ClutchFans Game Thread: Rockets @ Sonics 1/23/2008

That doesn't make sense at all. Playing well doesn't give you any excuse for making 1 of 6 ft. It's not professional. We are lucky to win this game. Everybody should practice from now on. It's critical.

 

What a stupid post. Your hatred for McGrady has altered your view of reality. That's scary...

 

dude tmac was still playing on one leg. his only 3rd game back in limited minutes.

he looked VERY old to start last yr. but he can get young REAL quick.

 

Look on the bright of this game. Suns lost to Timberwolves 107-117.

 

I have that feeling as well. It is like the old JVG team!!! But I think it is RA's will to let him play like that in the 4th quarter. Since Sonics is not a elite team and the defeat on them in the 4th quarter is hard to be a solid proof that this strategy will be working in RA's team, we still need to see whether it is gonna work in the following games, especaill those against the elites.

I would like T-mac to initiate the offense but not to try that hard, especiall when he meets an opponant like Kobe, Durant, who is able to irritate him easily.

 

Exactly! Remember when Yao got hurt 2nd season after t-mac was here? He was significantly better after he came back. Dude had a broken leg and he kept practicing his shooting. WTF has tracy been doing all this time. That said... damn he was good at everything besides FTs.

Lets not kill Rick Adelman for the inbounds play, too. It's not that simple to get the ball to Yao when everyone knows to keep him from getting the ball.. Last thing we want would be a turnover on the inbounds. Plus tracy was wide open on the inbounds. Inbounder saw that, and passed it to him. Good play in my book. Only thing was tracy didn't hit his FTs.

 

Probably??

 

ft's are such a mental thing too. even yao has been shooting them poorly of late by his standards. and those 3 straight misses against SA almost cost us that game as well.

I would imagine that t-mac ft shooting is not a matter of practice but finding a grove.

 

ugly game!!
we lost our defense,even no defense
No need T-mac on the court ''like a old man'',sometimes he can shoot well,but only sometimes

 

if u take out all the games where he didn't finish the games due to injuries or when he's playing "relatively" healthy, he shoots around 45-47%. so he usually shoots well, not sometimes.

y'all exaggerate on everything that is tracy mcgrady.

 

Not bad for your 3rd post.

You know that T-Mac is practically playing with just one leg don't you?

The stats please:

T-Mac: 28 pts, 4 rebs, 5 asts, 1 stl, 0 blk, 13-23 fg, 1-3 3pt, 1-6 ft, 34 mins, several clutch plays (except the last 2 fts of course ), playing in pain

Durant: 25 pts, 3 rebs, 1 ast, 0 stl, 2 blks, 12-23 fg, 0-2 3pt, 1-1ft, 33mins, had his game tying shot blocked by chuck hayes and missed his game winning shot, playing with young fresh legs

Do these things suggest that Durant made T-Mac look old? Huh, rookie?

 

Of couse T-Mac looked old today (well, I agree that was due to injury). But experience helped T-Mac.

On the other side, Hays saved T-Mac's ass today. Just like couple of days ago some other player saved Yao's ass by getting the rebound after Yao missed his last free throw after missing the previos two in the final moment.

 

Durant scored almost on Tmac every time, was step quicker. Tmac looked tired and fat closed-up tonight. He did look like an oldsmobile with 100k mileage, but Tmac beats Durant by exprerience hands down.

Your arugement is flawed, rookie.

 

Again and again, this coach showed us that he has no defense.

 

You could just as easily argue that our offense runs more smoothly without Yao, for different reasons (offense stagnates when we can't get the ball into Yao deep). A look at some +/- figures may also suggest something:

Code:

[B]T-mac?   Yao?   min     Off      Def    Overall[/B]
 Yes     Yes    770    103.1    102.6    +0.5
 Yes     No     168    110.0    107.2    +2.8
 No      Yes    760    104.3    100.6    +3.7
 No      No     280    103.1     98.0    +5.1

Based on the above, and ignoring other players on the court for simplicity, it would appear that the offense is at its best with McGrady and not Yao ... i.e. T-Mac is running the show. I don't think that's true, but again such an argument could be made.

The first line, by the way, is very strange. I'd expect lineups with Yao and T-mac in the game to be dominating the competition, as they did a year ago. That hasn't been the case. I tried to investigate a little further to see the impact of various combinations of Rafer, Shane, and Chuck alongside them:

Code:

[B]with Rafer/Shane/Chuck?  min     Off      Def    Overall[/B]
        Yes              336    102.7     98.9    +3.8
        No               434    103.4    105.4    -2.1

       [B]Rafer?            min     Off      Def    Overall [/B]
        Yes              551    105.7     98.4    +7.3
        No               219     96.3    113.4   -17.1
       [B]Shane?            min     Off      Def    Overall[/B]
        Yes              644    103.4    102.7    +0.7
        No               125    101.6    102.1    -0.5
       [B]Chuck?            min     Off      Def    Overall[/B]
        Yes              437    102.4    101.7    +0.6
        No               332    104.0    103.7    +0.3

One thing that's pretty clear from this (and it was the same last year), Rafer has a huge positive impact on the team. I'm still not sure if that's because he's been that great, or the awfulness of James/Francis/Head and the inexperience of Brooks makes so valuable. But the pattern has been fairly consistent for a few years, we're simply better on both ends with him on the court.

Those arguing that Shane and/or Chuck bring down the starting group, you may be right but the data here is inconclusive. I feel they need a third scorer in the game. Ideally, it would be another scoring wing player, in place of Battier ... but Bonzi is flat out not as good as Shane in too many areas. The alternative is to replace Chuck with Scola or Landry, which I support. But I frankly haven't seen much evidence recently that this would be a big boost for the team, even if they are much better offensive players.

 

T-mac and Durant had similar stats,

Durant had the physical edge
T-mac had the edge experience wise

 

I might be misintepreting the table or something, but the point differential seems better when Yao is in and T-mac is out (+3.7) compared to +2.8 when the reverse is true. So how does that make having T-mac in better..?

 

score may be similar, but as playmaker, Tmac >>> Durant

 

How about trade T-Mac for Durant? Will that change your mind? Huh?

 

The poster I was responding to was talking about the offense, so that's what I was comparing. I included the defensive numbers and Net +/- that you cite for completeness.