It's the best way to be make sure there's no confusion when it comes to long debates. Besides Durvasa's posts are always fun to read. He bases everything on stats and doesn't really try to twist them like so many other posters do!
Who really cares what Yao did or didn't do? Yao's screw up, if he committed one or not, is irrelevant to whether T-Mac screwed up. And again, T-Mac screwed up. Switch to the bigger, better shot blocker and hoist up a three? That's brain dead. Bad entry passes lead to TO's as well. Rafer had another one that he telegraphed so badly to Yao that a Philly defender had all the time in the world to run at Yao from the blind side. If your argument is that Yao's TO's were justification for not getting him more touches then why did he not get more touches through the first three quarters, when he only had two TO's? Where did I ever say that? Now you're just debating some imaginary straw man in your head. What I did say was that McGrady was a major contributor to the offensive drought the Rockets went through in the fourth quarter because he went back into ball stopper mode, stopped passing the ball and didn't play the offense. That depends on how you define sloppiness. I'd say 0 for however many shots T-Mac took in the fourth quarter is pretty sloppy. No, I'd say that any team is going to make a run and that if you can't make a run in return you're going to lose. The Rockets went back to playing one on one basketball and the result was a loss. I'll have to go back and look at the video but I'd say that just about every Rockets possession after T-Mac came on the floor featured less passing and ball movement. Again, failure to respond to the other team's run with your own run constitutes pissing away a lead, i.e. choking. Any chance the Rockets might have had to respond with a run of their own and kill Philly's momentum was lost with McGrady's ball handling. And again, why bring Yao into it? You seem strangely fixated. Any team can choke, not just the ones that run motion offenses. And failure to play the offense isn't the only reason a team can choke. It's the way the Rockets seem to lose most often, but it isn't the only way they can lose. So stating that choking is exclusively related to failure to play the offense is flat out wrong. And by definition a game that you win can't be a choke job--no matter what a win implies that the winning team did just enough to escape with a victory. I'd further disqualify the Utah game because the Rockets hung tough through two overtime periods. And again, what's up with your fixation with Yao? The motion offense is a team offense, meaning Yao and everybody else on the court scoring. Also, I notice you abandoned your other two examples of "choke" jobs. Again, you're attributing arguments to me that I never made. I never singled out any Rocket for failing to get the ball to Yao. And I never accused T-Mac of failing to get the ball to Yao. I accused T-Mac of killing the motion offense, which affects all of the Rockets on the court, not just Yao. He was fine through three quarters. In the fourth he choked, the offense bogged down and the Rockets lost.
once again when you have people ragging on Yao and referring to him as the"GREAT WHITE HOPE" on radio that should have given away of the ignorance there is towards Yao. NBA struggle Playground basketball versus TEAM sport
And let me make one more point because I know durvusa's going to bring it up. Imagine a hypothetical game. The Rockets go into the fourth quarter up 15. The other team makes a run and gets the lead down to 2. The Rockets run it back up to 12 and win by that margin. Choke job? Of course not. This is the NBA. Teams make runs all the time. The key is responding with your own run. Failure to do so, failing to run the offense, an inability to get any buckets whatsoever (i.e. the infamous Rockets "offensive drought")--that's what constitutes a choke job. Everybody's going to lose games that they were leading in the fourth quarter. Doing so on a regular basis, which is what has happened to the Rockets, is what defines them as chokers. Finally, the problem with T-Mac is that if he's going to handle the ball as much as he does in the fourth quarter he'd better score. Going 0 for whatever is reminiscent of last year's Utah playoff series.
I acknowledged the "failure", and compared it to another one which I thought was of the same degree. Not sure if I'd describe either player as "brain dead" on those non-plays. Bad targets also lead to TOs. Watch the replay and decide for yourself. That's not my argument. Yao got plenty of touches throughout the game. The Rockets don't run a set play for him every time down (variety is a good thing), but they did so maybe 40-50% of the time. And he got his touches on those possessions. McGrady, in particular, did a good job in feeding him the ball. I thought there was good balance on offense. If you want Yao to get even more touches, say in the first three quarters, then in my opinion there needs to be good reason for it. Was there a mismatch in Yao's favor? Was he having a particularly strong night? In my estimation, no. He was having a bad game, one of his worst of the season (which he, Jonathan Feigen, and pretty much everyone else acknowledges other than you). In the fourth quarter, do you know what happen when McGrady and Yao were on the floor? Other than the last possession where there was only 5 seconds left, there were 8 offensive possessions. In 5 of them Yao got the ball in the low post, with decent results (we scored 6 points in those possessions). In the other three, two resulted in scores off good ball movement (5 points), and there was a miss by a wide open Rafer in the corner off a drive and kick by McGrady. All good shots. Go back and take a look at it if you don't believe me. That's what happened. What's the strawman you're referring to? What I bolded above is what you've been arguing this entire time as far as I can tell. If that's a misrepresentation of your views, then you're not being clear. If you have a recording of the game to look at, or you have time to download it from R2K, please do so and take another look. What you describe (Tracy as a "ball stopper", not passing, etc.) did NOT happen. I've written in as much detail as I can what actually happened in the fourth quarter with McGrady and Yao. Evidently, you don't believe me. There's not much else I can say. They did not. Are you defining "choking" as allowing the other team to make a run by your own offensive futility and not being able to respond? McGrady was not on the floor when the other team made their run. When he joined the team with about 7 minutes left, it was a close game. And by your own words, if its a close game then it can't be considered a choke. So I honestly can't figure out your argument. As for the Utah game, the Rockets didn't make any 4th quarter run. Their offense ground to a halt. They won by going to "one on one basketball" in the 2nd overtime -- with Artest, not Yao. Yes, go back and look. Go back and look. You're saying the loss is on McGrady, and the ball should have gone to Yao more. That's your argument. Both McGrady and Yao are the topic of discussion. I disagree with your definition of choking. I think if you have a big lead, play like a total dog in the 4th quarter, and somehow win by the skin of your teeth -- that's a choke. You're fortunate to win, but you still choked. As for the Utah game, I'd describe that as a choke in the 4th quarter. We were lucky to have enough of a lead (we were up by 16 at one point, I believe) to where we could still get to overtime. Anyways, just semantics. And I thought your entire point was that the Rockets "choked" against Philly because of an offensive drought in the fourth quarter, and that it can't be just a coincidence that this happens when McGrady rejoins the team (meaning, it's his fault). I think the examples I brought up of us playing poorly on offense, in the fourth quarter, in a number of losses or near losses without McGrady are relevant. It's not merely a McGrady problem. Certainly, it wasn't so against Philly. LOL. Yao isn't getting enough touches is what you've been saying the whole time, and now all of a sudden its not about Yao. Ok. Again, the ball was moving, and it wasn't dominated by McGrady. When Yao and McGrady were both on the floor in the fourth quarter, Yao got 3 shots (and another possession where he got tied up -- must be McGrady's fault), Rafer got 4 shots, McGrady got 2 shots (both off out of bounds plays), and Artest took one shot. Is that McGrady dominating the ball and not passing it? Without Yao, McGrady penetrated twice and missed, and Rafer did the same and missed. All good shots. Three other examples, I think -- Indiana, Atlanta, and LAL. I didn't abandon them -- you dismissed them because we didn't blow a big lead in those games. But now, apparently McGrady is guilt of blowing the game against Philly, even though he didn't have a big lead either. Really, what you're saying makes no sense, and I didn't want to belabor that point by bringing them up again. First of all, the "motion offense" (which, as Jonathan Feigen has written a number of times in his blog, isn't actually what we run) was not killed by McGrady in the fourth quarter or any previous quarter. And let's run through some of your quotes in this thread: "The team is broken. Yao's coming back from two days off and nobody feeds him the ball so he can get a rhythm going." "There was no attempt to establish Yao in the low post. Not only did he not take a lot of shots but he hardly ever touched the ball. And when the Rockets did get him the ball it was so obvious what was happening that other defenders had time to switch off of their guy and blindside Yao." "A retooled Rockets offense that focused on Yao while McGrady was out won 5 out of 6. That Rockets team didn't piss away leads in the fourth quarter either." You made it abundantly clear that Yao did not receive the ball enough. You imply in that last quote that it was McGrady's presence on the floor that shifted focus away from Yao and caused us to "piss away" the lead (which the evidence shows is preposterous, as the lead was clearly pissed away before McGrady returned). Your two problems with the game was that Yao wasn't involved enough, and McGrady handled the ball too much and didn't pass. You've been saying this over and over. What conclusion is one to draw other than you think McGrady wasn't doing enough to get Yao involved in the offense? So now you say McGrady played fine the first three quarters and it was the fourth quarter that he went back to playing "one on one". Ok, looking at the fourth quarter, Yao actually got more touches once McGrady returned, and in fact he got those touches off passes from McGrady within the flow of the offense. The offense did not bog down. We missed shots. Adelman said it himself in the press conference. He wasn't criticizing our lack of ball movement or selfishness in the fourth quarter, as he did after the New York game. He said that we got good shots and we just missed them. And if you care to rewatch the quarter, that's exactly what happened. I think I've suitably addressed your comments about the meaning of "choking" above. Blaming McGrady for not hitting shots is a different criticism from him overhandling the ball. In my view, watching the fourth quarter, he did not overhandle the ball. Do you know what were the shots McGrady took in the quarter? There were 4 of them, two came without Yao on the floor. Both of those two were drives to the basket -- he was blocked on one play, and he missed a runner on another. That wasn't "overhandling" -- that's exactly what the Rockets want him to do in that situation, penetrate. Another shot came off an out of bounds play. It's a set play. He went around a screen, got open for a 21 footer, and he missed it. No overhandling, just a missed shot. It happens. And, in this case, the Rockets retained possession and eventually scored. The final shot was the last shot of the game which has been discussed. None of his shot attempts came off excessive dribbling or him breaking away from the offensive set. They were all good shots, except the last one which was contested well by Dalembert. He's not beyond reproach -- yes, you want your star to hit shots in the fourth quarter. But the criticism that we lost because McGrady didn't play team basketball is simply wrong.
Yao n Scola has been playing awesome imo. they r doing their job consistently. The area of improvement is defensive rebounding for them. Alston has been playing decent as well but takes questionable shots at times. Rest of the team sucks!! I also blame Adelman on some of the decisions he makes. Wafer played great during Tmac n Artest absence. Why not give him more time to play n let Tmac n Artest slowly come in the rotation? Rebounding n interior defense as opponent guards makes easy layups n dunks, why not put Mutombo in for atleast 10 min a game? This team has some serious work to be done n it starts from the coach imo.
i really can't believe what i'm reading from some of posts from this badger guy.. he literally lives in yao's ass watch this guy keep spinning your words around and come up with something totally irrelevant to convince you why yao should be everyone's hero and tmac sucks i'd say leave him alone...
I wonder how many people noticed that Jim Van Gundy's defense/offense has morphed into Ric Adelman's offense/no-defense scheme. I don't blame the team at all. The coach only works on offensive plays and relies on the defensive coach to run practice. He may or may not watch. The way the Rockets are playing right now is the reflection of coaching. Going under a pick and still getting beat to the basket is atrocious. Rick is at fault 70%. Jim Van Gundy's defense would have kept them from losing any one of the last four straight to Philly. 10% was poor offensive play choice. 5% was bad luck/bad refs 15% turnovers
Hey don't forget his right hand man "Tim" Thibodeau. If we "Jim" back maybe "Tim" would be up for a reunion.
I would. Off the switch T-Mac's new defender is taller and a better shot blocker and the solution is...to shoot? Where did I ever say that Yao didn't have a bad game? My argument was that the Rockets should have fed Yao more to get him rolling after his hiatus. You need to go back and actually read what I wrote. What's your definition of good ball movement? Because I didn't see any in that fourth quarter. And that's the crux of my argument--McGrady kills the offense. Yes, that's how I would define a choke. McGrady falls into the category of "not being able to respond". He re-enters the game, the offense dies, the Rockets are unable to score points, the Rockets lose. Again, you're confusing running the motion offense with choking. Those are two separate issues. It's just that they happen to be connected with the Rockets and especially McGrady. As a simple matter of normal statistical variation there are bound to be some games where the Rockets give up leads in the fourth and lose. What should concern you is that is that it doesn't happen all that often when McGrady's not playing. In fact the closest thing that you might possibly define as a choke job when McGrady wasn't playing is Utah, which the Rockets won. Then McGrady shows up and the Rockets drop the NY game and the Philly game, is terrible fashion. Yes, Yao not getting enough touches is a problem. But the biggest problem the team has by far right now is McGrady. And the Rockets could still have won the Philly game without Yao--he barely got any touches in the first three quarters and the Rockets were still ahead. The Rockets lost that game because of McGrady. McGrady kills the offense, the Rockets can't score points, the Rockets lose. If the Rockets Wrong. What Feigen has written numerous times is that the Rockets don't run a pure Princeton. Can you produce even one quote where he says that the Rockets don't run a motion offense? Uh, I don't know. You could actually not jump to conclusions and just assume stuff? Yes, I don't think Yao got the ball enough but did you notice that I wrote "nobody got Yao the ball" and "the other Rockets"? You obviously see this whole debate through the prism of a Yao versus T-Mac thing. That's your problem, not mine. Once again, you're assuming stuff. The number of touches Yao got in the fourth is not a good measure of how well McGrady's playing the motion offense. That's not my argument. McGrady choked in the fourth and that's manifested in two ways: 1) He abandoned the motion offense to go back to what was comfortable for him, one on one basketball. 2) He missed all his shots.
badgerfan, you keep saying that McGrady broke away from the offense in the fourth quarter, when he did not. Adelman said after the game the Rockets got good shots, they just need to hit them. After the practice and tape session the following day, the Rockets determined that the offense wasn't the issue; it was the defense: [rquoter]"When we looked at the film ... we liked the shots we received late in the fourth quarter against Philly; we just didn't like the defensive effort," Rafer Alston said. "When you need your best effort the most and need each other the most, the intensity and the attention to detail just wasn't there.[/rquoter] Your main contention is that McGrady killed the offense and that's why we lost to Philly. I watched the game, twice, and that's not what I saw. Coach Adelman, sitting on the bench, did not see that. And after going through the film at practice the next day, that's not what the team saw either. Ultimately, I'll judge how the offense ran on how satisfied the team is with the scoring opportunities they got; they know what they want to run better than you or I. I'm not going to go through every point you made, because I think its about time we wrap this up. Regarding the so-called "motion offense", I would say that's not an accurate way to describe what we're trying to do. Sure they encourage ball movement and basket cuts, as any team would, but their bread and butter (with and without McGrady) is still the low post with Yao and pick and rolls with their perimeter guys. That's what they ran against Golden State in their win yesterday, and its what they ran against Philadelphia in a loss. This is what Jonathan Feigen wrote about our offense in a blog response about a month ago: [rquoter] Something really jumped out at me when Barry got on the court the first game after his injury. He was running motion offense the way it was supposed to be run. Only problem was, nobody else was doing it. You can't run motion if you don't run motion. It takes more than one guy. It seems to me that most of the Rockets simply don't have the energy it takes to run that offense and that seems to fall back on the coaches. But if you can't make them do it, then what? It seems to be too much trouble for McGrady to bother with and, to some degree, same thing with Artest although Artest doesn't "appear" to really know what he should be doing in that offense. It all seems to boil down to run the offense and win or play one on one and lose. Your thoughts? (Barry runs the motion very well, but again, the Rockets have long-since chosen to build their offense around Yao in the low post. Adelman's offense in Sacramento was with an open post and is not a goal for this team. The motion here is part of the offense; it is not the whole offense. -- Jonathan) [/rquoter] I think that's a good way to put it. Motion is a good thing, every basketball coach would agree, but it's not what defines our offense. All else being equal, if you put Yao on the floor we're going to run more sets out of the low post and that's going to limit the "motion". Same thing happens with McGrady -- we'll run more sets exploiting him in PnR or coming off screens and creating off the dribble -- and all else being equal that can limit the "motion". That doesn't mean those type of plays are killing our offense.
Open shots are not the issue. Obviously teams that don't run a motion offense get open looks as well. How many times Yao touches the ball is not the issue, except in the sense that when the offense is running well Yao will get a lot of touches because everybody on the floor will get lots of touches. You're trying to apply two metrics that have nothing to do with what's actually being measured. What I see as defining the motion offense is lots of ball movement and hard cutting without the ball. McGrady steps on the floor and both of those die. As Fran Blinebury put it, he's a stop sign for the motion offense. As for what the team said what I recall is an anonymous Rocket saying that the win over Detroit was "fool's gold" because the Rockets won despite getting away from the motion offense. I remember Rafer talking about selfish, lazy play. I remember Rafer talking about having to make a choice between playing as individuals and playing as a team. And I remember all of those quotes coming right after McGrady got back and the Rockets went 1-2 against Detroit, NY and Philly. So far as results go I don't see how it could escape anybody's attention that McGrady sits out and the Rockets put the boot on Golden State in convincing fashion.
You said we lost because McGrady killed our offense, and then you say getting good shots isn't the issue. The object of any offense -- if the goal is winning and not just looking pretty -- is to get good shots. Furthermore, the Rockets have looked at the film, and they decided that it was the defense that cost them in the fourth quarter, not the offense. I'm talking about Philadelphia, and what the coaches/players said after that game. I never disputed that there was a ball movement problem in prior games. And I don't suppose Yao having a terrible game against Philadelphia, Philadelphia being simply a better team, and Golden State playing the second night in a row was a factor at all.
i think the problem/issue some might have is the taking of an event and saying it causes another. Certainly, you can't miss that McGrady plays 3 games and they lose 2 of 3, he sits out, they win. But a lot of this discussion (some...most? led by you) has been about offense, not defense. The Rockets held the Warriors to 93 points, including 18 in the fourth quarter. Against a team that has the 2nd highest scoring average in the league, at 106.4 a game. That's why they won....not because their offense ran smoother without Tracy. Did their defense run better without Tracy? Well, maybe. I don't think it's a stretch to say Tracy's defense has been less than stellar, and less than it's typically been, this year, beginning with the horrible d against Brandon Roy. What makes it even more annoying is that when he does put forth the energy, like when he was assigned to Iguodala on the last key possession against Philly, you know he has the chops to be a good defender. durvasa is a stats guy, and anyone with even a little bit of statistical knowledge understands that you can't just take small random samples and draw conclusions based off of that. Heck, even saying their defense has been better without Tracy because of the Warriors game is a stretch. It conveniently ignores the fact that Golden State was on the second night of a back to back, both on the road, with the previous game against a good Hornets team. Was the Rockets d actually better, or were the Warriors just a step slower and their jumpers just a step off? Look, stats or no stats, it doesn't exactly take a genius to see that Tracy is not his historical self this year, that his injury "excuses" are wearing thin, that he still isn't fitting in great with Adelman, that nobody is really fitting in that well with Artest yet, that chemistry isn't good, etc., etc. It makes sense to analyze further because the question is how do you fix or improve the situation? Do you let it all play out and see what happens? Do you try and trade Tracy or Artest, or someone else. Do you ignore the fact that your PGs typically stink up the joint? Do you ignore the fact that you still have bad interior defense and rebounding when Yao goes out? How do you factor in contract sizes and lengths? How do you factor in value - could you get more for Tracy this offseason than at the deadline? There are all kinds of questions. My guess is that Morey is actively, though quietly, exploring value and options on both TMac and Artest...under the guise that whatever makes the team better, makes it better. But he won't let either go for a song and is more willing to roll the dice that it still can work, ESPECIALLY in the playoffs, then make a major change - but if the right deal comes along, he will pull the trigger.
All you posted was one quote from Alston that the Rockets liked the shots they got in the fourth, not how they got them. There's no guarantee that the Rockets were getting open looks because they ran the offense well. Philly could have just sucked on D. Again, in terms of McGrady and his play with the Rockets I think it's awfully suspicious that other Rockets players start talking about problems with getting away from the offense and selfishness after McGrady returns. Just coincidence? The truth is that over the last 20 or so games the Rockets have played better without McGrady than with him. Go check out northeastfan's thread, or the one I started about what happens when McGrady scores 19 or more points in a game compared to the same scenario with Yao and Artest. Yes, there's five other guys on the floor and five on the other team. Yes, there are multiple factors every night. But to ignore the elephant in the room (McGrady and how he fits in the offense) is just ridiculous. And there's no way that Philly is better than the Rockets. They're way under .500 in the lowly East.
Go check out northeastfan's thread. I believe that the offense does run more smoothly without McGrady. So far as defense goes it's perfectly possible that both the offense and defense have problems when McGrady's playing.
hey badgerfan or nefan, can you come up with a stat sheet for what our average score is with the different line ups of our semi three? Our winning average, losing average and points differential and points allowed. dont know if you can but would be nice to look at as well.
I'm thinking of taking a weekend and putting up a reporting tool for Rockets stats this season for ****s and giggles. If I get something done I'll post a link here.
