Starting with the 4th QTR, I looked at every Rockets possession (using R2K's video of the game) and looked at what happened, how many passes were involved, and what other guys were doing (how many of them were moving). If no one moves, if one guy moves a lot or a couple of guys move a little, or if 2 or more guys actually cut and moved around I rated it as good. The results are below. Possession which resulted in a score or shooting foul are in bold. Start of 4th Qtr - Houston led 80-74 (T-mac on the bench / artest in) 1 brooks brings it up….throws it away. no passes, no player movement none 2 Brooks passes to landry to barry to brooks shoots and hits. 3 passes Good movement 3 Brooks to landry to artest – shoots and hits. 2 passes good movement 4 Brooks to barry to brooks dribbles to cutting landry. Landry fouled. 3 passes Only landry in motion 5 Brooks dribbles drives shoots and score. 0 passes no one moved 6 Barry brings it up, passes to brooks – dribbles, shoots, and misses. 1 pass , no movement 7 Brooks isolation at top of the key – drives and is fouled. 0 passes no movement 8 Brooks to landry – misses jumper. 1 pass little movement TRACY BACK INTO GAME 9 Brooks brings it up, passes to t-mac, passes to cutting landry – landry turnover. 2 passes little movement 10 Brooks passes to t-mac, t-mac drives and is fouled. 1 pass little movement 11 Scola to brooks to artest to t-mac shoots and hits. 3 passes ok player movement 12 t-mac to artest shoots misses. 1 pass no one moving 13 Battier to artest to rafer to t-mac…moves and hits 3 passes little player movement 14 Rafer to scola to rafer misses. 2 passes Only battier 15 Rafer to scola, drives and misses. 1 pass no one moves 16 Battier to rafer to battier to artest, drives and throws it away 2 passes Some guys moving 17 Scola to t-mac misses (shot clock pressure). 1 pass no mvt 18 Rafer to tmac drives shoots and misses layup. 1 pass some mvt 19 Artest brings it down and misses quick shot. 0 pass / mvt 20 t-mac to artest to scola for layup. 2 passes good player movement 21 Scola – rafer to tmac to artest shoots and misses. 3 passes good player movement. 22 Artest dribbles and posts turns passes to tmac misses. 1 pass no one moves 23 Rafer to scola to rafer misses 3. 2 passes Only scola moves 24 Shane to t-mac dribbles, drives to scola for lay-in. 2 passes Only scola moves 25 t-mac shoots 3 misses. 0 passes no one moves 26 t-mac shoots 3, misses, scola misses put back. 0 passes some mvt 27 Shane to artest misses 3. 1 pass little player movement 28 t-mac to scola to artest misses 3. 2 passes good player movement What strikes me is that guys really don't move without the ball except for Scola who is very active, and sometimes landry and battier. Now this could be a design of the offense which asks for the forwards to be the cutters...or it could just be these are the only guys who care to move. It could also be a spacing issue....you can't have everyone moving around or you will just have a mess. It has to be within a design. The other thing that strikes me is that the whole team seems to suffer from a lack of ball movement. The number of passes from top to bottom were not a lot. Never exceeding 3 passes the whole period! That's a surprise. The other thing is that Artest just missed a lot of shots and really should have tried something other than shooting 3's. If it were not for Brooks hitting some shots and having some success as a score early on, the quarter would have been a complete nightmare. In any case, I don't see a significant drop in the number of passes after t-mac comes in. I do see them rushing 3's at the end, but that's because we were down with time running out. I also see Artest catching to ball and shooting it - he really was a ball stopper out there.
personally i thought tracy did a better job of getting into the paint and looked more determined to try to finish in that game, though he could still do much better. as a team, everyone has to get better. i think artest's contract is weighing on his mind right now that he tries to do too much.
hey, great analysis. didnt get to watch the game. need to get the video of that one. one thing i do know is that barry and scola are the probably the only guys who likes to move without the ball. barry always often that not passes the ball first and usually just jacks up a 3 when he's wide open. like i keep saying, i prefer barry on the floor more than rafer. i would like to see barry, wafer and tmac on the floor at the same time. barry will always make the extra pass, wafer cuts a lot and let tmac go wherever he wants to. way i see it nowadays, rafer on the floor at the same time w/ mcgrady is a recipe for disaster. both want to be the playmaker. maybe it's high time we put tmac in the 2nd lineup: barry/brooks, wafer, mcgrady,landry, scola.
I went back and watched the 4th quarter again, and agree with your analysis. The major issue with how they played was poor movement (ball, motion, screens, etc) and poor shooting (mainly from Artest). The Rockets also had several chances to win the game, but missed some layups that cost them. I am usually very critical of TMAC, but I did not see anything else that was selfish or outside the offense. "Rip to my Lou" had to be referring to Artest.
It would be interesting to contrast it with when the 2nd unit was in there and they made a run to get back in the game, most notably the 2nd quarter. DD
Selfish basketball surfaces on this team.Good statement Rafer. I'd rather watch the 2nd unit play than the starters on the floor with the stagnant offense.If that's what coach Rick Adelman asks 'em to do,then Okay,I must say Rick you should go pack yo'self and head on home. Good post,man.I don't have time to download the full game video recently,it's kinda hectic around,so much work need to be done.
Scola is one the best players in the league in finding the open spot on the court and he has been the recipient of many Tmac's passes that has alllowed to score some pretty easy baskets with good looks. However, that predicated on Tmac's penetration drawing weakside help and of course it takes a good passer like Tmac to whip it in to tight spots. We need Yao back and in his dominant form like the early part of last season to help negate Tmac's injuries and Artest's lack of driving ability. He wouldn't have made much of a difference against a small, fast, and athletic team like the Knicks, but just his presence alone could have helped. Also, Tmac needs to go to his right some more. He can get so predictable, shouldn't he know that by now?!?
at the end, over-analyze all you want, they still had multiple open shots and couldn't make any. and that's the reason they lost. when you can't make open shots in a relatively close game you'll lose almost every time no matter how the offense looks or who's taking the shots. imho, the only one who deserves blame is artest because he was the only one really forcing issues with his one-on-one moves.
Games are very different in the 2nd and 4th qtr though. To really make an apples to apples comparison we have to look at a lot of games over the course of the season, all in the 4th qtr. This is why I point to the Indiana game...because it was very similar to this 4th qtr...and we didn't have artest nor t-mac. That's why I agree there is a problem, but I am not sure the problem is what people say....definitely not T-mac, and maybe not even Artest.
a lot of Brooks in bold lines....... A lot of Rafer in losing lines...... Maybe a PG is just what we need?
The problem is definitely T-Mac and definitely Artest. The Detroit and NY games both showed that the offense breaks down when they play.
great post, i think this is one of the main issues that rocket can't close up on games in the end. I think the player need to realize that it's not over until the clock strike zero.
i wish someone would go back and just tally up all the 18-22 foot jumpshots that t-mac took with a hand in his face rather than pass or drive it...
The whole game we just took horrible shots. One time Barry passed it to Hayes in the post. Hayes held the ball and you could see Barry asking for it back when his man kind of cheated down a little. Did Hayes pass it out? No , instead out of all people Hayes does a hook shot with his left hand.
atleast artest makes a move towards the goal....tmac has been holding the ball, and takes a studdar step like he's actually gonna blow past the opponent, but takes one step and take a contested jumper...
And then you could say at least T-mac looks to pass the ball while Artest doesn't. Against New York Artest was not driving. Artest and T-mac both had about the same number of drives.
perhaps - but artest had a miserable 8 minutes on the court... 0-5 and one turnover. T-mac made some shots, got some fouls, and had rebounds at least. If you take out the shot t-mac took with the shot clock running down...he was 2-5 in the 4th...the 3 misses all 2 points, 2 of them in the last minute which really is t-mac time. The point is...that the whole team sucked it up in the 4th. Shots were missed by scola, rafer, artest, t-mac, brooks...it was a team failure those last 5 minutes. Let's see what the trend is though - long term.
