that everyone else on the rocket's team thinks mcgrady and yao are better than them.. true, they are. but in order for our team to succeed, our other players need to take on the mentallity of our stars and start playing like they have no tomorrow. i think lots of the bad shooting is due to mental thinking of: it's ok, i'm not mcgrady or yao. well... f that. luther head and juwan howard are the only players i see that play with pride. they work hard to please themselves and not just to get by. that's the difference between our team and the contenders such as SA and Detroit. Their role players play as tough mentally as their stars. you can't settle for missing 3's and blame it on a knee (aka Wesley). play the way you play that got you in houston.. otherwise.. BENCH!!!
i think youre close in your assesment. you can see the lack of confidence in DA and RA even JB since after the first game. they look scared.
What games have you been watching?? Juwon Howard is one of the laziest defensive rebounder I have come across. He will occassionaly get some offensve rebounds and it will make him look like hardworker. His defense sucks! He makes absolutely no attempt at help defense. You are a power forward, show some toughness for Gods sake! Defend the paint! And unless he is shooting a wide open 15 foooter, its going to be an airball or brick. Juwon is a cancer. He is a nice guy but he is a nice guy who is cancerous to the team. Rockets will never go deep in playoffs when they have to depend on Howard for rebounds.
juwan howard doesn't seem as lost as swift. and last season he knocked down shots and played pretty consistently. he is usually there and a dependable guy to produce.
Sorry. Maybe what I will say is annoying. But JVG is not a good coach to make everyone find his best. And Phil Jackson can. I don't know much about Rudy. Maybe he can too.
I actually have great respect for Phil Jackson, moreso than most on this board. He's a great manager of talent and will get the most of whatever talent is placed before him. But I think JVG is pretty much just as good, but in different ways. Don't forget that the triangle offense depends on guards hitting their shots too. Would Phil somehow make Alston, DA, and Wesley hit their shots?
Nah but I don't think Phil would have agreed to pick up Alston DA and Wesley. I think with Phil coaching the Rockets we would have a different lineup with the exception of Yao and Mcgrady.
Rafer Alston needs to take and make the open threes he's getting. If he'd shoot the 37% he did last year, we'd be in much better shape.
This is practically a brand new team. I think the freaking out is silly. We're playing 2 new starters (Alston, Anderson), 2 new rotation players (Swift, Head), and 2 vets trying to figure out their new roles (Wesley, Barry). Barring further injuries, we're going to turn this around, just like last year. Teams like Detroit and San Antonio have been playing with the same core for years, and this is why they dominate early in the season. We'll catch up, don't worry!
It is not time to panic yet. The offense is designed around Yao and TMac. All the plays are basically either for Yao or Tmac to score or create an open shot for the teammates, for some reason they are not hitting those shots. If those shots start falling, the offense would look real good and the other team would have problem trying to double Yao or Tmac. Give it another month for the team to come together before everyone start to jump off the band wagon.
Howard is a joke. if he aint hitting the mid range shot, he is next to useless. Swift has outplayed him uptil now.
Exactly. We didn't look good at all last night and still only lost by 6. To the World Champions. On their home court. The same city where we haven't won since 4/20/97. The sky isn't falling, I swear.
Defense. You can be a great defensive coach, but if your players (mainly the new ones) aren't making the correct choices and rotations, the defense looks BAD. Defense will lead to rebounds and turnovers that lead to fast breaks and pushing the ball upcourt. i.e. easier buckets. The past few years we woudl live and feed off our defense. I've seen more open shots for opponents than in past years. I don't have stats to back it up, it just seems that way. I mean when a TO occurs, you see JVG get a little upset, but if you make a defensive mistake, WOW he's goin' off the handle. I really do believe if the defense gets to where it needs to be, other things will fall in place.
i agree. our whole game (under JVG) depends on how well we play defensively. right now we are not getting it done because there are 4 new guys in the rotation. however, i would still like to point out that even if everyone new thier defensive slides perfectly we still don't have ONE good defensive player! tmac and bowen are ok, deke is good in certain matchups. other than that none of our guards can stop penetration, and i get scared anytime yao's man decides to take it to him one-on-one because i know he will foul them. howard gets scored on, and swift looks lost. giving it time isn't the answer. waiting for sura to come back is just putting a band-aid on our problem (sorry nick). we need to bring in a guard who can stop penetration. this will keep yao out of foul trouble, keep the other team from finding open looks out of a drive-and-kick, and keep our defense from breaking down.
I agree with you as well, but good luck finding guard. Let me see if this sounds familiar: PG looks to drive, makes his move, defender is moving his feet....*WHISTLE* hand check foul...curse that damn hand check foul...URG.
I'm impressed with the Rockets defense so far. Stats don't tell all, but we're really good statwise across the board. anytime you hold your opponents to 40% shooting, defense is not the problem. The main problem is our defensive rebounding, especially when it matters most. We give the opponent way to many second and third chance opportunites to score. An example can be made last night when Horry hit that three pointer late that came off a second offensive rebound for the Spurs. If we grab a few more rebounds that we should have grabbed last night, there might have been a different outcome. But I am confident that if the Rockets can sustain this type of defense, which is the second best in the league right now, when their offense comes back to life, we'll be one of the better teams in the league again. ,
I hear ya, but on the flip side (this is only my observation, so i could be way off) is that we are very fortunate that opposing teams are missing shots. Minus Boston, teams have open looks against us. I guess what I'm sayin is, unless we get that same impressive rotation we usually get, the opponents FG% will not hold as low. But I hope I'm wrong!
