ClutchFans Game Thread: Rockets @ Spurs 11/16/2007

How did he do when he switched to defend Duncan tonight? What was his defense performance when he defended Duncan in the first game?

 

Yao is never going to be a center like Dream was or Shaq, call it culture, call it attitude, call it whatever. Yao is nice, even when he's mad, he's nice, he respects other players and relies on the team, it serves him, but it's a double edged sword. Ususally when someone tries to play him dirty, then he gets ticked and dominates, but that doesn't always happen.

 

why does manu get to take 4 steps down the lane all the time? you can't tell me he isn't walking all over the place. he ain't takin 3 steps .. he's taking 4 sometimes.

 

People do not call a player almost foul out when he only got 4 fouls. BTW, the first foul one is against Battier.
To be honest, if Yao got ducan's calls, oberto could have fouled out in the first half.

 

i hope hubie brown gets hired to coach a team in the near future cuz it seems like he likes rafer very much and would want him on his team.

 

That is the dilemma you and I have as fan. We don't like Rafer as a player, but all these coaches do

 

and yao is speaking up:

"They called that fronting me," Yao said. "I call that hold me, grab me.

"I don't remember the last time I don't have any free throws in a game, probably back to my rookie year. I complained to a couple referees the whole night. It did not work. Like the one I got knocked on the ground after the rebound. I feel I got kicked in the leg and I said, 'You see that? He used his leg to knock me down.' They said it was not on purpose. But the result was I was on the ground. They called a kick ball because the ball hit my leg."

but he's like shaq in a way. when you're so much bigger than your defender, it's hard to know what's a foul or not. shaq complained every time about that. and it's time yao should too. but it's always hard to officiate big men. hopefully yao can get stronger from it.

 

TMAC will be back for Wednesday game,hahahahaha

 

Again, watch us get smashed by the Suns tomorrow. Very little progress was made today except perhaps that we saw Scola can play at the NBA level. Progress would have been Adelman figuring out how to beat a front.

Teams tried to front Yao in many cases after he scores 10 quick points but they failed because JVG had some good plays to counter it.

 

I dont think this is the case. Remember how Boozer abuse him each time rox play jazz? Do you see his fire to compete and crash Boozer? NONE. This is not nice, at least to fans.

 

again, yao got 7 TOs along w/ his 16 shots so he got enough shots ok.

how about instead of forcing it into yao down the throat and TAKE ADVANTAGE of the fronting defenses like scola did? if they're going to do that, scola will take those shots all day. and if this is any indication, he's going to make 50% of them at least.

why not stop fronting by MAKING THEM PAY for it?

and what better way than to kill them with points.

maybe that's why they STOPPED fronting => they didn't want to free up scola down the stretch and thus played yao straight up.

in the future, if they front yao and leave scola open => pick your poison.

 

We don't have a closer without tmac. As long as we don't have our closer, we won't win.

When I saw the game was close in the 4th quarter, I knew we wouldn't win, theres no way. Closers are the most important pieces when it comes to NBA basketball. The TEAM keeps the game close and the closer seals the deal. Dream was a closer. Tmac is our closer.

 

Yes, I am going to watch closely how Rockets will solve fronting tomorrow. The only problem, however, is that Suns will also double team Yao, in additional to fronting. They always had two players, one fronting, and the other behind.

This double team defense would be OK, if our other players can step up.

 

A bunch of the turnovers were entirely not his fault.

They stopped fronting because they thought that Yao was sufficiently out of rhythm that Duncan can stop him straight up, and they didn't want to give up dribble penetration into the lane in the last 5 minutes.

Our role players were playing well all game and the Spurs did not abandon the front. That means that Adelman has to do something about it. Our role players will not carry us to a win, ever.

 

The offense works: A loss, but plenty to build upon

Every bit of what worked - with the exception of Luis Scola being close to an infallible shooter - can work again.

One game usually proves nothing, and the encouraging performance of the Rockets' offense in the 90-84 loss to the Spurs on Friday normally would not, either.

But the Rockets made 50.7 percent of their shots without making many that they cannot hope to make again.

Sure, Scola made 10 of 11. That's not going to happen every night. But the way he moved into the areas vacated by the defensive attention paid to Yao Ming showed the opportunities that can exist again. And though he is not likely to often go 10 of 11, Bonzi Wells is not going to typically make 1 of 9. (Turns out that Bruce Bowen fellow is a pretty good defender when he is not busy chasing around Tracy McGrady and can spend his time on Bonzi.)

The drives that Shane Battier, Luther Head, Mike James and Rafer Alston put in can also be there again. The effective offense, even without Tracy McGrady and with Yao going just 7 of 16, can happen again.

The Rockets made better than half their shots for the first time this season, but they did nothing special beyond the arc - going 4 of 16 - to give it the feel of a fluke.

Instead, they showed that by moving the ball more quickly and moving bodies at least occasionally with more determination, the offense they are trying to learn and then master might work eventually, after all.

The best part of that is that there is no reason that it would not work as well with McGrady playing. If anything, there will be more opportunities to drive the ball to the rim when he returns to draw the defense.

Even the Spurs' impressive and typical finish might offer a useful reminder. The Spurs ran their offense incredibly well when they had to because they have honed it under much tougher circumstances for years. They brought 12 players back from the championship team just for that kind of continuity.

The Rockets could not expect to run their retooled offense like that after 10 games.

It's going to be rocky for while. The key is to string enough of these sorts of offensive games together to learn from them and then to be an effective and efficient offensive team in the spring.

Until then, they might want to get their defense in gear, get McGrady back (maybe much sooner than expected) and keep taking the ball to the rim.

the offense is slowly getting there. if teams are going to continue to front yao, they WILL PAY dearly.

 

is this a joke? or just your sick love of freaking JVG?

 

um, this is the FIRST TIME we shot over 50%. so nothing went right according to you today? lemme say it again, THIS IS THE FIRST TIME WE SHOT OVER 50% TODAY.

1) we did not depend on the jumper to shoot well
2) we attacked
3) we attacked
4) we moved the ball
5) we attacked

and please, we didnt' have tmac. w/ tmac, this game is ours. so please, don't make it seem like we would lose this game if we had our entire team.

and did you hear: we SHOT 50% FOR THE FIRST TIME THIS YEAR, w/o tmac even.