NBA.COM: Jeff Van Gundy has turned Houston into the NBA's top stopper

no need 2 apologize , thanx 4 the article

 

ho hum

according to some round here we were a good defensive team last year... which is a complete pile of poo..

great stuff JVG, when Steve is even thinking and publically talking about being a good defensive player and team you know somebody is making a difference

 

Somebody here has a great JVG quote in their sig where he's laughing at reporters who constantly ask him about his "system". He basically says there IS no "system", every team should play defense and rebound.

Playing good defense means you can beat any given team on any given night. This bodes well for us in the playoffs...if we get there.

 

Yep. And to back it up there are statements like "we were the 6th or 7th best defense last year". Upon closer inspection, one observes while we were 6th, we were tied with defensive juggernauts Utah and Seattle.

And by giving up as little as 1 more ppg, we'd have dropped to a tie for 13th behind DEN, POR, WAS & BOS. As of this morning, we are 2nd in def ppg behind SA. And giving up 1 more ppg drops us behind DET and into 3rd place tie with IND. The Spurs, Pistons and Pacers are some serious defensive teams.

BTW, the next closest WC team is MIN in the 8th spot.

 

you might be right Gater, but for me the stats mean crap, when your best player, plays no defense and i defy anyone to say he played D last year... i mean he would not even run out to a shooter or lift an arm then there is no way we where a good defensive team

 

Smeggy, point taken. Seldom is any shooter left open for an uncontested shot in a half-court set. The intensity of the defensive rotations are almost beyond my wildest expectation. I honestly did not think the team overall was smart enough to learn them.

 

I am very proud...I think the Rockets should be proud to be a good defensive team. Thanks to Jeff Van Gundy. Yes..I agree with JVG...every team should play defense and rebound! I love our defense. Steve has improved I think. MObley is always decent at defense. Yao is intimidating..Cato is like our backbone..provides lots of energy and rebounding and blocks and steals and hustle and motivation. Taylor seems to be rebounding much more than last season. Jackson is good at defense. Not great...Wilks hustles. Our team defense is great!

BUT..our offense..we are 2nd to last in the NBA in scoring. Well we do play a slow game. But I think we are okay if we make our shots..our offense will work.

We shall beat the Celtics!

 

Any good jumpshooting team kills the Rockets. Kings and Mavs have demonstrated their ability over several seasons to annihilate the Rockets. If teams do not have to get points in the paint but can depend on the outside shot, the Rocket guards have shown they cannot keep up with quickness on the perimeter. Guys like Bibby and Steve Nash will always get their open shots. Look at the Blazers game when Damon Stoudamire was torching the Rockets since he was too quick for Steve.

 

http://bbs.clutchcity.net/php3/showthread.php?s=&threadid=71037

 

If I remember right, when the Rockets were interviewing Van Gundy, they asked him what style of game he would play and he responded that with players like Francis and Mobley, he would play uptempo basketball, focusing on the break.

This is my only complaint about Van Gundy. I think he spends too much time working on the defensive end and not enough time working on the offensive end. This team doesn't have a clue how to run a fast break, much less consistently get the ball up quickly. And it looks like to me that they intentionally slow the ball down.

If Van Gundy can ever get the offense figured out, I think we will be World Champions. Really, I was hoping that he would take some offensive players, some good shooter types, such as MoT, Pike, Boki, etc., and force them to play better defense. Instead it looks like to me that he has benched those guys in favor of players who are already predisposed to playing defense and he has tweaked how they play team defense to get the improvement defensively. This has contributed significantly to our offensive ineptitude. MoT out of desparation has become an offensive force off the bench. By the way, MoT has improved defensively and on the boards..........but he is not Cato on the defensive end. Boki--I know the guy can play on the offensive end. If he were in there, I know this team would score more points. He has size, can shoot the 3, can slash, and he can get the ball to Yao consistently, which is what we need offensively at the 3. But Van Gundy won't give him a chance apparently, because his defensive skills lack.

In my opinion, we would be better served at this point in time in trading a little bit of our defense for more points on the scoreboard and creating an enviroment offensively that makes our players want to play and puts fans back in the seats. Yes, we have to be a good defensive team to win a championship. But, you have to score points to win a championship too. At this point, we ain't winning no championship, not because our defense isn't good enough but because our offense isn't good enough.

With all that said, I am willing to give Van Gundy time. We have the elements to be a good offensive team. The foundation of any championship team is it's defense. But in a another year, we should be vastly improved on the offensive end, as well as keeping our defense in good shape. In another year, we should be scoring much more and running a more uptempo game, and winning a whole lot more. Van Gundy is not going to be able to use the excuse he used in New York, that is that he doesn't have the players to play more uptempo unless we dump Steve and Cat somehow and pick up Allen Houston and Charlie Ward.

Oh, please no.

 

The Kings and Mavs annihilate most teams if they're hitting their open shots. Any team that hits their open shots usually does. That's almost like saying who ever scores the most points wins.

Seriously, no defense can stop every single offensive option. If our defensive scheme can stop easy layups, fast break points, and offensive putbacks, I can live with giving up a few long jumpers. Stop the high percentage shots, that's how you win games along with scoring, but that's another thread...

 

Let's see, we have a former coach that took us to 2 championships that "couldn't figure the offense out" because he was too busy doing ISO (allegedly). Now we have a completely different coach that "couldn't figure the offense out" because we can't fast break. We couldn't fast break under Rudy, either. At what point do you stop blaming the coaches and start blaming the players?

It's the players... not the coaches. Once they figure it out, the coach will look like a genius - until they do, you can put a staff of Auerbach, Riley, Jackson, etc. on here and we'd still suck at everything everyone hates about the Rockets. Yao would still be soft, Francis would still be stupid, we still wouldn't be able to run a break, etc.

 

No, it's the players and the coach Dr. It takes both. If it is the players and not the coach, then let's not have a coach. Let's just get the right players. It's both man. And while Steve and Cat do need to improve offensively, you can't put all the offensive problems on the players. Rudy T used ISO, that wasn't the answer. Van Gundy is using what? It changes from game to game. We had the pick and fade working beautifully in LA, and then we didn't see it for 2 or 3 games. Players have to be coached. Just like the defense has been coached. The coach has driven the defensive improvement. That wouldn't have happened by itself.

You can't tell me that guys like Cat and Steve don't want to win and don't want to make changes in their game to win. I'm as frustrated as anybody with our problems but I have seen enough from Steve and Cat to know they want to do and WILL DO whatever it takes to win. Good offensive basketball has to be coached. The fast break has to be taught. And teaching the fast break is more than just waving your hands frantically telling everybody to run down the floor helter skelter. Guys have to know how to run their lane, how to space, where they are supposed to be. Van Gundy has accomplished the first part of championship teams. He has instilled defensive intensity and work ethic on the defensive end.

But here is where this team is at. After they play good defense, they have to be taught and drilled on how to box out and consistently get the defensive rebounds and eliminate the opposition piling up the offensive boards. After that, they need to be taught how to run down the floor, where the ball is supposed to go, and how to gain the man advantage on the break, and how to finish the break. It's in the details. Van Gundy hasn't accomplished that yet. I think there is a possibility that he will and if he does, this team will be a juggernaut for many years. If he doesn't accomplish it, we will be watching the Southwest Knicks for the next 6 years. While two outstanding, athletic, skilled offensive playmakers are playing Defense and walking the ball up on the offensive end.

 

If we keep the defensive intensity up, we should make the playoffs.This team has shown at times this year (NY, LA) that we can play well on both sides.

 

Actually, it's the pick and roll which gives us the most problems, especially when an opposing team's big man can hit from the perimeter - notice how much problems other teams have defending our pick and roll with Yao and Steve or Yao and Cuttino? Same thing goes on with us. Yao and Cato rarely follow out on the perimeter or flash on picks. If you had actually watched the Blazers game, you would have noticed Steve getting picked almost every play.

In general, our perimeter defense has improved greatly from last year. This defense forces opponents to take the shots that the Rockets want, by funneling penetration towards the middle. Watch how Steve, Cuttino, and Jackson shade towards one side of their man to cut off the perimeter and force them towards Yao and Cato. It closes down passing lanes, which in turn cuts off the opposing team's overall offensive options.

Now, teams that rely on perimeter shooting (like us) will have games where they bury all kinds of shots with hands in their faces and just win like ima_drummer2k noted, but they'll always be shaky in terms of winning regularly unless they have an effective, consistent post game for when the shots don't fall and to control the tempo of the game (barring the odd exception like Dallas last year). We're an good post game away from taking the next step.

 

LOL. I automatically thought of Eric Dickerson as soon as I read that.

 

However, Kings and Mavs have basically destroyed the Rockets right from the get go because of the opposing point guards being able to hit open jumpers. I'm not going to bring up Steve's perimeter defense, but Van Gundy will be forced to put Cuttino on guys like Bibby and Steve Nash in order to at least get a hand in the face when they are shooting. Defense especially on the perimeter has always been about being able to react to the 1st step. Once a player has got 2 or 3 steps before you even do anything, he's going to get an open jumper every single time. Van Gundy's defense doesn't work on the Kings and Mavs. It may not even work on the TWolves now too with the addition of Sam Cassell. It's geared to stop teams who can't shoot a jumper. Most teams can't, so that's why the Rocket defense looks so good. It's really overrated when seen in terms of ability to stop the upper echelon teams. Rockets can literally crush the bad teams due to the dominant paint defense, but perimeter defense has also got to be somewhat comparable. I believe the odds of a shooter making a jumper dramatically decrease if a defender is able to put a hand up in the shooter's face.

 

I was thinking more along the lines of John Madden, but Eric works too.

 

Nobody is complaining about the defense. JVG has all the credit due. What some of us are saying is that we were not a lousy defensive team last year. We might not have been GREAT. But we were not BAD. JVG is not turning a bad defesive team into a great one. He is turning a fairly good defensive into a great one.

Under Rudy, our biggest problem was not defense. It was offensive execution. I am still waiting to see if JVG can make a difference there. I suspect, as I've always been, that it's not the coach but the players.