ClutchFans Game Thread: Jazz @ Rockets 4/21/2007 (Playoffs Round 1, Game 1)

Man Deron Williams is gonna be a great PG one day. Damn did you see how easy he made those steals look when he pick pocketed Tmac???

Can we teach Vspan to be like him?

 

do we have any explanation as to why T-Mac didnt make a FG in the first half? that disappointed me so much. I expected a 2005 vs Mavs game 1 & 2-esque dominance

 

do not question tmac.
We won the game
Life is good!!!!!

 

Its called "playing" him

 

I think he just needed to work out a few kinks, brush off the dust a bit during the first half. From what I saw, it wasn't the Spazz's incredible defense that held him back. It was all on him... his shot was flat in the beginning.

 

I see you're not an English major.

All joking aside, I'm stoked the the Rox got the win, but the Jazz will not continue to shoot this poorly in the series. Especially at home. Rox have to address this problem. And I have the utmost confidence they will.

 

uh that was from behind. tmac didn't see him. mac picked him straight up

 

Nah, then T-Mac wouldn't be "the only playmaker on this team".

 

co-sign. v-span is useless and irrelevant right now. we still need a back up point though. rafer played the most minutes tonight. (40 plus minutes).

 

Rox should do a 9-man rotation which is Luther Head , Deke , Juwon , and Kirk Snyder .

 

as the bench players

 

replay on ESPN now... in case anyone missed it....

 

Just came back from the game, and I lost my voice a little bit and a little drunk. Just right before the 2nd half starts, during the shoot around. T-Mac was on the bench the whole time. That's how confident he was, and it show in the third quarter. Also when M. Harpring got hot in the 3rd quarter, T-mac took over and shut him down. That block was sweet!!

 

On the Rafer comments, I was nervous when he was missing shots, but his defense really was there. The Jazz still sticks with their pick-and-roll system, meaning whoever was guarding the pick has to jump out if he wants to stop the jumpers from Deron. The Rockets were actually caught flat-footed on defense A LOT this game. It was actually kind of ridiculous how many easy putbacks and easy shots that had. They really did miss a lot of wide open shots that they should and would not have gotten if the Rockets played great team defense. When you're up by 12 with about a minute left, Howard stayed in the paint and left Okur for a wide open 3 (that missed). On offense, that shot by Luthor.....

What I have going for me right now is the fact that Battier had a pretty horrible game, something that he knows he could improve on. He's the kind of guy that you expect to be making all the right moves, but that sequence where he didn't box out his player for an easy putback, turned the ball over and missed his assignment again would probably never happen again. Battier is the key to making this easier for the Rockets, if there is ever such a thing.

I want to mention again on McGrady's defense when he's in lockdown mode. You just get this feeling that he's going to block the shots that come after him.

 

Don't expect things to get easier...

Jazz Bigs had a horrible shooting night...
Loozer - 4/17
Memo - 2/14
AK47 - 1/3

Expect them to step things up next few games.

What's the word with AK47? Is he out?!?!? That would be excellent news!

 

Yeah, but we didn't even shoot 40% either. We were only 9-27 from three. The big problem is the fact that we're taking 27 threes. T-Mac will have a much better 1st half. He's not jittery anymore. Jazz might win one game because they're just hot from outside, but our pack the paint defense will eventually kill them off. Boozer going 4-17 was no fluke. He's scared of Yao. Memo was just chunking up bricks all night. He missed all 7 shots he took inside the arc. AK47 might be hurt, but he's not a good shooter anyway. Rafer did a good job on Deron.

 

the fact proves the truth again. that is when Yao scores, the rockets lay behind but when tmac scores, rockets win.
we also can see that from the 4th qrt, when yao is on the bench, they still can control the situation. this scenario is very like the beginning of this season. so logically yao is not essential for rockets. but my opining is we dont need to find a substitute, at least Yao is no harm to rockets. i like the big guy.

 

Why respond to that Yao only fans stupidity?. the gyuy is a fool. McGrady was the main FACTOR AND REASON why we won. but he is somewhow the problem.

 

Er. No. McGrady was a huge factor in the second half, but if Yao hadn't played well in the first half, we would have been down a lot more than 9 points. I would credit both players equally in their contributions to our win.

 

When the rockets put it away in the 4th, chuck hayes was a huge reason why. He was stifling on D and got hustle rebounds on the offensive end. In the playoffs you need unsung heroes in every game, tonight was Chuck's night.