ClutchFans Game Thread: Rockets @ Pistons 1/7/2004

Hmm after thinking of the way Larry Brown has treated his foreigner rookie Darko, I wonder how he'd of treated Yao if he did sign with the Rockets as was originally thought in the summer.

 

Everyone Chill. Rockets are 4 games above .500. We are going to hunt down a playoff spot. Utah and Golden are not deep enough to make the playoffs. A battle with Seattle and Denver for 6th spot in the west. All things consider we alright especially with Stevie and Yao having inconsistent first half of the season. I dislike JVG and his offense, but it's effective in the playoffs. Don't be surprised Rockets winning a series in the West. As for the terrible offensive struggle by the Rockets, Yao should shoulder alot of responsibility. But also keep in mind all players struggle, even Shaq. Rockets obviously is not talented enough to win without a "Fresh Yao". 3 seasons of non-stop basketball will do that to anyone. Lets hope he take a year off this summer and be ready to dominate next year. The key for this season is to get in to the playoffs, stay injury free, and a motivated rejuvenated Yao. We all know this team is capable of great things, just hope they can put it together in the playoffs.

 

Ugly games with ugly points,turnovers and fouls!

 

How can y'all blame the coach when it's the players making the same dumb mistakes they made last year.

Francis has not progressed any since his rookie year, all the knocks on him coming into the league were true. He has no idea how to be a leader on the floor and IMO the blame starts with him. Yao is a joke, a one trick pony and I have doubts that he will ever be anything more than that; when exploring trades I would start with Yao and I'll prolly get bashed for that statement but it's what I would do. These are our franchise players and we are in trouble.

 

The Rox are desperate for a quality Forward. Cato can more than ably fill in the centre position. Ming for Finley with some offloading of some bad contracts and more cap space.

 

I'm with you though maybe not for Finley, I want warriors on this team guys that leave it all on the court , guys like Cat and Cato.

 

You realize how much Finley makes? He's a max contract player. The last thing the Rockets need is to load up the boat with a max contract in Steve who is slowly becoming a payroll albatross and then taking on another guy who Dallas is wanting to pawn off to anyone who is willing to take him. They are wanting to stick Josh Howard in there as a cheaper replacement. I don't think Yao Ming deserves a max contract based on his talent, so this is why I think the Rockets need to deal him off to the Warriors for picks and Dunleavy Jr. Yao gets to be happy escaping this prison of a team.

 

Yao is a softie. Or should I say P*$$y!!!!!

Post up for gosh sakes. Play with some fire!!!!

Our team is doomed.

 

Can someone please explain to me how Yao could drop 20-22 on Pistons the last time we met, but scored only 4 and got 5 rebounds this time around? What has changed? What's the problem? I am really, really worried.

That said, we are still 4 games up playing up and down...

SS999

 

Because Yao played like a big "Wuss".

 

Interesting dialogue between Francis and Atkins when we were still a tie with Detroit. Francis said he was to light up Atkins. Then he started one-on-one and missed four shots in a row. Detroit took the lead by 14 and never looked back (bad):



AUBURN HILLS, Mich. -- The Rockets have become a sure thing, automatic.

Another game and another team's scoring turned impotent. Another night was filled with missed shots. Another offense was suffocated, left for dead until all the only appeal was the morbid curiosity about how long coaches would wait to pull the plug.

But this time, the offense the Rockets shut down was their own.

For a third consecutive Rockets game, a team failed to reach 70. But Wednesday, the Rockets did little to challenge the reigning champions of the defense-first art form, accepting an 85-66 loss to the Pistons and adding another line to the other section in their record book.

After holding consecutive teams to the fewest points ever scored against the Rockets, the Rockets finished with as few as they have ever put up in a game.

But they were so feeble offensively, it took eight points in the last 3:39 to even match their all-time worst scoring night. And as much as they might have contributed to offensive blackouts suffered by the Jazz and Warriors, they blamed themselves for another night rewriting their record book.

"It was a lack of intensity as a team," Rockets guard Steve Francis said. "A couple players played hard. One or two players can't do it. You have to have eight, nine, 10 players in a rotation play hard. It wasn't much they did that got us to play like that. Some of the shots we got we normally take, but we didn't really move the ball as much as we normally do.

"It's hard, man, you go up and you go down. And the same thing takes us down every time. It gets old. That stuff gets old quick."

If there were a couple players with the intensity of their three-game winning streak, he did not point them out. He and Jim Jackson had 15 points each to be the only Rockets to score in double figures. But even when the Rockets with the Pistons were still tied three minutes into the second quarter, they seemed disinterested compared to the more intense, focused performances in the winning streak.

"We didn't prepare well this morning, we didn't compete well tonight," Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy said. "We weren't as determined to win as we have been for most of the time this year. Detroit played really hard."

Failing to match that, the Rockets could not keep pace on cruise control. When they made just 3 of 17 shots in the second quarter, they left the Pistons little choice but to take their lead to 14 by halftime and to as much as 23 in the second half.

The Pistons, extending their winning streak to seven games, slapped the Rockets with their revived defensive prowess from the start. But guard Chucky Atkins said they also said they beat the Rockets mentally.

Francis had gotten off to a good start, scoring six points with four assists in the first quarter, even dropping Atkins to his backside with one move.

"Me and him got to jawing at each other a little bit," Atkins said. "He made a statement that he was going to start lighting him up. I made a statement to him, 'I'm not going nowhere. Whatever he wants to do, we can do it.' He started playing a one-on-one game, and I knew I had help. So it was one-on-five so that was to our advantage."

Francis missed all four of his second quarter shots. And while Francis' offense disappeared, all of 7-foot-6 of Yao Ming was missing. Yao did not take a shot in eight second-quarter minutes. He played just five minutes in the second half, finishing with four points.

"I never think ahead," Van Gundy said of the notion he might have benched Yao for the entire fourth quarter to rest him for tonight's game. "I was playing to win tonight. I played guys that I thought that should play.

"We missed a ton of shots. We got outrebounded badly (50-41), missed free throws (making 11 of 19), turned it over (15 times). We didn't compete well enough, prepare well enough, coach well enough."

As often as teams say that they just didn't play hard when they are embarrassed - choosing that over being so outmanned - with the Rockets it was undeniable.

They have often let the frustration of errant shooting sap their intensity. But Wednesday, there was no intensity to lose.

"We looked like we were in slow motion," Rockets forward Kelvin Cato said. "They weren't playing particularly well either, but we were in slow motion.

"If you're missing shots, then you're missing shots. You still have to play basketball. We did a lot more than just missing shots. We didn't execute, we didn't do a good job on the boards. That was one of the bad games of the season. We didn't get it done. We didn't get anything done."

Instead, the Rockets seemed impressed with their mighty three-game winning streak. They had held three teams to a combined 200 points. By Wednesday, they gave themselves a reminder of how that feels.

"That's the difference between being a great team and an average team in this league, game in and game out bringing it," Jackson said. "Some nights you're not going to shoot well, but the intensity still has to be there.

"That's why you have separation in this league from the very good teams, good teams and average teams. It's not always the talent that separates the great teams from the good teams. It's the attitude and the approach to the game. That's something we have to change on a consistent basis.

"We didn't compete at all from the jump ball."

 

The reason I trade Yao is that the Rockets get the most for him. The Rockets would be lucky to get 3/4 the package the Knicks gave up for Marbury. Marbury is head and shoulders over Steve. Watch Marbury last year against the Spurs in the playoffs. You'll see what I'm talking about. Trading Steve now is like selling stock near the bottom. There's no way Steve can play worse than he is playing this year.

 

Moochie is now in a better place. He's playing in the Big Apple. Don Chaney seems to be getting him to put up better assist numbers than Van Gundy. I'm happy for Moochie. Moochie probably turned on League Pass tonight with his new buddy Stephon Marbury. They were probably laughing at the Rockets tonight too.

 

Francis hasn't changed a bit.

 

Man trade this guy already!!!

 

"Van Gundy signed a four-year deal worth $18 million."

By the time the 4th year arrives, you're going to see 5,000 be the normal attendance at the Toyota Center.

 

I knew there was a game within a game going on tonight between Steve and Chucky. Well sad to say Chucky won by making Steve get out of the flow of the offense(or lack there of). Chucky was also being very physical with Steve that had him in the refs faces all night.

 

Big words. And freaking bigger baloney. If that's the case, all those ballhogs and bricklaying workers in the Rockets would all have been benched.

 

It's not going to get much better in NY tommorrow for Steve.

Steve is basically Marbury's biatch and Mooch knows Steve like the back of his hand so he will know what buttons to push to ensure that he plays like crap.

 

When this Game started I had the impression that the Rockets were going to play very well.
Yao Ming blocks 'Big Ben', two very crisp accurate passes to Yao Ming, a score on both occasions -then- the game moved away into another kind of Game, another pace, another mind set, just what caused this change to lethargy?