I have enough. This twin tower experiment needs to stop. Cato cant shoot the damn ball. Why would they even set him up down low offensively. At times , the spacing between him and Yao is terrible. When Yao got double teamed, his presence inside turned it into a triple. And why would they position him at the key. Everyone knows he cant shoot from there, and he aint no point forward, makes lousy passes, and is too far out to get any rebounds. Even the Kings' version of twin tower is much better than ours.
It started off as a good idea but it's now beginning to show that Cato is simply a great backup center.
JVG might realise thast what is obvious to most that Cato is not a Power Forward but an under the basket backup Center. He cant play out on the court, he doesnt have the Basketball smarts or know how.
Cato does not seem to be able to defend those Power Forwards that could shoot from the outside. Miller totally gave it to him tonight. -G'day-
Kelvin is a natural center. He's not used to guarding guys who play on the perimeter. Thats why our frontline gets abused by the likes of of Kilirenko, Miller, etc. This team DOES miss Eddie. We have to realize that.
This team has trouble with penetration. If you have a good PG like Bibby and Jackson, penetration will kill them. They drive in and the Rockets big men have to come over to help. Leaving the person they guard wide open for the shot, like tonight.Brad Miller killed us and the only way to defend that is to stop the penetration. Mobley does this good, but Mooch and Francis have problems with it.
I hate to say this but I agree with Yetti. Cato's weaknesses at PF have been glaring of late. Never before had it been so obvious that we are weak at the PF position. On offense, Cato has a hard time keeping opposing forward honest. Meanwhile, on defense, he's getting burned by passing forwards and pseudo-centers like Brad Miller. Incredible! theSAGE
Rudy >JVG Thats why Rudy is my hero. Cato at pf was a bad idea with zones,and nobody understood me until now.I saw this after the mavs game when the mavs swarmed Ming and Cato airballed layups.
Are you just now figuring this out? Of course Cato is exposed out there - he's a true center playing out of position! What other choice does JVG have thanks to the EG debacle. You piss away 3 first round picks and still end up without a starting power forward then this is what you get. And get used to it because this is what you will continue to get for the rest of this season. You can thank CD & the Rockets organization for this one - JVG is going to be the one who pays the price for their stupidity. He'll have a front row seat to watch this for all 82 games.
And don't forget the real reason why this is happening: Eddie Griffin. The EG debacle has saddled this team with a glaring weakness at PF that cannot be covered up and may very well prove fatal to their playoff hopes.
You're right, assuming that EG doesn't play at all this year. I still suspect that he'll be back early in the new year.
After all, we need to trade Cato for a true PF. Mo is not the answer. He holds on the ball too much and he cannot finish, that hurts our offense as much as Cato's not doing anything. Mo is also a worse rebounder. He should come off bench to play limited minutes.
BTW, I think the main reason that our offense is struggling lately is that none of our shooters is making consistent shots. We shouldn't go to our PF for scoring. For scoring we have Yao, SF, Cat, JJ, and supposely Pike. If they can connect 45% of their shoots, then we are fine. But they haven't been able to do so in a long time.
Cato has shown why a lot of us didn't think playing him at the 4 was a good idea last year. He seemed to be doing fine at the beginning this season. Then when he has to guard PFs who can shoot, he's helpless. And teams has figured that he is no offensive threat, so their PFs can concentrate on cheating on Yao. The problem with Cato playing with Yao on offense is this. If he plays outside, we are in effect playing 4 on 5. If he plays inside, he clutters up the low post area (bad spacing). The only solution is put Yao up high and leave Cato down low, which I think is an idea worth trying. But JVG still isn't willing to do it.
I think you play your best 5 as much as possible. That being said we have options, but none of them are great: -Leave Cato at PF (he is a shot blocker and rebounder but poor shooter and has trouble defending th perimeter) and possibly change to more of a zone type defense where he isn't isolated as much on the perimeter -Give Mo T more minutes at PF (better shooter, averate at best perimeter defender, poor rebounder and shot blocker) -Make a trade We are in a conference with tons of great PFs. We have a glaring weakness there. Personally I would rather have Cato on the floor than Mo T, but I agree he is not playing well. So my question the the resident experts (HP usually has a great understanding of the Rockets strategies) is there a better defensive scheme for the Rockets if we can't make a trade for a PF that could better utilize Yao-Cato playing together?
And can somebody answer me why Rox waived Braggs and re-signed Ford? This Ford kid may have some potential (I doubt it), but obviously he can't do a thing right now. Rox don't need somebody who need time for learning, they need somebody who can contribute right now. Braggs is hustle on both end of floor, he play defense, he grab offense and defense rebound, he is quicker than Cato and that Ford guy and he has those decent 10-15 feet jumper. I am not saying he is the savior for the Rox, but what Rox need right now is decent bench and role player who can actually contribute. The more the better!!!!
Right again! Now think back to last season. The same thing happened again and again and again. They couldn't shoot last year and they can't shoot this year. Now what does THAT tell you?
