What is beginning to scare me is all the tape of us floating through the league now. 5-1 is fine, actually GREAT!!! winning UGLY is great. But I don't like a bunch of ugly tape. A lot of that is 6 game tapes of us not getting the small forwards off, and defenses learning to take Francis and Mobley out of the game. The traps on Steve are returning, and the center in the lane against Mobley are becoming commonplace. you see JayZ...the key is not Cato, it is our damn small forwards. Cato and Willis are not going to open the lane for us...only Rice and Walt are.
Email this to Rudy Drunkovich. Also why does Eddie Griffin keep taking 3s? Yes he can shoot, but he is a power forward who needs to get his points from inside. One other thing, Rockets take way too many 3 pointers. Everyone on the team shoots it from there, except Cato. Willis actually shoots really close from the 3 point line. He needs to take the ball inside. Tonight against Dikembe, Its not his fault he had a bad game. Kevins hook shots were coming short because of Dikembes long arms.
yea, Griffin needs to stop it....I too am worrying about the overwhelming reliance on cat or Steve. It seemed rice had a better game, but the small forwards are indeed so important because the guards will have more holes to work with as Rice, and Walt must be shooters....Rice said he will keep improving (and he said he felt better.) so this should be good news.
<b>Can</b> Griffin score inside? To me, he's not strong enough to bang right now. The only points that he can get "inside" are off of passes from Steve and Cat for layups/dunks, but I think setting up post plays for him is out of the question.
Thats what I've been trying to tell people all along. Its nice to have a luxury like francis and cat, but they are 6'3 and 6'4. Its easier to make a guy like that shoot over than say a 6'8 guy slashing to the hole. People are not playing a standard zone against us, its more of a hybrid matchup with the center playing real close to the shoe boxes. this is not opening anything up because its really making this team a standstill jump shooting team. What makes this d effective is the iso that rudy continue to run. Instead of running some kind of motion and cutting, and more importantly getting the ball up the court quickly, we are walking to one side, pnr and either shoot a 3 or a long jumper. We have no backside action and thats why teams are really sagging off. It was good to see Rice hit those shots, but if thats all he is going to do, whats the difference than when we had bullard? It looks the same and its starting to llok like rudy's offense is not conducive to slashing 3's just standstill jump shooters like Bullard.
EG has a great percentage from behind the 3 point line. Why does everyone keep calling for him to stop shooting 3's? He will develop an inside post game...but how many PF's develop a good outside 3 point shot?
Good post bigez As far as Rice goes, I think he's just now starting to get his legs back and don't forget he can post up, something that Bullard could not do(sorry Bull, it's true).
I think Rudy knows what he is doing,so you guys can save your self the trip to the post office to send in those tapes.....yes the offense has been very ugly, and we really havent played any 1 cept for Suns,and the wolves and we almost lost the Suns game also..... I think we will really know how bad off we are when we take our game into SA and back here for LAL.... hopefully we will see alot of heart and some good play from our guys and then maybe we can open some eyes around the league...right now Id say where lucky to be 5-1 if we come out of the LA game 7-2 Id be an extremely happy fan...
I have only seen 3 games so far, and they have all been relatively "ugly". Why were they ugly? Because the offense was horrible. People have flat out been missing open shots, that's what was ugly in the games I've seen. Aside from that ugly offense, I am very pleased. In spite of that ugly offense they are still winning games. I am very impressed with the defense, and as ugly as tonight sounds it seems like that's continuing. Actually, I am more afraid that this ugly offense/great defense is a passing thing. I am hoping that our offense kicks in (as we all know it will) before this team realizes it is not a great defensive team. I mean, we all know that this is not a great defensive team? Because if it is and the offense kicks in then we could actually scare the Lakers and Wolves and Kings... Among others. If we were 5-1 and were averaging 113ppg, would everyone still call it "ugly"? You outscore the other team. That's always pretty in my book.
Doesn't it always seem like the young talent the Rockets acquire are molded to become three point shooters? I don't necessarily like that. The beauty behind what Steve has become is that he can consistently hit from anywhere on the court... including two steps inside the three-point line. It's a lost art.
Eddie taking alot of 3's comes by design. If you notice, most of them come off of a pick and fade. It's Rudy that hasn't called in number in the post. Eddie's just taking whats open.
Well, it's going to be interesting to see how Eddie is utilized tonight. Denver's a finesse team with skilled big men, so Eddie should be able to match up a lot better tonight and get his number called in the post. That is what I was looking forward to a couple of nights ago when Denver came to town, so we'll see if this happens tonight. Eddie should be able to operate as a post threat against teams like Denver, Toronto, Atlanta, even San Antonio, i.e. teams with finesse big men.
Well I don't know about you guys, but I've seen both EG and Cato post up their guy but then leave the post to set a pick. Not sure if it's by design for them to pretend to post up only to have Stevie or Cuttino or Willis waive them off, but it happens every time... Rockets run down court, EG or Cato get to the block and post up, calling for the ball only to have the ballhandler waive them off to set a pick.
"you see JayZ...the key is not Cato, it is our damn small forwards. Cato and Willis are not going to open the lane for us...only Rice and Walt are." I agree that Walt and Rice will open the lane for us with their outside shooting, however, if Kevin and Cato aren't hitting outside shots to keep the Centers honest, don't think the center will leave their spot in the lane to rotate off on an outside shooting threat of a small forward... percentages don't justfiy that.
Jack... If our offense requires Willis and Cato to hit outside shots to open the lane...we are in serious trouble. You are right; we must beat centers camping out, because we are not pulling them out. What the SF does in our system is dominate the weakside enough as a threat that we can drive straight at the center and dish if he leaves Cato or pass out on a rotation that provides weakside help. The more people you get out of the lane or keep at bay (as in weakside help not leaving their man), the easier that is. You need weakside plays to do that. The point is, our guards can handle the play on the strongside with or without the center creeping over. If we get them passed their man (with a pick or whatever), that center is toast trying to stop Francis without any rotating help on leaving Cato/Willis. We just cannot allow the SF to creep in as well, not to mention the studly SG like Kobe and McGrady. Likewise, when they overplay Francis or Mobley and their center creep too far over, now we need plays to move the attack over to the weakside. That usually results in a drive or open shot...that's where Rice comes in (oh, and that other guard in the corner...lol!)
One great play I saw was a drive from up top and down across the lane by Francis to one side with a dish to Mobley who did the same drive but from the opposite direction, kind of making an 'X'. Francis drew the center away and Mobley had a nice lay-in. That was maximum use of our speed.
yesh!! They are running that 2-3 times a game. I think we have seen it every game so far. I'm trying to hunt down the name for that. Mobley has used it to then pass to a wide open center under the basket. It is like the center thinks Francis is driving to the weakside then, bam, essentially a hand off above the free throw line and Mobley is coming around the other side for a reverse. The center is getting his head spun around looking for the ball. maximum use of speed is right!
That was by far my favorite play last night. When Steve takes his path, it seems as if so much floor is open for Mobley.
Crispee, It's good to see we are in concordance. Our center position is not going to be consistently hitting outside jumpers all season. However, this does not mean that our centers could (AND THIS IS A BIG COULDDDDDDDDD) bring out the defenders that cheat in the lane, by hitting said shots previously. I misinterpreted what you were saying with running more weak side plays. But damn, it would be exquisite if we acquire or (belch) Kelvin works on his J to keep opposing centers from cheating. I like our chemistry this year. Thanks for the clarification.
