yeah...because the starting 5 was so poor? the starting 5 was not the problem for the rockets. It wasnt starting games well that troubled the rockts...it was closing them out.
For winning the second round, the starting 5 is fine, but for winning the title, it has a huge question mark, with those five, the Rockets have been a 20 points behind against the Suns before the half-time, that would be too much to catch up.
It doesn't matter who starts, it matters who finishes. Remember Kenny Smith starting and Sam Cassell finishing? Nevermind, you probably don't... The starters are all going to play less minutes this year because of all the additions to our bench. You act like Adelman won't make any substitutions until after halftime.
Can not shoot, so the Suns double Yao and Tmac every time when they have the ball, need start Scola or James to spread the floor.
Agree with the most of your points, but for the Suns or Gold States, those five in last year were not well matched with other two teams, see my explantion in another poster.
not much difference? a bench - james, bonzi, scola. a coach - adelman. options - steve, head, deke. depth - brooks, snyder, landry.
i think that is one of the main reasons why adelman was brought into houston, to find a way to beat phoenix. it will be interesting to see what he does, playing yao up high already spreads the floor. in any case, adjustments will be always made. rafer isn't going to have the same role as last year.
Actually, Bonzi is a great interior passer. I don't know where some of you guys think that he's a ballhog. He's been asked to be that scoring punch in the high post in just about every team he's been on.
Rafer still starting? People were just dying for this guy to be run out of town, and now he's still starting? YIKES. What does this say about Mike James and Steve Francis! And I heard Hayes will be starting over Scola too. So for having a much "upgraded" team, we are trotting out the exact same starting lineup? Rafer Tmac Battier Hayes Yao Athough I guess our 2nd team will be much better James/Francis Head Wells/Snyder Scola Deke I'm assuming those are the 12 players on the active roster?
The whole point is that we added more depth. Rafer at 40 minutes = bad. Rafer at 20 minutes = good. Mike James and Bonzi are that spark off the bench we are missing. Last year there would be a huge dropoff whenever we would go to our bench. How many times do you remember us getting blown out in the 1st quarter last year? Hardly ever maybe once or twice. Most of the time we would get good leads and lose them later. Now we can keep them and constantly attack the other team. Scola is better than Juwon Howard and can play at the same time as Yao and not make Yao look like a huge defensive liability. New coach, new players, offense. This team improved in every way. We had the most efficient starting core last year by the way, there's no reason to change it now.
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