ClutchFans Game Thread: Rockets vs. Pistons 11/02/2004

No, Taylor brings too much offense.

 

Well, it seems I will continue to hear more excuses from Yao.

 

Wow, the white center in Lakers looks hell a lot better than Yao.

 

Wow, another troll post by artificial.

 

for all the "we need time to gell" guys


Did you see the Lakers?




No excuses.

 

please do post more.

 

Man, I really thought that the members here knew a little more about basketball. Where to start?

The Rockets look much improved. We got open shots and defended well. We lost because of four things:

1. Our stars weren't making their shots tonight. It happens.
2. The refs killed us with foul calls.
3. Rasheed played out of his mind.
4. Big Ben had one of his games where he actually makes shots.

Change one of those and it's a tight game down to the wire. Change two and we win.

Now, on to the mindless criticism I'm hearing:

1. Yao played like a p***y. Yao doesn't have a shot anymore. Yao sucks, he's the 5th best center in the west.

The truth? Yao played aggressively, going hard after boards. He got 10 in 32 minutes against one of the best rebounding tandems in the league. You'll notice that Yao doesn't concede rebounds to his teammates anymore - he has the attitude that the ball is his.

Yao also tried to play aggressively in the paint, but the refs kept calling offensive fouls against him and ignored it when he got hacked. When is the big man gonna get some calls? Come on refs, RESPEK!

Yao also had 3 blocks.

I think that if Yao didn't have a shot anymore, JVG wouldn't be designing part of his offense around his shot.

Look, the Rockets were playing one of the best teams in the league. Both of of our stars had an off night, and yet we still were in the game. Be content.

Can we at least agree to tone down the overreacting? Tyler, your first post was great, but then you ruined it with other posts that attacked other members. Charvo, you made some good points about basketball strategy, but you are basing your conclusions on waaay too small of a dataset.

Oh, I almost forgot - the game looked amazing on TNT-HD. It did suck when they had the stupid fan interview and then the Stern interview taking up part of the screen. LET ME WATCH MY GAME, PLEASE!

 

My problem with that excuse is the stuff that I saw was basic fundamental basketball that you learn as a kid. For the first 5 or so possessions, the ball went to Mo Taylor on the post or Jim Jackson one on one. That is not supposed to be where the ball goes on a team with two star players.

But more disconcerting than anything was the fact the rockets settled for jumpshots. There was little to no ball movement(1 pass at most) while on the other end Detroit passed it around like a hot potato and got better shots because of it. If they hit a decent percentage in the 1st half, this game isn't close.

I don't think these kinds of mistakes take "gelling" to figure out. This is stuff that every professional basketball player should understand regardless of their teammates changing. That is what disturbs me more than anything to be quite honest.

They(the rockets) easily have the ability to get to the next level, but in order to do so, they might want to watch film of the pistons offense tonight compared to themselves because they just might learn something.

 

Wow, the Lakers played the Pistons in Detroit last night too?

Whatever !!!

DD

 

Maybe Yao can take some of the stuff Bagwell took during the season to ease the pain from his non-shooting elbow injury. Bricking jumpshots as if he is Cato can only happen if he is named Shaq. If Yao cannot expand the range at which he can make shots, he is effed. KG can make the mid-range. Duncan can make the mid-range. Brad Miller can make the mid-range. Ben Wallace can make the mid-range, Rasheed can make the mid-range.

 

Now THAT was a great post. That may need you to post over in the D&D after last night...

 

Well, nothing like opening against teh defending champions on their court with their starting line up back in full.

1. Yao had a bad shooting night.
2. TMac had a bad shooting 1st half, man if he gets hot, look out.
3. Our PG's are average and really need to focus on smart passes and solid defense.
4. JJ played bad and took several ill advised off balance shots.

I will expect Yao and TMac to get untracked, but I do like the way we executed most of the game. We were getting good looks and playing pretty good defense.

Except JJ really has trouble keeping up with Hamilton.
And Rasheed just can shoot over our PF's and Rasheed went nuts in the 4th quarter.

Good signs- Boki played a game (if he keeps this up we will have a good bench.
Deke is a perfect backup center (so far) if he stays healthy we will have a good bench.

If we had a better starting PG both Ward and Lue would be good back ups. (oh well, maybe Sura is an answer)

Overall, I really liked the way TMac got rolling in the second half.

Basically Rasheed Wallace just took over the 4th quarter and we never could overcome.

Let's see if we step up and get Toronto tonight. If we win tonight I think we are off to a very good start.

 

heres where the game was lost last night. start of the 4th quarter -- tie game. JVG puts a team of lue, nachbar, jackson, mutombo, and howard on the floor. definitely not one of the best offensive combinations the rockets can utilize. 4-5 minutes into the 4th, the pistons go up by 7 with this rockets team on the floor. it was all uphill from there -- no chance vs a good detroit defense.

hopefully, JVG doesnt use this combination again.

 

My basic observations:

1) Ward and Lue can run the point for this team. Assuming Ward doesn't do those few things he did that are uncharacteristic for him (fumble it out of bounds, throw it over someone's head, pick up his dribble early) And assuming Lue does what he's always done as a backup, rather than the out-of-sync crap yesterday.

2) Yao did a great job of boxing out, a great job of going for boards instead of waiting for them. If he puts out that effort against lesser teams, awesome

3) Same for MoTay. Never seen him go for boards like he did last night--at least 1st half. Well, I've seen him try before...usually saw him get outworked or out-muscled.

4) What everyone saw out of Boki

5) rhester, please. JJ took his "ill-advised" shots with the shot clock running down and with our team desperately looking for some offense with our 3 main threats in foul trouble.


Considering this was a loss, I'm surprised I'm this upbeat. I guess I also realize that TMac and Yao had horrid games and that won't happen too often. I hope.

 

A little more:

Everyone who's trashign Ward for 1 assist. Don't you think he'd have more if TMac, Yao, or Howard were hitting their shots? Maybe? Possibly?

Everyone who's saying Kobe and Mihm looked good. Did you forget we played the freaking Pistons? An amazing defensive team?? The Nuggets are solid up front, but come on..the Pistons.

I don't need to address the single posts bashing JJ and Yao.


To everyone who says we need a more uptempo game--if Yao hit 2/3 of his WIDE open J's like he usually does and had a decent game, and if TMac had his average game and we scored in the 90's...would you all be saying the same thing? My guess is you'd say "hey, we won and we're in the 90's. Great job guys". They should fastbreak a little more when the opportunity is there maybe with the 2nd rotation.

 

see that's the thing i'm noticing though. Throughout the whole preseason, Ward would pick up his dribble all the time. He often looks like he doesn't know where to go with the ball. Even though he has a dependable shot, he just can't have 1 assist and 4 turnovers.

 

Summary on the game.
Both Yao and Tracy were not on fire.Our gards lack of skills especially in the 4th qtr,they can't pass,less ast (only 4 vs 13).
R. Wallace has obviesly advantage over M. Talyer and J. Howard,that's why his high shooting pctg in 4th qtr.
Anyway we are the team to reorgnize,we need some time.
Good to see Yao's husling and Tracy's passing,that's the team play.

 

Calm down guys. Yao's shooting looked just fine before his "injury".

 

Rasheed's performance was what everyone's going to be going for against Rox - he's an exceptional PF - but we'll seeing an awful lot of Duncan, Garnett and Nowitzki and they'll be going right at the $25 million three headed monster Mo_Ju_Spoon.

Rox are in huge trouble at the PG spot - turnovers are down - but productions is almost non-existent. 8 total assists last night - only 1 from Ward and 3 from Lue in 49 combined and 30/19 minutes respectively. If it's possible - they actually looked worse out there than the numbers indicate. I don't agree with those on the board that think Sura - who just got his back cut open and is primarily a 2 guard - will be the solution there.

Yao, TMac and JJ are going to have better nights - but the above weaknesses will not go away.

It was reassuring to here Fratello's insinuation that JVG is not through making moves this year.

 

Great Post!

This perfectly summarizes this game and the way I felt as well. I just wish some on this board would look beyond the pure numbers and watch what is really going on. Yao did alot of great things out there, but his shot was just not falling. It tends to happen when a player is coming off an injury and not practicing for a week. He looked alot more aggresive on the boards and looked more determined in the post. This team will only get better, so I am lookng forward to the rest of the season.