but our most talented player is francis. And he was doubled and trippled through the whole game!!!!! Seems like Hubie is contridicting you, thinking that Francis is the best player. Yao was barley doubled, and still couldnt front his man. Did you even see the game???? Francis also did not take any ill-advised shots. So he wasnt the problem. Yao was not aggresive at all. He was so SLOW! Fran cis just not a pawn. He is one of the most talented players in the league. You cant just waste all the talent that steve has and just give the ball to yao 100% of the time. Sure he can be our center point, but we still can throw in 2-3 iso plays for steve, and set him up to score once in a while. We can win 45 games with steve. Its not like he has a loosing record,(ignore the 3rd season). He hane to give some credit to steve. Yao isnt everything.
Really, guess what guys... Denver beat Sacramento.... So i guess now Sacramento's season is all over...
Memphis was fronting Yao very well. I know the guards dribbled a lot, but a lot of that had to do with the fact that they couldn't get the ball into Yao. Usually when Yao can't gain position, he moves to the other side, but this game he didn't. There were a few times I thought he was open, but when they would throw it into him, there would be Posey or someone else ready in the passing lanes. I didn't mind the dribbling, except for Cat trying to out shine Posey, I just didn't like the fact that they could get Yao the ball with good crisp passes.
sometimes ( last night you knew by the 3rd quarter), you just look at the schedule for when/where the next game is- - cause it's just obvious that nothing's gonna work today. - - we looked like the team on the road, not memphis. shots were short, reaction times were long, turnovers were many, - - - we just could not connect the dots - on all fronts.... We have 80 more games to show whether last night was the rule or the exception --
we're totally on the same page. i think memphis did a great job defensively, therefore, they were able to shut us down. we didn't make them look like the mavs, they made themselves look like the mavs by how they played. kudos to them. but we'll show them next time. i miss posey too =/
Where you watching the Memphis vs. Houston game? Most of Fancy's shots were ill-advised. Cato, Cat, and Yao were the only one's not embarassing themselves on offense. Steve went a craptacular 6-16 from the floor. I don't know what game you were watching, but all of our point guard play looked awful last night. In addition to not being able to find the bottom of the net, Steve managed a 0.667 A/TO ratio. He also felt it was a good idea to keep jacking up 3 pointers when it was obvious that he was way off (ended up 0 of 5). I wouldn't be too concerned about Steve not getting enough shots since he had half again as many as anyone else on the team, not to mention 4 times as many as he had assists. I would say that he had the worst game of any of our starters (except maybe Jimmy Jack). The only things that made him look decent were making all of his free throws (+) and the horrendous play of the bench (-), which managed only 8 points on < 25% shooting.
During the game last night, I observed and mentioned it was a totally wrong match up with our starting five against the Grizzlies. First of all, your centres was fronted most of the time and you put Frances and Cat the ball hog together. Chances were they were impatient to pass the ball around in order to get a good entry pass. Also, you couldn't ask your twin towers to find a position on the other side because they did not run as well as the smaller Grizzlies front court. It would have been better of course if our PF was like Duncan who could run to mitigate the problem. If that was the case, it open up the space for Yao as well. As a matter of course, our ugly perimeter shots did not help either. On the defence, you had the twin towers who were not as athletic as the Grizzlies' front court. The results were clearly Grizzlies front court had wide-open jump shots while your centre and PF were waiting for their attach on the paint, which never came. In odd cases when your towers came out, the Grizzlies front simply dumped it insider for their cutters to lay it in as our guards and SF did not follow either. At the same time, our perimeter players did not rotate fast enough the play the zone. I really hope our injured players will be back soon to improve our team movement.
Yeah, he really tore it up last night... 30 minutes 8 points 3-8 shooting 0-2 3pt 1 assist 0 steals 3 fouls
Note: those of you ready to hang steve out to dry for his low assists should note that he played a good deal of Shooting guard this game, next to moochie; you should also note that JVG (rightly) tried to keep steve in the game when Yao was not, in order to have at least somebody out there who can score Second, I don't know if you guys have watched JVG's offense at all, but it does not consist of "drive and disH" from Francis. It's mostly work the ball down low and see what happens. You guys want to have it both ways: you can't blame Francis for not giving Yao the ball and also for not having enough assists. Either he gets Yao the ball early and operates as a cutter/shooter (in which case he won't get an assist) OR he dribbles around and tries to go one on one and/or dish (in which case he gets reamed for not giving it to Yao). Pick one and go with it.
that probably had more to do with us losing (and jvg deciding moochie deserved 25 minutes, WTF!!!! was that!) than steve's horrendous 38% shooting. though of course the 6 TO's did suck mightily. of course the other main thing that killed us on defense was yao and cato (though more cato than yao) turning lo wright and stromile into allstars in their time on the court. how many open jumpers did they just watch them stroke? at least cato made the effort to jump and challenge, yao didn't. but only steve's/the guards' deficiencies could possibly cost us a game, not yao's.
I went to the game last night and saw Yao struggle all night fighting for position, and he lost the fight most of the time. Francis tried passing down low to Yao many times, but Yao wasn't in position to recieve it. Cat tried forcing down to Yao which led to a couple turnovers. Swift did a damn good job fronting Yao, I think teams will start recognizing that standing in front of Yao is the best defense. This was a team loss no matter how you looked at it. Everyone played bad, 38% FG, 22 turnovers, there is no need to point the finger, EVERYONE PLAYED BAD, THERE WASN'T A SINGLE BRIGHT SPOT OF THE GAME.
Did you guys really think the Rockets were going to go 82-0? Get over it. Van Gundy will straighten them out.
It's incredible what missing the playoffs for several years will do to fans. I'm pretty sure the Kings' fans don't scream about eating their players' brains every time Sactown loses. Then again, they probably don't pray to Divac at night, either.
Gotta counter-program against all the Cat bashers (the latest threads are blaming him for our loss last night). I mentioned in the game thread that Gundy had Yao and Cato on the wrong guys last night. I also think it would have been a good idea to try putting Braggs on Wright while he was going off on us. Farhan's constant Mobley bashing just irritates me, and when he couples it with saying Steve should have shot more last night, I kinda flipped out. I do think Cat was underutilized. Against Denver, Cat was a lot more involved in the offence, and we won. I don't think we are going to win many games if he doesn't get to score at least 10 points. I will say that Steve's defense was not nearly as horrible as usual. I wasn't impressed with what he did against Denver, but he looked halfway decent last night. I am disturbed that Gundy thought Rudy's heavy use of Moochie was a good idea and decided to continue doing it. Moochie should be used as little as possible, which means only when Francis is not in the game, at most, and preferably less than that.
I saw the Game and I saw the return of Rudy ball. A Guard oriented Team, selfish Players and an ineffective Rotation. JVG doesnt get it yet but he will . Steve Francis, Cat Mobley, Jackson and Moochie dont get it but they will. Yao Ming doesnt get it but he will. If they don't, expect JVG when he gets it,to find players that do get it and play it- Team Ball and there is no 'I' in it.
I hate when people like you don't get it even though I explained myself more than once and why I feel bad about the lose. I did not expect us to go 82-0 but expect to see my team win or lose playing smart, progressive, patience, time_tested, positive, inside_out, intelligent and dumb_free game. IS that freaking too much to ask for ZRB?
"If we are going to lose 81 games lets lose with a our best player, Yao. I prefer to go down with Yao than those other dumb and stupid pawns/scrubs he has been forced by Rudy to play with." With statements like those, it's no wonder why ZRB responded the way he did. And let's not get carried way with you calling this "your" team when it's obvious the only team you care about is TEAM YAO.
I can't believe you homers, now even "we didn't expect the opponants play such good D" could be an excuce. why not blame the guards not able to make a pass? why not blame the guards couldn't protect the ball? why not blame our coach been out-coached? ask JVG and he'd tell you our team sucked. even the coach said we didn't played the right way, why shouldn't point it out RIGHT NOW! wait till' the midseason? that'd be too late to fix it for this season and I think no one wants to waste another season right? don't forget what attitude JVG brough here: "NO EXCUCE!" we lost, in an urgly way, to a bad team. The guards didn't do their job right. don't be affraid to point out, just fix it and play right next game. if they still can't get it right then trade them ASAP for the right players and we still have a chance this season.
I said it a long time ago. Even though Francis can cross people up with ankle breaking moves, he doesn't handle the ball good at all. If anyone goes back and watch any footage of him since he's been in the league, you will notice that anytime teams put ball pressure on him, he trns the ball over. Look at how Darrell Armstrong and Earl Boykins makes him turn his back just to get the ball up the court. I really look for a trade also at the trading deadline area involving Cat.
Yeah, the old things are always docomposed only in the surface, their roots are still buried deep in the soil, and sprouting continiously...even I said don't hope too much before something truely happened, I still HOPE they could realize it earlier (I know its HARD for some of them)...before too late...
