IBM- ur right I'm still pushing the Artest wagon. When u have 2 passive stars like the rox have, a guy like artest is the finsher. I remember last season when mason basically pushed yao down and stepped over him. Its not in yao's temperment to get a guy off him like that, but Artest would answer that the next couple of plays. Someone posted that video of sac vs. jazz. I don't advocate getting thrown out the game, but they gave him a hard foul and he gave ak-47 one. They hard fouled martin, he took up for martin. Sometimes u have to whip the bullies ass to keep ur lunch money. The 94-95 rox didn't have toughness issues because their best player was known to kick some ass as well as maxwell,elie and thorpe were tough players.
Change their mindset? Artest??? To what? All the way to insane? No thanks. I personally believe that he really is crazy and not like a fox. To me, he's one incident away from channelling Kermit Washington out there on the court and almost killing someone and I don't mean on the other team either.
Compare to the old 'Bad Boys" Pistons, the Utah team looks like a Saint. The Bulls lost twice to the "Bad Boys" in the conference finals before eventually defeated them. In the last defeat, the Bulls was a better team, won each of the home game handily, but couldn't win a single game at Detroit. What the Bulls learned from those two series was play your game, not back down or get intimidated, or change your style. They didn't fight back physically, that's not their style. All they did was got up, and played their game when got knocked down, shoved out of bound. Eventually, the bad guys lost. The Rockets can beat the Jazz if they can play their game, don't get rattled by Utah's physical play. The players got timid due to physical confrontation, and got frustrated in game 1, they cannot afford that today.
If we hit our shots tonight, we'll win. Simple as that. Utah can play as physical as they want, who cares. If we hit our open shots, and shoot a higher percentage all while playing the type of defense we play, we'll win.
Not as simple as that. There is a reason why people like Luther head struggle against Jazz. They have long players like Brewer and AK47 who roam around the perimeter and close out on the open shooters. They are also quick enough to recover if you drive on them. There wont be a lot of open shots to begin with. What makes it worse is that other than Tracy Mcgrady we don't have another proven creator on offense.
We're playing our butts off in this game, down to a man. I am really proud of the effort, win or lose. That being said, some of their key players haven't even scored much in the first half in this game, and they still led. Not looking good, unfortunately.
Well -- we all forgot the "Sloan's Way" is also flopping in order to get calls from refs. The thinking is -- if you do it enough, they'll call it once in a while. Pathetic
There are just some teams that are bad matchups - just like the Shawn Kemp-Gary Payton Sonics of the early to mid '90s were a bad matchup for the Olajuwon-Drexler Rockets (before we got Barkley). This Jazz team (along with the Spurs) are just a bad matchup for what the Rockets have now.
Sloan's way is to play depleted, out-of-gas Rockets teams in the first round of the playoffs, then lose to the next good team that they play.
Is there any other person that has ever coached the same team for twenty years without winning a championship?
Yeah, just like last year! Oh wait... It's funny how most of you go from being convinced the Rockets will give Utah a series and possibly pull off the upset to talking about how Utah got lucky they were facing a depleted, out-of-gas Rockets team. Really, make up your mind, cause it's pretty mind numbing reading these posts. What I read prior to the series: "Rockets are actually a better matchup without Yao!" "The Jazz are a horrible road team, no way in hell they come into our house and win one or two games!" "T-Mac won't let us lose!" "Adelman will somehow figure out how to get us past the stupid f'n Jazz!" "Guys, we won 22-straight, we've lost but once at home sine January, we got this!" "Everyone is picking Utah...the Rockets will show 'em." Then the second Utah wins both games, it's because the Rockets suck and any team could do it. So I guess winning 22 in a row proved to be a fluke and T-Mac isn't the leader you all thought he was. That or maybe the Jazz just are a good team and always have been a bad matchup for Houston.
You are right, he did have the pieces.......but he ran into the Bulls,Rockets etc....... After that their time had passed. Now they are simply a good west conference team.
I know people for over 20 years who haven't changed regardless of circumstance, and probably change AWAY from what you want. Changing mindset is a ridiculous notion, agreed. It was strange in retrospect seeing how Rudy T the victim of the Kermit Washington crime readily accepted Vernon Maxwell. Who despite efforts from fans to portray him as cuddly and friendly (and a little less game than Artest) was almost as much a danger to opponents, fans, and teammates around him.
