FOX 26 Sports: JVG - We Lost Hard I caught the game recap and couldn't help notice the players disagreeing vehemently to what JVG's take on the game. I smell disension in the air. Wondered if anybody else caught the game recap.
Too add a little more, it was MoT, SF, and Cat who expressed very strongly to what JVG said about the game. JVG said "We lost hard in the 3rd quarter." All three players disagreed and Cat had to hold back what he really wanted to say. Definite tension in the air. I didn't catch the rest as I was watching another channel for hot chicks sightings.
The recap on ESPN had Van Gundy saying it was "heart". But it was a "hard" loss to take as these are games the Rockets must win if they want to make the playoffs. Unless it is an Indiana, there is no excuse to lose to a Leastern Conference team at home. Oh and the players might be unhappy, eh? How many times did Van Gundy take his teams to the playoffs? He took them a lot; compare that to the players on the Rockets team. Mobley is the only one to have been in the playoffs as a ROCKET. And Van Gundy did it with teams (for the most part) that didn't have the talent that this current Rockets team has. Bottom line is that Van Gundy knows what he is doing and that we probably have some guys who cannot fit into his system (aka Francis).
That he had no respect for any man who had gooten as balled as JVG has as young as he has. Maybe it was prison etiquette?
Just caught Cat’s comments on the news and he looked pissed. Van Gundy pretty much said when things didn’t go their way in the 3rd the Rockets just lost heart and played uninspired ball. Cat pretty much said he has no comment and gave an emphatic “Whatever!” to Van Gundy’s comment.
i just saw it on the news to, CAT seem pissed, he was saying everyone has there own opinions and said i got no comment.
HC article. Nets charge past Rockets in second half Van Gundy chides team for losing heart By JONATHAN FEIGEN Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle RESOURCES NBA: Houston 77, New Jersey 88 FINAL Of all the things that used to drive him mad -- the turnovers, the forced shots -- this was worse. Jeff Van Gundy could live with all that. On occasion, he can be comical about it. There was no humor in this. This sickened him. His pretty little team surrendered. He found himself describing the Rockets, his Rockets, as soft and meek, until finally, he went to the most painful and demeaning of charges and questioned his team's heart. The Rockets did not just lose 88-77 to the New Jersey Nets on Saturday at Toyota Center, matching the season's longest losing streak at three games. Van Gundy said they lost -- or worse, were exposed -- for lacking something far more valuable. "We lost heart in the third quarter when it didn't go well," Van Gundy said. "Instead of fighting, we lost a lot of heart." This was not the familiar Van Gundy gloom or an emotional rant. This was not complaining about the ashtrays in a Rolls-Royce. He sounded defeated, speaking softer and slower than he normally does under such circumstances. For the second consecutive game, the Rockets were blown out of a fourth quarter at home. They were outhustled -- to use the politically correct description Steve Francis offered -- in showing little of the tenacity on which their defense had been built. "We should have won by 15, 20," Rockets guard Cuttino Mobley said. But he did not offer much explanation for this opinion, other than "C'mon, man. It's crazy, man. It's weird." But they were not ready to accept Van Gundy's most cutting of criticisms. "That's his opinion," Rockets forward Maurice Taylor said. "I don't think we lost heart. I thought we didn't play well. There were many reasons. We just didn't get it done." Said Francis: "He said we played without heart? Well, I guess if you get outhustled, that's right." But after trailing by as much as 12 in the first half and nine at halftime, the Nets and especially two-fisted forward Kenyon Martin simply played harder. The Rockets simply took it. "The old adage about when you squeeze an orange, what comes out? Orange juice," Van Gundy said. "Whatever is inside comes out under pressure. "We did not respond well when things did not go well tonight. The thing we could have done better is just play with our heart." Instead, the Rockets played the fourth quarter seeming to be as discouraged as when the calls seemed to go against them in the first half in Miami on Monday or the Kings made their run in the second half Wednesday. They had begun the second half horribly. The Nets scored the half's first eight points -- a 10-0 run from the end of the first half to more than four minutes into the second half -- while the Rockets missed all four shots with four turnovers and two missed free throws to begin the second half. But they probably could have overcome that, at home, and with enough of a cushion to lead. Yao Ming, who was engulfed by a simple fronting defense and made just two of nine shots for nine points, ended the drought with a hook in the lane, his first field goal of the game. But the Rockets never defended with much force. And when they brought their chances down to the final six minutes, they didn't come close. The Rockets trailed 74-73 midway through the fourth quarter when, with the game on the line, they no longer could get enough good shots. In the final six minutes, they made one of 10 shots, and the one was a breakaway Francis nearly lost when stumbling on his way to a dunk. "We didn't make shots," said Francis, who broke out of his three-game shooting slump with 26 points on 10-of-16 shooting. "We didn't make crisp passes. When you get a combination of not making shots and not getting the ball to people where they need it, it's going to hurt." Van Gundy was more discouraged that the Nets were allowed to score so easily down the stretch. Richard Jefferson dropped in an alley-oop. Martin was allowed to step into the lane for a relatively uncontested jumper from just seven feet. The final blow came when Jason Kidd was allowed in the lane to clean up a missed Jason Collins shot for an 84-75 Nets lead with 1:44 left. "We don't have a fight to us now, (don't have) inspired play, hard play," Van Gundy said. "Kenyon Martin (who had 21 of his 27 points in the second half) is having his way with us. And it took about a good 12 minutes for anyone to play him hard. (Kelvin) Cato took a charge. But playing him hard, or whomever hard, let's face it, they were out there throwing alley-oops, missing, going out to get it, we were standing there watching. "I said before the game, `We'll start winning again when we start playing hard again, when we start passing to the open man.' Until that time, you're seeing what everyone else is seeing, which is a team that has had a lot of changes, but a lot remains the same." In a sense, a week into the season's second half, that might have been the most discouraging realization of all. If not, it might be that when asked what he could do about it, Van Gundy seemed stumped. "I don't know," he said. "We'll see."
I felt horrible watching that 2nd half too. We turned over, we missed shots, we didn't reb, we couldn't defend ... You could also say we didn't play smart nor strong ... But to say that the players lost heart is a terrible acusation! To me, losing heart means giving up, it means not caring, about the game, about winning or about the people around you. As bad as a player played at one time or another, I have yet seen any evidence this year that any of our players lost heart. I'd always liked JVG but I don't appreciate him saying that. Maybe he thinks this kind of word game motivate the players. I think it is demeaning, humiliating and unprofessional.
