last season. Defensively, I think he could have put some body on Boozer.
I agree, I dont understand why he playes so much. this guy barely made the team and all of a sudden he's our sixth man?
Juwan's 11 points come at the cost of lots of touches, dribbling, and land clogging, and 32 whole minutes. His 6.7 rebounds make Padgett look like Dennis Rodman, who grabbed 6 in 20 minutes last night. If you're convinced that defense is the problem, then you should be touting Hayes, not Howard. Any suggestion that Howard was equipped to stop Boozer (or ANYONE) should be met with the following: http://www.grsites.com/exec/public/soundview.cgi?dir=comic&fn=comic002.wav&desc=Laugh track
