This is my first post on this forum. After this game I feel that I have to write something. Rockets sucks. It is not really because of players. It is the coach. Why do I say that? Here are my takes: 1) He always play players based on preference not performance. He keep playing the players they suck through the teeth. To play suns, it is critical to lock down their peremeter shooter, not to outshoot them like alston and tmac keep throwing the bricks. I know KillBill is not a good shooter, but he is definitely a better defender, even Head is better than alston. One mistake is that JVG did not play chuck from the begining. Chuck can defend, rebound and protect Yao. 2) He is the coach, but I don't think he can get his words to the players. He was not able to enforce the game plan which is very simple, just get the ball to Yao. He should bench the players who refuses to do so no matter how good they are. The reason is simple. When Yao get the ball, everybody else will have better chances. 3) He always sounds that he is fond of Yao, but I don't think so. Every time when Yao is hot, he pulls him off. I Just can understand why. When Yao is hot, he should play him till he is incapable of scoring. 4) JVG panics himself most of the time in 4th Qtr when the game does not go their way. He just does not hnow who should stay on the court any more. substitution is so messed up. So basically JVG just needs to enforce the game plan and controll the players, but I don't think that he is capable of doing it. When you see Yao taking 11 shots and alston/tmac taking combined 43 shots, you know what I am talking about. In the last few games, people were saying that alston saved us at the end, I disagree completely. He saved his own ass. If he did the things he was supposed to do, which was to get the ball to yao and be a PG, he did not have to do any special. Here I am not blaming players. I am blaming the coach because the coach was supposed to tell players what to do. It is understandable that every player want to show what they have, but it is the coach to look for the team's benifit and decide what each player should do on the court. John.
My point exactly, take it to the hole, come hell or high water. Surely you can draw some fouls. All these outside bombs, it is just crazy. Since they can't penetrate the net, how about the lane?
I guess JVG didn't use any of my suggestions I think if we concentrated on #1 and #5, we would've taken this game.
Ok let me explain this to you since you don't read my posts first, you expect to much from both of them....they are rookies, we love them because most of us now how they feel: first year, lots of pressure, its JVG! limited minutes and so on..... now what the hell is VSpan or Novak supposed to do with just a few minutes on the floor....you can't really expect them to turn around the game and be our heroes! thats crazy next VSpan is no 2! he is a pure PG who runs the team, sets up plays, dishes out like crazy and penetrates like no one! he will never develop at the 2! he is too small to play that position, his shot is still not developed to play that position....you got me now!? he is not set up to play that position, thats it! now Novak, he's a baby, just look at his stamina, the way he runs...he needs another 15 pounds to be a contender to other small forwards, right now he is slow and unexperienced! what he can do right now is shooting open threes, not much else will you see from Novak this year....he is way too young to make some crazy moves and hit then the three...he is just a spot up shooter.....what I want to say is.....play the ball around, give it to yao and play novak then....the shots that Alston took today, those are the shots that novak needs.... you got my point?
Best fits are Billup and the one I always dreamed of Roks to have--Hinrich. Unfortunatly the former is looking for a fat contract on free agency next summer, and the latter just signed a big extension. Neither are tradable. Even Luke Ridnour signed an extension. Can't think of anyone on the market right now. Let's hope a Mark Price on next year's draft who falls.
Are you watching the game?? Battier 7 rebounds 4ast 2blks 9 pts. Alston is playing like a poor man Steve Francis
Straight up, Novak sucked tonight. The 3's he made were when he was wide open. Everytime one of the Suns so much as farted in his direction, he bricked. On D, he was basically absent, responsible for Yao's early foul trouble. Now I do agree with some of you that Novak is the solution to all our troubles. Unfortunately for us, if the Rockets detour to Chuck E. Cheese everytime we have an NBA game so that Novak can shoot uncontested shots, we'll probably have a pretty bad record.
Get Luther Head to recruit his former Illini teammate Deron Williams, when Williams' contract expires after next season.
That was a completely different rockets team. And the bottom line is the Rockets won't play great because Sura can't even *run* right now, let alone run a basketball team.
If T-mac is really up for a ring, he should take a pay cut, more so for Juwan (although he is banking his pension now and not going to accept a pay cut). As a Chinese, I am pretty sure Yao don't have a problem with a pay cut if T-mac agrees to do so. They both have tons of endorsements and not short of a couple of millions. (With a 3-5 million cut, T-mac is still one of the highest paid player in the league) Then we can free up some cap space to get a shot at Billups.
If there is ever such a thing as a "good" loss, then tonight would be it. Positives I took from the game: 1. I thought the team showed REAL heart in the 3rd and showed a lot of fight. 2. Yao has matured to a point where he can play with foul trouble. And he didn't get ran out of the building. His stamina is light years from what it was early in his career. 3. Even though I didn't like the number of 3's taken, I liked the fact that the majority were WIDE open. If we played against any other team, I would take those odds. I just don't like shooting 3's against a running team like the Suns. I had serious doubts before this game, but I truly feel that we would've won this game on a neutral court EVEN on a back-to-back situation. By the way, those fouls on Yao were really ticky tack but it's Yao's responsibility to adjust.
There are at least half a dozen coaches not even as good as JVG: Dwayne Casey, Mo Cheeks, Doc Rivers, Mike Brown, Eddie Jordan...
I guess JVGs plan was to play the rookies because of the back to back. None of them showed me anything, JL3 was a joke, all Novak did was roam around the 3 point line looking to get open to get a shot, VSpan the great creator missed both his layups and was virtually invisible. None of these guys are ready to contribute anything significant to this team this year, we need Bonzi but I don't think it looks good for the Bonzi situation. Its been a month and unless he is injured he should be in shape by now. I don't think we have the depth of teams like the Suns, Mavs and Spurs and our 10-5 record looks better on paper than reality. We played a lot weak teams, our wins came against teams with a combined record of 48/68 and our losses against teams with a combined record of 48/26. We are a good team but I think there are at least 5 teams better than us right now.
It looks more likely Head joins Utah with the rest of the Illini's big three, Williams and Dee Brown. BTW I predict Stoudmare to reinjure his knees this season and done for his career. Mark my words.
