It's the 4th quarter, 3 minutes left and it's a tight game. Considering all players are healthy, what would, in your opinion, the best possible lineup be? In my point of view, if Rafer is having a, usual, bad night (not criticizing him, it's just that he has bad nights very often) i would have a lineup of: PG: McGrady - not Barry because we can use the height advantage. SG: Battier - Can be an asset in guarding one of the duos/trios in the L, also spot up three from the corner off a double team. SF: Artest - Same defensive purpose as Shane, can force a basket if absolutely nothing is clicking. PF: Scola - If he can maintain a consistent performance similar to tonight, he would barely see the bench unless he's tired. C: Yao - Although in some situations, depending on the opponent, Yao plays really well... he can also take the game away by demanding that common post up that can be stopped with the better defenses in the league. *Now if Alston's having a good night, every player moves up a spot, removing Scola from the lineup. After tonight's tough loss, I want to look at things from a "how can we improve from here on" kinda point. Share your opinions.
Yao should be on the court in the final minutes. But in occasions like tonight, he should've sat down since a long time.
AB Barry T-Mac Artest Yao tonight however I think it shouldve been AB Artest T-Mac Hayes Landry or Scola
I only disagree on the AB part b/c we needed rebounding. I haven't looked at the box score, but we seemed to be getting killed on the boards.
PG: Barry SG: T-Mac SF: Battier PF: Artest C: Yao They should use this against some of the smaller teams in the NBA.
aaron brooks shot the ball well tonight so i'm surprised adelman played rafer down the stretch instead of brooks.
I have same thinking w/ you about last lineup. If we had Shane tonight, maybe we could stop or at least minimized Ray Allen. __________________ Rockets "Deadly Team" should be: Big 4 (T-Mac, Yao, Ron, Scola "underrated International Superstar"), 2 Great Defenders (Battier, Hayes), 2 Rising Rookie Stars (Landry, Brooks), 3 Good 3pts shooter (Barry, Alston, Head) and 1 "Sleepy 4ever" Allstar player(Francis)
PG: T-Mac SG: Barry (or Battier) SF: Artest PF: Scola C: Yao this is my lineup in the last couple of minutes in 2K9
Well it would depend on the situation and the other team wouldn't it? But generally, probably the list the OP mentioned. However, Scola could be removed from the lineup depending on the night's play and/or if he's tried.
I have the same lineup too. The opponent's PG always gets crushed when I play TMac at point. While everybody else is very solid. Hope to see this kind of lineup when Shane comes back.
PG: Brent Barry SG: Luther Head SF:Ron Artest PF:Luis Scola C: Yao the reason is quite simple: We are gonna be leading during the final minutes so we need some guys who are relatively good at free throw. We have to let tmac sit on the bench because his free throw really sucks. We could have won that game if tmac had hit all the three free throws in the last minutes. But tmac lost one, and lost the game.
pg:barry---exp. player sg:tmac---13 points in 35s sf:ron---neverh give up pf:landry---young, fast, dunk c:MOUNT MUTOMBO---TOUGH D just DONOT put yao and head on the count.
There should never be a standard last minute / end of the game line-ups, unless a certain group is proven to work against most opponents let's say, half-way through the season. Right now, RA should just stick with who work well together and who's hot and not put all starters (for whatever reason). I really believe if RA made the right decision, that means leaving Yao & Rafer out and sticking with Brooks & Hayes who did a hell of a job, we would've won the game. You to have to keep players in who're doing a good job and not just go back to Rafer because he's a veteran or whatever. He played terrible so Brooks / Head should get playing time over him in that situation, it's that simple. Same with Yao, okay he might have dove for the ball but he was terrible ever since he got blocked and did almost everything wrong. On top of that, he missed 9 of his last shots so RA should've never put him back in. I don't care if he's Hakeem Olajuwon, you don't put a guy back in just for the hell of it. Also, Yao's a guy who has great pride so a guy who's been embarassing himself all night should never be put in a situation like that. If i were Yao, i would've said: "i'm done for tonight coach, i can only do more harm than good." Seriously, sometimes I really don't understand coaches' decisions at times and RA must have had his reasons but it sure wasn't to try to win the ballgame. It looked more like an experiment; can the starters get it done. That's something you can do against other teams, not the champions but hey, that's just me.
We can come to a conclusion that our lineup would depend on the opposition?? I would have to agree, but i hate that kind of thinking. Why not have THEM adjust their lineup according to us? I want the rockets to be a team that is respected and feared to play against. Hopefully we will get that eventually.
People ... get this in your heads ... TMAC IS NOT A GOOD ENOUGH BALL HANDLER TO DEAL WITH A TRAP. You saw it last night at the end of OT. You've seen it time and again at the end of games. This is not a video game; TMac is NOT a great ball handler. He will very often turn the ball over when trapped. He is NOT a PG. Sigh. Rant off. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming ....
