Tonight was the first time we have seen our Big 3 truly have a good game together, and take over in the 4th. Even with the poor overall offensive effort throughout the game, we still scored over 100 points. Some notes - Yao was option number one. This worked great tonight because it allowed him to get easy baskets when covered by one man, and opened up the court when double teamed Rotation of the ball when Yao is double teamed. Work the ball around to find the open man while the opponent is scrambling around on defense. Tmac is finally wearing that damn knee brace. I mean Jesus, Kobe has bad knees too but he always ices his knees and wears a knee brace often. Tmac's shot falls when he elevates, and he can't elevate if he doesn't take care of his knees. I think his pessimism sometimes prevents him from taking proper care of his injuries. Ron playing more with the 2nd unit. We all know he should come off the bench when Battier returns, so this is a good sign. Let him lead the scrubs as he is used to doing so. Hope to see this kind of team play between these guys a lot more often! PS. Rafer has got the be the WORST fast break player in the NBA.
The Big 3 played a better game vs Dallas in the second game of this season when they got 73 points together .
By the way, I am aware the it isn't always this easy to the ball to Yao. When teams front Yao and deny him the ball, that automatically defaults the scoring option to Tmac. Option 1: Get Yao close to the basket and let him create for himself or others. Option 2: Have Tmac drive the ball and create for himself or others.
Yao hasn't shined during the whole game except the slam dunk tmac got exploded in the 4th but just had scored 6 points by then. Ron locked up butler who just scored 12 points, but except that, artest did nothing brilliant. we scored over 100 points, but our rival was wizards without arenas and haywood. Is it that cheerful to beat a 1-numbers team? It makes no difference to add 1 to the numbers, but what if they were celtics or lakers whose record is numbers-1? it still doesn't make any sense because we would still add 1 to the numbers.
We were still down by 7 after 3 quarters. If we can bottle whatever we had after Landry's and 1 then we can get cooking
this is just a stupid comment. you are probably talking about the 3-1 fastbreak where Brooks had the ball and stupidly passed it across the lane to Alston such that the defender retained advantage. Brooks made the worst decision possibly on that pass. The defender was backing up to cover Rafer and the trailing Yao (i think) and brooks should have just took the ball further to force the defender...yet he past to Alston to give the defender the best angles. Alston never would have done that. I'm not dissing Brooks for being a bad player...i love him. You shouldn't dis Alston on that, though...that was Brooks the-fastbreak-ballhandlers fault. That pass is a Luther Head pass. And I love Head, too.
yep...it's laughable. JVG had some good comments about that. First he said..."I'd front Yao". Secondly he said "make him shoot" when you double him while covering him from behind. thing is...both comments say Yao simply cannot beat a double team....like Hakeem and Shaq
i think you saw more than what was really there.. his elevation this game was no better than his previous ones.. his shot simply had more arch than it's ever had this entire season and possibly more than it ever did.. that's why they fell in.. nice quick arching shots on the open pass.. was a wonderful thing to see..
Not to rain on the parade, but like the Phoenix game, T-Mac was just hitting the same jack-ups he usually bricks. It's really nothing to get too excited about. If anything, it reinforces the apparent belief within him for a few more games that he can get by without attacking the basket/cutting/playing defense.
Your right Brooks should have made a better play on that, but come on, how many fast break layups have you seen Rafer screw up? I've seen a lot. The dude just isn't very good at them. But I don't hate Rafer. I love that he can be depended on to not turn the ball over and run the offense well. It's ironic how he'll hit that open 3 seemingly Only in the 4th quarter, but I prefer it more in the 4th then I do the other 3 quarters. He's a good clutch player, hits his clutch free throws. There's a lot to love and hate (maybe more the latter than the former) with Rafer, but as faulty he can be, there just isn't many other players we could get a good trade for. So I'm content with him if/when a move is made.
these were shots on the open pass... these weren't on the dribble a foot out of the 3pt line "jack ups".. these weren't his usual laser shots over a good defensive cover.. aka idiotic shots.. if he won't cut.. we can at least be happy he's putting forth the effort on the potential of his spot up open arching shot and it's contribution to, instead of detraction of, an overall team offense.. compared to what he was doing before.. it's a fine start.. let us not be entirely satisfied but let's not be blindly discrediting either..
fair enough. i'm just saying you're confusing Rafer's issue with finishing with his ability to get us into a fastbreak. The best fastbreaking the Rox have had in the last 10yrs was the Sura, Barry, Wesley, James, Padjett low-3-finger stuff in the year of TMac / Yao nearly taking down Dallas. Alston runs that stuff better. Jon Barry was surprisingly bad at the open court. If it wasn't Sura or Wesley on ball, it sucked. Alston, if he does nothing well, the dude can run a fastbreak, by Rocket's standards.
