Wow... We beat the best team in the NBA on their home turf without T-Mac and our coach gets trashed for other games that we barely lost away from home. I guess it's still "fire gundy". I guess we just won with pure talent tonight right? We just got lucky to stomp SA? A lot of posters here are morons. He aint the best but he won the game with Yao in foul trouble. BUT WAIT.....thats right...our players step up when we win.....when we lose it's JVG's fault. Please don't let a poster that registered within the last 4 months with 5000 posts respond to me. And yes I am drunk.
I really loved Jeff tonight. He kept his cool while Pops acted like a butthead. However, I did love his passion when he punched the "false wall" that seperates the fans from the Rocket's bench. He showed us some serious nerve (cause we got robbed a few times) under pressure, but also didnt act disinterested.
Huge win. Mad props to JVG. Um, is that sufficient? A great and strange win. JHo has played great on this road trip, Bonzi's almost like Bonzi, Rafer is struggling but still making plays in the clutch and JVG pushed a huge button IMHO with JL3 playing tonight. This is going to sound weird because he didn't have a very good game, but I think Yao had SA and their fans psyched out after the 1st quarter. Yes, I sensed fear and it happened @ SA. Too sweet.
JVG deserves a bulk of the credit yes... There is not another team in the league who could lose their all-everything player(best scorer, decision maker, shooter, most versatile defender, best passer, best ball-handler, best clutch player), AND lose the league's most dominant center to foul trouble, and STILL find a way to blow out the Spurs in San Antonio on the last day of a ridiculousw road trip. I can not wait to get Tmac back. We are easily a top 5 team with Bonzi finally bringing his game to the table.
A great coach? Are you kidding me? He shouldve done that (using the bench more ) a loooooooooooooooong time ago, and after one game, his stubborn and rigid coaching style is suddenly brilliant? Yes, he did a great job tonight but come on, a great coach?!
He schooled one of the very best defensive coaches ever tonight. Held the Spurs to a season low, while scoring nearly 100. Tonight we should be anointed the strongest defense in the league if we weren't already. That comes from coaching. Many of you might find it boring, but I like my team to win and with this type of defense we're in most every game even when we have injured stars... and even when playing the Spurs.
And we're one of the very best defensive teams despite having some very poor individual defenders in the backcourt (Alston, Head, Lucas). Yao is a solid defensive presence, but even he has his shortcomings on that end of the court. Credit has to go to the coach for getting this unit to defend so well.
This thread is whats needed here. Especially with all the negatives threads going around whenever we lose. Hate on JVG all you want but we just pulled off a huge blow-out win with a McGrady-less Rockets and with Yao only playing 26 minutes. Fans said JVG doesn't call timeouts to stop the other teams momentum, he called those timeouts. They also said he doesn't play our young guys, but we saw him give big minutes to JL3 and even started Novak for one game against the Suns. But the fans still hate. In those past few games where we lost by a couple possessions, fans said it was JVG's fault. Well, it also must be JVG's fault that we just beat a championship contender named the Spurs right in their own backyard with no T-Mac. Props to the coach, he deserves it.
"Fans said JVG doesn't call timeouts to stop the other teams momentum, he called those timeouts. They also said he doesn't play our young guys, but we saw him give big minutes to JL3 and even started Novak for one game against the Suns. But the fans still hate. In those past few games where we lost by a couple possessions, fans said it was JVG's fault. Well, it also must be JVG's fault that we just beat a championship contender named the Spurs right in their own backyard with no T-Mac. Props to the coach, he deserves it." ^ I think maybe you are proving peoples points more... it could be easily said... if Jvg started to do these things earlier in the year....etc etc etc.... even in this game... where we won.. JVG still made mistakes...
You know, something I was thinking about during tonight's game was that Van Gundy and Popavich are cut from the same cloth. Both extremely defensive minded, very condescending of their players during games, generally grumpy demeanor, and surprisingly upbeat and witty personalities when you catch them at the right time. However, people like to blame a bunch of crap on JVG because of his coaching style. It makes no sense to me since Pops has won 3 championships using essentially the same methods. It's always "Van Gundy sucks. You can't win in today's NBA playing like that". Nooooo, you can win with that style. You just can't win without great players. When we've been healthy the past 3 years we've been damn good. When Yao and/or Tracy have been out, we've been bad. I guess people tend to ignore those little details.
i cant speak for other people, but my disappointment with jvg these past few weeks has been entirely based on him not playing lucas or spanoulis in order to give rafer alston some rest, and not giving the players who normally aren't in the rotation a chance. (go read my other posts if you don't believe). there was absolutely NO reason for him not to try it out, and i dont think anyone here is going to disagree that rafer getting some quality breathers and lucas playing extraordinarily well had A LOT to do with tonight's win. and that is why people are upset, because seeing tonight's game makes us wonder what would have happened if jvg had been doing this all along, instead of having to be forced to do it by consecutive losses. and why did it take so long for the head coach of an NBA team to make an adjustment that the lay fans have been clamoring for all season. jvg coached a good game tonight, but it was a long time coming. i have been screaming all along that rafer NEEDS REST. the past few weeks you could visibly see rafer tiring, both mentally and physically. he is an adequate point guard because he has extremely good handles, but jvg had been playing him ragged because he did not trust lucas or spanoulis, or anyone on the bench really. rafer, prior to tonight's game, had logged 45, 35, and 46 minutes in the prior 3 game's (i exclude the laker's OT game bc obviously he'd have a lot of minutes there). we won the game where rafer only played 35 minutes. really, for the most part, the rockets have won when rafer did not log 40+ minutes, which i understand could mean those wins were blowouts so everyone sat out early, but the reality is that many of those were close games (lets face it, the rockets havent had many blowouts this year). the point is, rafer is not a kobe bryant or an allen iverson. he should not be logging huge minutes (40+) unless he is playing out of his mind, raining 3's like a tropical storm, and showing that he's not already exhausted. so like i said, jvg coached a good game tonight, but it was a LONG time coming, and the biggest adjustment he made tonight that, in my opinion, led to the drastic change in results (other than shots falling), was letting rafer rest and trusting his other players to man the fort. this should have happened a LONG time ago. and it is somewhat concerning that so many people on this forum realized the problem before JVG did. with that said, i'm going to refrain from any more jvg bashing as long as he continues to substitute like he did tonight and makes sure his players do not play entire quarters without a sub. still, i think alot of people here who have been defending our bench and imploring jvg to give them a chance, especially after that inspiring almost-comeback in the first lakers game, feel pretty vindicated right now.
I must say the time for bench player is earned by himself, either during the practice or the limited time on court. If you see some player play a lot of minutes in this game then he must impress JVG before the game. Fans can blame the coach for the style of the game, but should never say something like this "He could have done that 5 games ago" because you are not professional, and you know much much less than the coach in whatever the tactics or the players.
How can you say that? Please explain to me what JLIII has done to prove he was ready to run point for this team and was also prepared for our team defense. Your detailed analysis including his flaws please (since every players has some... esp. very young ones).... since the was NO reason to not play him more earlier. Why didn't JLIII play more 10 games ago? 20 games ago? Well 10 years ago JLIII was 14 years old and unready. And he apparently wasn't ready 5 games ago either, and I'll trust JVG's assessment of his readiness before any here on the board since there's probably only about 5 here that can explain our offense and defense beyond the level of a little league baller.
I thought JVG's hand came down on the foam padding that edges the scorers table!?!? In any case, it was great seeing that intensity from him. I think the defense that JVG has been preaching is what really did it for us. Yes, offensively we were firing on all cylinders. But we beat the Spurs at their own game. They started aggressive, but we limited them to 30-odd points in the first half which demoralized them (and they had no answer for Yao). The second half they were putting on the defensive pressure for a pretty good stretch, but we weathered it by also shutting them down defensively. I think JVG is going for a Spurs-like mentality in winning, and more importantly, surviving tough games. Last night was a good sign of that.
