I am so proud of the way Steve has handled the lack of PT early on and the way he has played since. He is showing maturity and unselfishness and heart. That layup he made on Steve Nash late in last night's game is a perfect example of what he can bring to the table and is exactly what this team is missing; and that is penetration and the ability to finish drives. Keep it going Stevie! Also proud of the way Rafer has stepped up his game recently, this competition is good for the team and both players are playing better because of it. We still have a glut at the guard position so hopefully Adelman can find enough minutes for everyone who is producing. It was nice to finally beat a the Suns who seemed to have had our number over the past few seasons.
That's just factually incorrect. Throughout his career, he has played his best in the 4th quarter. How could you say something like that and not back it up? His few misses in the crunch are only recent and too few to make a generalization about. Also, they are trumped by his makes. He did not play his best against Utah, but he had been brilliant in all previous playoffs he had participated, perhaps the best active player in playoff games. Just last year he made the game winning shot against Sacramento and at Sacramento in overtime, game sealing shot at Orlando, game sealing shot at San antonio, game winning shot against Portland, at Chicago, plus game winning passes to Yao, Battier and Luther at Miami, at Denver, LA. I can't remember once, where he made a bad play or turned the ball over in the closing moments of a game. You seem to have selective memory.
Maybe but I keep remembering how we never made it out of the first round with Tmac. He settles for jumpers in the biggest of games with everything on the line. Don't take this as hating on Tmac. He is a talent there is no question about it. He can take over a game and singlehandedly beat a team. But he doesn't seem to have that killer instinct, that ability to close out a team in the biggest of games. He seems to settle for jump shots late in those big games. And that's still a problem today. We are a better team with Tmac no doubt. Only perhaps he needs to quit thinking with that mentality it's on me. It's not all on him and if he would defer to Yao more late in the games and stop shooting as many jumpers and take it to the basket we would even be better.
Francis is the true leader of this team and has been since 1999. t-mac has no heart and tries to do it all himself and fails. He does not hustle for anything. Ive only seen him dive for 1 ball all year and francis is on the court with his motor running non stop. hes turned the ball over just twice in the last 3 games and is proving all the doubters wrong about him bein washed up by still taking the ball to the rack effeictivaly something our other guards dont do. he prolly has a better relaionship with yao than t-mac and plays better with yao that brokeback does.
Does anyone have video of Francis doing the Frankenstein walk after he made the block near the end of the game? That was hilarious.
I think you will see him take it in more now, or so the trend seems to be so far. But I prefer the ball in Tracy's hands at the end of the game. Whether he shoots, drives, assists, I don't care. But I want him making that decision. I trust him much more with doubleteams than I do Yao, plain and simple. You should know as we all should know, the blame on not making it out of the 1st round does not fall on Tracy's shoulders. Although he will take the blame, we know it's not his fault. You can only win so many games on your own. He is going to fail sometimes. Other times, he's going to need someone else's help. Problem is, the help isn't there many times in the past for him like it was during the regular season. I HOPE so much, that this year proves differently.
True leader? No. Sparkplug, a damn big sparkplug (at least last game) yes. He's got a loooong way to go to become a leader. And wow, regurgitate and hate on Tracy much? I guess to you, we might as well have had lottery seasons these last few years. B/c during the Franchise years, we made it no further in the playoffs and our records weren't as good.
Are you kidding? T-Mac is one of the most clutch players in the NBA. T-Mac has hit clutch shots throughout his career and his time with Houston. They may not have been necessarily game winning shots, but he's made plenty of clutch shots. He also hit the game winner in Game 2 against Dallas a couple years ago. That was a big game. Sure it was a jumper but it did go in. Here an actual link where it shows how many game winners certain players made. (Note: data is from 03-04 to 05-06 end of regular season) http://www.82games.com/random12.htm T-mac was 8-23 in game winners and 8/8 from the FT. Interestingly, Francis was 8-20 in game winning shots. But I do agree with you that T-Mac settles for jumpers late in the game too much. Then again, that's why we have Francis as a closer.
Once again, Francis showed that he was a leader last night, of course, Tmac and Yao should be the true leaders on the team, but the past told us that they were not good leaders, Francis and Scola will show up soon or late.
