My answer of course is "YES!" And I give full credit to Adelman for this turnaround. He experimented with his players early on in the season and now he has good sense of who should play in which situation, something JVG never did much of. We now that Brooks can bust full court press, and in key situations we take Yao out so we can switch everyone on defense. What do you guys think?
We have certainly been better since T-Mac came back. We were terrible in early January. If it was close and the other team made a late run, we seemed to be helpless.
DennisCD did you change your account??? On a more serious note. Ever since T Mac returned we have become a better team because of his ability to penetrate(if its not that time of the month for him) and his ability to shoot over his defender. If you saw the 4th quarter tonight, it was pretty much the T-Mac show like the Van Gundy days. Thankfully Tracy was making his shots tonight. Plus he takes away the double team from Yao and creates a double team on himself which frees everyone else up.
of course. under JVG, we never got better at closing out games. under adelman, u are seeing that we are better at executing offensively. it helps that the guys tmac does the pick and roll with is landry/scola/yao instead of hayes.
It's not just Tracy coming back. Lately it's seemed that it was a different person each night. Tonight it was McGrady of course, but last night it was Landry most definitely who hit the huge shots late. Yao's done it a few times this season--against Golden State most recently he was the closer, but for the most part big men don't have that onus on them. Just look at Shaq, he was the engine of the Lakers and took them to the end, but at the end they let Kobe finish. And I also feel like Battier and Hayes deserve a lot of credit. They are almost always there on the floor for the final defensive possessions and have come through with flying colors of late. So this team should be praised as a whole for stepping up their game late, albeit against somewhat watered-down competition.
The take Yao out strategy only works for 3p defense at very last. I think the key for closing the game is to be unpredictable. Yao is not always suit for closing (has lot to do with refs), and Tmac's 1on1 is on decline. I think that is why we closing game a bit better.
The last 2 games we played were against 2 rather mediocre teams. Oh there was the Warriors game. We should be winning by double digits, but whatever. A win is a win.
LOL I thought the exact same thing. Now the thread starter is re-rookie-ized. Hmm. But this team is better at closing. They could still use a PG with closing mentality. Cass cough cough el cough.
yao,battier,t-mac,alston and whoever besides head within the 2 minutes in a close game = a win BTW, from the standings i feel there is no real MEDIOCRE team besides those named miami and minnesota, so i am pretty happy with those close wins.....
Seeing the Bucks just coming off a 43pt loss, they gonna make the next game a statement game. Nobody here should expect an easy blowout. Those guys (except Yi) came out scrapping and clawing on us. Yes we are getting better at closing out. Remember the Philly game. That what used to happen if we let a team hang close even with MGrady. Besides, if not for some ridiculous Bobby Simmons prayers we woulda won by at least 14.
I also forgot..... we have a MUCH better chance of winning as long as Head doesn't play in the closing minutes.
3 minutes left in a game. defensive intesity goes up. offensive play makers get smarter and know where to go. meanwil e the rockets do the opposite
they are getting better at closing out games.... against bad teams. we're not were we need to be just yet but we're getting there. i think it has a lot to do with ademan's match up strategy. he doesn't allways feel like the starters have to finish the game and that makes a huge dfference.
um...... Last 3 minutes of the game last night, the Rockets picked up their defensivie intensity, the offense scored several times. Only reason it was close was Bobby Simmons hit 2 impossible 3 point shots against the baseline, sideline, defender, and Deke/Scola razzing him from the bench. Any team in the league would give that shot up all day. GSW took a 102-101 lead on Houston and the Rockets folded like a cheap.....er....wait...no, they picked up their defense, worked hard on offense going to the hot hand(Yao) and pulled out the win. Haven't seen a game in a few weeks??
