ClutchFans Game Thread: Spurs @ Rockets 11/14/2006

The next time they meet it'll get ugly, more likely be a blowout. Rockets haven't won away against the Spurs for several years.

 

Juwan Sucks

 

To be fair to Rafer, he played a decent game and did a good job defending tony parker.

 

I see your frustration but JVG has his point. Must imagine that even with all starters on court, the game could slip away like that in 2 minutes! Inexperienced rookies could easily cost us a game. If starters can't even contain the spurs, I have a good reason to believe the rookies will not, either. Now we just need to win more games and each game counts. If this means the rookies have less chance to play now, so be it. In the 2nd half of the season, once we lock our spot in the playoff, we have enough time to let the rooks play. Plus, rookies need to stand out from their training.

 

Let's see ... Luther was shooting 52% from three this season. He's not a three point shooter?

And when you're trying to stave off a comeback, the last thing you want to do is put in a turnover-prone guard who gambles a lot on defense and can't shoot consistently from the perimeter.

And Novak ... again, another high risk player. That's not who you want in the game when you're trying to stave off a comeback. You need players who can handle the ball under pressure, play solid defense, and get the ball to the open man quickly and cleanly. Not Novak.

 

excellent post.

i'll add it's freaking amazing how much better we play when shane battier is on the court. i don't know what the +/- was when he was out there but it must be huge. he doesn't put up big numbers but his impact is superstar like.

it is just one game and i think early on it gives us a little check to show we still need some work to do.

 

Yao sucked tonight however congrads him to get a new career high 4 steals!

 

things Iv'e noticed about the Rockets in this game that I been seeing for years past:

1. Robert Horry always shows up and plays big against the Rockets.

2. Rockets been blowing 20 point lead games for years. Even during the Hakeem era.

So I dont understand why people are so mad and shocked about this loss.

 

Do I need to call 911? It looks like you've popped at least 13 veins.

 

JVG with all his defence tactics is not a strategist nor he is a leader with a vision. He will never have the guts to seat the starters against spurs even there is a 20+ lead in the 4th qtr.

 

Sorry, told you so. There is one clear, distinct reason for us losing this game. When you have Juwan out there our defense goes lacking and their defense sags off of him and sits in Yao's lap. Not only that but if Juwan gets more than 10 minutes he is even slower than he is when he is fresh.

I am not upset. But I am disappointed in Van Gundy for this game. How many times do we have to see the Juwan Yao duo before he figures out it is not going to work. We may be able to slide by poor to mediocre teams with Yao and Juwan out there together, but not against contenders. We will get exploited on both ends of the court. Every team in the league will sag off Juwan at the top of the key, and make him either take the shot or have to throw a tough pass to a doubled Yao who then has to try to get up a shot with 2 defenders already on him.

Oh, by the way, I am not for giving VSpan quality minutes right now. I just thought because Hayes was out and assuming Battier would see more minutes at the 4 that we may see VSpan for a few minutes because of Parker's speed defensively. As it turns out, I think it would have been a good idea seeing as Rafer logged 40 minutes and Udrih got a couple 3 balls over him.

Also, JVG and the staff haven't begun to think about what you write either. They're too busy doing their job. I don't write for them to see it. I write to be informative, and make a contribution to the discussion.

Next Prediction: If JHO logs major minutes alongside Yao against Chicago, Yao will have another less than efficient game and the Rox will struggle .........unless JHo comes out firing and hitting the open 17 footer. If JHo is red hot and I mean he has to be red hot, we've got a chance. If he is cold to average, we will get shelled because they will crater in on Yao and let him chunk up that ugly jumper.

We're better off to go with Padgett or Novak if JVG is not going to put Battier at the 4 and play Snyder and Head major minutes at SG.

 

The reason why yao had an off game was that he'd been over excited for the Miami game. He looked pale from 1 minute and never verdured thereafter. That basically cost the game.

I was mad at JVG playing too much of our starters when Spurs bench made the run. But now, on a second thought, that was not too bad. Only if he had changed a little bit by trying V-span on Udrich would have done.
Rafer was doing good but obviously played too much and was out of gas at that particular moment. Even a couple of fouls from Kill Bill would've been enough to stop the crazy surge which burried us. I mean the exact 2 min at the end of the third was THE problem. Well, again it could not be automatic for any coach.

The following 2 games would be very interesting. Do the rockets have the character and quality to come out of this loss quickly? It's time to show the real color of this team.

Go Rox!

 

After watching the rerun, this is how the Spurs took over:

17pt lead down to 15
JHo gets a nice pass for an open shot. He does a nice pump fake but then totally blows a driving layup. The spers get a semi fast break. Finley takes it to the whole against Snyder. Duncan gives a nice pick deep in the post to free Finley for the layup. Deke was in the game and failed to pick up Finley, missing the blocks and leading to the layup.

down to 12
Spers are playing a zone defense. TMac drives against the zone and yells. The ball gets knocks out. Rockets retain possession and call timeout. Out of the timeout TMac drives and pulls up for a short bank shot and shoots way too hard. Yao is in the game now after the timeout. Horry came into the game for Elson after the timeout too. Spurs ball. For some reason Yao was covering Horry and JHo was on Duncan. Horry steps out for the 3pt shot. Yao can't cover that far, and Horry nails a 3.

down to 9
Rockets have the ball doing some good ball movement. Jho receives the kickout and spots a wide open Rafer in the corner. JHo throws a terrible unforced pass that Rafer has to catch at his feet. So the 3pt jumper is covered now. Yao has position on the block. But Rafer decides to drive and take a floater. Of course it's missed. Yao gets the rebound and gets totally hacked on the putback attempt. No foul call.
Spers have the ball. Udrih goes around a pick by Elson. I think Yao was on Elson and stayed low...perhaps it was JHo who stayed low...either way there was no trap on the ball. Rafer decides to go around the pick and Udrih nails a 3pter.

how it got down to 7
Rafer gets pressured off of a pick and roll. He tries to reverse a pass and it gets tipped leading to a turnover at halfcourt. Udrih makes an easy layup.

How it got down to 4
Alston has made a few bad plays now on both ends. So he decides to take the game into his own hands. This is not good for we already have T-Mac doing that to the detriment of the team at times too. Rafer misses a floater. Yao gets a rebound and misses an short put back. Yao is shooting 7/15 at this point, perhaps he is rushed for he's been hacked many times. Yao has not stunkin it up yet (that was the 4th quarter).
Spurs get the ball. They run Udrih around a pick off the ball. Rafer is slow to get to him and Udrih nails another 3pt bomb.



Jeff Van Gundy said the team came out playing terrible D at the start of the 3rd. While that may be true, it wasn't until the end of the 3rd quarter that the game turned.
On offense: TMac and JHo, missed easy shots. Yao got hacked once and also missed an easy putback. Rafer missed 2 floaters that he had no reason to take. Rafer made bad offensive decisions and turned the ball over. Jho made a bad pass to Rafer.
On defense: Mutumbo did not cover the Finly around the pick. Rafer did a bad job of staying on Udrih. And Yao/Jho got mixed up at least once, leading to an Horry 3, and then didn't rotate out to cover Udrih when Rafer didn't go over the pick...perhaps this was the defensive scheme.


Sure the Spurs played harder for stretches, but so did the Rockets. It wasn't like the Rockets weren't running or fighting for the ball. It's just an excuse when they say "the other team played harder or wanted it more". It was just an unfortante series of events of missed shots by the Rockets, bad defense by the Rockets, bad decisions by Rafer on offense, and bad decisions by Deke, Jho, Yao, and Rafer on defense.

And a lot of this is on the coaches Head. Out of the timeout, Pop got the Spurs to exploit the Rockets defense. Horry stepping out for an open 3 is an exploit. And then running Elson out to set a screen is another eploit. The big man for the Rockets didn't failed on both instances and lead to open 3's. And Jeff Van Gundy desparatly needed to call a timeout when the run went to 8pts in a row, but he tried to buy time into the 4th. A 9 point lead would have helped in my opinion.


So...the Rockets don't have a talent problem. They're not doomed to lose. They just got outsmarted, out coached, and out executed.

 

we have depth problem, when SA starters were cold, they just reached into their deep bench of quality players to turn it around, the bench won it for SA. Our bench is much more dismal looking, JVG reluctant to play all of them and hence not giving them any chance to develope into quality bench players like SA have.

 

We are the team we think we are... one bad night is expected from time to time. We'll still be a top 5 team in the WC when its all said and done. And just think, Bonzi can't ride the bench forever and Chuck Hayes will be back soon. It was just one bad night guys-relax.

 

the shots didn't fall

thats all

we are still the champs

 

Good recap of what happened during the collapse time.

One point i want to mention is Rafer's D last night is terrible. Maybe it is because he played too much time, being exhausted too much to catch up with Udrih at the end of 3rd quarter. But actually, from the begining, Rafer gave Parker several open shots, fortunately Parker didn't have rhythm to make some of them.

I really think VSpan can develop his game during the practice, at least 3p shooting (most important for us as a PG right now, since TMac can do the playmaking thing), because his D is way better than Rafer and Luther. But JVG cant give him any time until he gets that level. Honestly, i will agree with JVG at this point.

 

Kim,

I am looking at your analysis and saying....

YUP, as was said before, Juwan and Rafer aint gonna cut it, if a team as high aspirations.

2 boneheads on the court at the same time is too much for one team to overcome.

Rafer and Juwan looked like headless turkeys dressed up in rockets uniform.

And yes, they are veterans.

 

yea

****in getting annoying seeing 30 pics of Yao

be real, we have other players.....like Padgett

 

Just to let you know, rafer made some clutch points last night, his D was off, but he did make shots