To keep it short, I loved it. SHOTS ATTEMPTED: Brooks 12 Artest 11 Battier 11 Yao 10 Scola 10 Wafer 8 Hayes 7 Lowry 3 Chuck Wagon! You know when Landry comes back he'll be getting those shots instead. If we do play Portland in the playoffs, Hayes must get playing time. I'm sure the Y O Fs out there are whining about Yao only taking 10 shots, but he got to the line a lot. This was the first time Yao attempted double digit freethrows since February 3rd. Scola is ultra-efficient and his money with his midrange J. Artest didn't have a great shooting day, but he was much more controlling, and didn't take as many of those "WTF?" shots. I like Battier taking more shots, even though he didn't make a lot of them. Normally he's fairly efficient. Brooks, who's production mostly comes from scoring obviously needs to take more than 4 shots like he did vs Lakers. Wafer was solid like he has been lately. What a dunk! I think this TEAM effort we saw from the offensive end is what we need to see in the playoffs to have success. We don't want just 2 players taking the majority of the shots, because that disrupts a free-flowing team-oriented offense and prevents involvement from everyone. Just look at the shot distribution in our losses vs Suns and vs Lakers as evidence.
What a game of Lowry!!! Lowry do need more min. and should start!!! The team plays pretty well with lowry in the entire 4quarter!! I feel pretty safe with lowry on the court and his ball distributing .
Really? I think Brooks played great. Why do you think we won at such a high percent since Rafer left? I personally like Brooks shooting than anyone else not named Yao. I hate it when Brooks become passive and does not look for his shots that's like the game against the Lakers.
I remember there was a thread earlier about how we should stop force-feeding Yao. We didn't force-feed Yao in the 4th quarter, and it worked pretty well. We gained a double digit lead in the 4th, and the lead hovered around 10 most of the quarter. With 6 minutes left in the game, we were up 8, and these were all the FGs we made after that: Wafer hits 2pt jumper Scola hits 2pt jumper Battier hits 3pt jumper Scola hits 2pt jumper Scola hits 2pt jumper Brooks hits 3pt jumper --> this was the dagger, garbage time here on out. No Artest jacking up shots, and no force-feeding Yao. Notice how neither player even scored after this point, and as we saw, it wasn't exactly a bad thing.
Artest did make two free throws didn't he? The one where he stole the ball, and got fouled at the other end.
I agree that our late-game execution definitely improved. Except for Wafer's early jump shot which he was wide open on, we didn't force anything, just went to the option that was available more often than not (as in Scola's jumpers which they were giving us bc they wanted to take away Yao). I think we're finally seeing the dividends of that extended break.
When Brooks went back in, the game is already set. What "dagger" were you talking about? Are we watching the same game? Lowry won the 4th quarter for us because he controlled the tempo very well.
Chuck had to take most of those because he was either wide open with no one on him.. he was getting a pass right inside the lane or he was taking a put back. At least give him that he made 9 points tonight and grabbed 10 rebounds. I think three of his shots were offensive rebound touches weren't they? All I know is I liked seeing him guarding Aldridge more than Scola... even if I love Scola and his hustle, he looked bad trying to guard Aldridge.
Brooks shooting percentage is better than Rafer,you are right. but it doesn't mean he is a better PG than Rafer. The worse thing of AB is the his bad pass vision and offense selections. first ,for the starting roster of Rockets,as you know. Yao and Scola are offense monsters, We also have Ron and wafer, who can provide more offense threats than AB. So,AB doesn't need to shoot alot ,His main job is to distribute the ball, make his teammates feel better and score more ,which is obviouse AB doesn't good at. secondly, AB makes bad offense selections as Rafer did. Sometimes he just can't see his teammates,he makes poor decisions to attack himself and try to sore himself ,It is fatal ,when the game is tight. On this point, he is just like a mad poorman RonArtest trying to save the team by himself. This is why he should be benched and provide bench score.
exactly. according to stats, our team's best 3pt shooter isn't Ron Artest or Von Wafer, but Yao Ming who averages 100% by far in that category.
chuck hayes would be so much more useful and take pressure away from yao or scola if he can get a couple of layups per game
chuck's layups are pretty hard to block IMHO, he just can't move to the spots where he can make the layups.
Looks like somebody told Ron not to jack up shots. Brooks had a good game today. I think Portland is the best matchup for him.
Actually,Lowry played most of the 4th Q,he is pretty good at control the tempo. AB 14pt 5-12,1 assist,0stl,0TO. AB is ok but he needs to learn to make good shot selection.
