Perhaps, but did the rest of the team deserve to feel like they were part of the team tonight? If Steve just kept passing the ball to players who wouldnt' make it people would rag on him for not being a leader and taking over the game. Like I say, maybe he should have still passed the ball despite the fact that his teammates weren't putting forth any effort tonight, or maybe now he can say 'look guys you left me out there by myself. Next time play with some fire and I will reward you with the ball.'
Steve played a great game but forgot that he was the point guard. This season SF. wants big numbers. He should be in the top 10 in scoring but about 25th in assists, not a very healthy situation for our young players Nachbar, Griffin, Morris and Yao Ming. I was not impressed with Norris either! Looking back to the 90's the Rox only had success when the Coach insisted that Hakeem pass the ball and trust his team mates. It sounds like we need action from the Coach!
It looked to me like they ran the 5-man offense the whole game. The players were always spread out across the floor. I never saw any of the clear outs where there were three or four guys standing flat footed on the opposite side of the floor. Steve just did not pass the rock much today.
When the other players knock down the shots that Steve gives them his assists will go up, and I bet the passing will increase too. Even though Cato didn't shoot well, Steve tried a couple of alley oop attempts to him. Maybe because Cato was the only other person really trying out there tonight. If the team makes half the assists that Steve sets up for them then he'll do just fine.
This is really pat of a rehash of a past post. Now that we've seen the Rox play, this report seems dead on. Enemy Lines An opposing team's scout sizes up the Rockets "They're a chaotic team. They break off a lot of their plays and end up going one-on-one. That matches the style of their two stars, Steve Francis and Cuttino Mobley. ... Francis is no Jason Kidd, but I love him. He dominates the ball but he's unstoppable, he's competitive night in and night out and he's a leader. He's everything that Stephon Marbury ought to be. ... Mobley has developed some bad habits. He's shown he can hit big shots as the shot clock runs out, so now you see him dribbling out the clock and heaving up tough shots on a regular basis. ... Houston is weak at shooting guard behind Mobley. Glen Rice is no longer quick enough to play there. ... I give Rudy Tomjanovich credit for coaching to his talent. You see him changing plays as they go. It makes them really hard to scout. ... At first it looks like Rudy runs a loose ship, but he has an ability to get on his players and they accept it. You never hear them bad-mouth him. ... They're a risk-taking team on both ends. Yao Ming's shot-altering height might change them from a horrible defensive team into a decent one. He should give them an inside presence, even if it's only for 20 minutes a game. ... Francis and Mobley should love playing with him. You can just see the double-team coming to Yao and his teammates flaring out to receive open jump shots or making hard cuts to the basket. ... Eddie Griffin has turned into a nice player. His body is filling out. Last year he was a perimeter kick-out guy, but he's starting to balance his game with some inside play. ... Kelvin Cato never lived up to expectations as a starter, but he will look very good coming off the bench if Yao takes over. ... Maurice Taylor is more of a skilled player than a dirty-work guy, but he's the only one with the size and strength to be an enforcer inside. ... This is a team on the way up." http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/ba...review/rockets/
Good post. Some times players think that "taking the game over" is doing the right thing. But, in the play-offs you NEED to trust your teammates. This is the time to show yourteam mates, "I TRUST YOU!" Get them involved, even if they miss shots. It's a learned dicipline. So, try to learn it NOW (REGULAR SEASON). Once you learn that trust, then and only then, can you can use the ISO to win games (sometimes). Once you learn that, you have TWO options! But you don't depend on just ONE tactic.
What an asinine statement. Steve Francis will not make the rockets winners by playing one on five. I realize you are obsessed with Francis but that doens't mean he doesn't "deserve" some constructive criticism.
I think it was clear that Steve wasn't passing the ball to open guys on occasion, especially on some of those breaks. Anyone advocating that he shouldn't pass on a 3-1 break? Doubt it. I would say also on Griffin and Moochie missing shots, they're not perimeter shooters. They shouldn't be standing on the perimeter taking 20 footers. Moochie is a penetrate and dish guy. Griffin should be on the block shooting 10-12 foot turnarounds. So when you say Francis isn't passing the ball because people aren't hitting shots, that's partly a function of Rudy's offense. Rudy is the one who has Griffin playing the pick and roll while not really rolling but just floating on the perimeter. Francis obviously forced some bad shots and ignored teammates on some breaks but I think the blame on this offense goes to Steve/Cat and RudyT. Steve/Cat for not getting players involved going towards the basket and RudyT for constructing plays that put Griffin/Mooch in the position to take shots they're not going to make at a decent rate. Frustrating night anyway...
Actually Griffin missed a lay up that Steve set up for him as did Moochie. That's in addition to other open shots they missed. Griffin has also shown a touch from a distance and really is only trying to develop his post game now. He's never been much of post player. As BigM said in another thread if Jason Kidd was our PG tonight we still would have lost the game, because the supporting cast was not up to the task at hand. They didnt' come to play.
It kills me when people rag on Steve and Cuttino when : Your normally 3rd or 4th option on offense goes 1-11. That's right 11 shots, but somehow Steve didn't involve the guy in the offense. It's Steve's fault. How many more shots would you have liked Eddie to take? How about 11 more? Maybe then he can go 2-22. Your center misses 2 or 3 alley oop attempts that were handed to him. Not to mention he was 2-8 shooting. Or do you guys want Cato to take more shots? I sure as hell don't. At least he showed up to rebound. Your #1 draft pick didn't get a chance to sweat due to foul trouble and being new to the entire offense. One of your guards (Moochie) shoots 2-7. You folks are blind. There were only 2 players in this game that could keep the Rockets in it and they did. They are Mobley and Francis. You clowns that sit there talking about involving others are talking as if you know what the hell you're talking about. Step back and think... who on this damn short-handed team is worth giving the ball to tonight? There was only ONE person out there tonight remotely close to being able to score on the level of a Mobley or Francis and that is Eddie Griffin. He got 11 shots and almost missed EVERY FREAKING ONE OF THEM. Moochie Norris got 7 shots and bricked 5 of them. But wait... he's a PG, and he's supposed to distribute so he shouldn't be shooting... he's supposed to "get everyone involved", not be the focus. So that leaves you with : Juaquin Hawkins Bostjan Nachbar Yao Ming Jason Collier Kelvin Cato Ok, which of these studs should we be passing the ball to? Give me a freakin' break. Save your hating for when you have a reason to hate. This definitely was not the game to be hating on our guards. Our defense sucked this game. That's what I'd be worried about. This game was sloppy. I expect sloppiness on offense when we threw what we threw out there and especially with our 3rd option, Eddie Griffin, not being able to score. This is no reason to expect our defense to be bad, however. The only excuse I can make for our defense is that our interior defense was non-existent due to injuries. We haven't been strong in the paint on D for a while, but it was terrible tonight. I'll be the first to admit I hate Steve's selfishness at times - the same with Cuttino, but not tonight. Great game by both of them. Hopefully when Rice, KT, and Mo get back, we'll actually have other options on offense when one of our main options has an off night. Maybe when those 3 come back we'll actually have a frontline, too. And give me a break (part II) : it's only been 1 game... if we're to expect this throughout the season, I'm going to go nuts trying to figure some of you guys and your opinions out.
My 2 cents here: 1) SF played well, no doubt. 2) It still worths to run the bball through other players even if steve is to take it ultimately. Like Yao Ming said, it's not easy to get in a flow of the game if you only get to touch the ball every 4-5 minutes. Steve can take it, but others need to touch it.
Stevie and Cuttino are guns and don't pass the ball!!! Rudy is a lousy coach if he doesn't teach these guys to pass to wide open players. I went to the game tonight and was embarressed by our pathetic offense. Watch NBA.com with some of the older Celtics and Lakers teams and you will see what passing is all about. Our team does nothing but 1 on 1 bull**** and you can blame coaching for that (along with greedy players only concerned about statistics). Eddie, God bless him, was open several times at the 3 point line waving his hands only to be totally ignored. Eventually, he took things into his own hands and forced bad shots and didn't give a hoot on defense, because he knew he'd never see the ball on the other end of the court. Everyone knows this is the truth and we need it fixed promptly or else we will be in the lottery for the 4th straight year!!! Quit playing the slug Collier Rudy!!! I am done ranting.........for now.
DoD, right on. People this is the NBA, not the playground or your bi-weekly Saturday morning game in the church gym (you know, the one you go to church once a month so that you fell OK playing in). Boo, hoo, players getting demoralized by not being a part of the set offense, and SF and Cat jacking up so many shots, where darn it, they only make have of them. Do you think Cato and Jauquin don't know their roles? Let me tell you, it is to play there asses off on defense, to hustle, to rebound, and if they get a garbage basket or two great. More or less they did this role and deserved their paycheck last night. EJ, Moochie and a few othersshould have tried this after they were missing nice looks others created for them. Players can take pride in defense, they can take pride in rebounding, they can take pride in hustling and whatever baskets come to them is gravy. Do ya'll realize how many thousands of players just below NBA level that would kill to do that. Demoralized my ass, they are getting paid damn well, playing on the biggest stage in the world, and need to know their roles for a given night and do everything they can do to win.
No, most of the game he played 2 guard. Mobley played a lot of 3 and he brought the ball up some. This was simply the last game of the 2001-2002 season. They must have forgot to play this last year...
First off, I want to say that I totally agree with Dr of Dunk's post. I was not able to watch the game but did look at the box score and read the game recap. I knew immediately once I saw the box score with Francis scoring 39 points and only dishing 4 assists that the PASS THE BALL FRANCIS contingent would be out in full force. Hey, I want Steve to dish 10 dimes a game as much as anyone, but to do that you have to have PLAYERS THAT CAN SCORE. Look at the lineup that was out there folks! Look at their shooting last night. It was abismal! Hey, if you people want to rag on Francis for not passing the ball, do it when Rice, Taylor and Kenny get back. When we have almost all of our weapons. Do it when THEY are shooting lights out and Francis DOES NOT get them the ball. Chris
9 Assists? What is the record low for assists - pre-shot clock included? Last nights game has got to be close. Anybody seeing a silver lining in last nights game needs to have there rose-colored glasses checked. I'm still a Rocket fan...it just pains me to watch another year of this. ISO stinks. Always has, always will. The good news is we are tied for 1st the LeBron sweepstakes!
I didnt go thru the entire thread so its possible someone may have stated this...but, this team looks a lot like last years team in the sense that the guards are looking to score 40 a night and we have no offensive structure. I hope this changes with the emergence of Yao. What also bothered me was that with Miller in the locker room for the entire second half, we still couldnt mount much of a frontcourt attack. granted, Yao wasn't acclimated and Grif had a poor game, but we need some work. Crazy thing is...if you would tell me that Francis scores 37 and Cato grabs 16 boards, and Brad Miller would play 21 minutes, I would have bet dollars to donuts we would have won.
Steve and Cat did play well. The only thing that I would like to see is at least a couple of passes prior to a shot. Move the ball around a little. I did not want to see Eddie shoot any more. But I would like a little ball movement. That will at least help Steve and Cat to get more open shots.
This whole injury arguement is getting old for the following reason. Mobley, Francis and Norris DID NOT even give the teamates that were healthy A CHANCE to pick up the slack of the injured ones. So therefore, to me, injuries are not an excuse for last night's loss because players like Nachbar, Collier, Ming and Hawkins were not allowed the opportunity to step up and prove the whole "we have the best debth in the league" theory. If Nachbar, Collier and Hawkins had shot a combined 4 for 20 or something like that, then I would lend more credence to the injury excuse because Taylor, Thomas and Rice, more often than not, are going to shoot a combined better percentage than that. BUT NO ONE ELSE WAS GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITY TO FAIL OR SUCCEED! I dont blame Griffin for going 1-11 (hes not going to shoot 10% all season long) because he looked suprised every time he got to touch the ball and forced bad shots as a result. I think the problem as a whole is, Steve, Cuttino and Moochie do not trust their teamates (or believe in them) as much as they should and made up their minds going into the game that if we were going to win, they would have to do it all by themselves. Either that, or this was Rudy's plan going in. Either way, in my mind, it was wrong. DONT LET INJURIES KEEP YOU FROM PLAYING LIKE A TEAM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Francis and Mobley only had good games when you look at the box score. I'm sorry but that game was just painful to watch, and they are the reason, IMO. Who wouldn't have a good game when the object is to let you dominate the ball every single time down the court? It seems like the Rockets had two 'set plays' last night -- play one is let Francis dribble the ball up court, and play 1-on-5. Play two is let Mobley do the same thing. Nachbar hit his first shot...did he ever touch the ball again? Did he EVER touch the ball again? Maybe in garbage time. It's not like Francis and Mobley were whipping the ball around the court like a hot potato for a quarter, getting guys wide open shots, which those guys missed, so Francis and Mobley decided to take matters into their own hands. No, they decided to take matters into their own hands right from the start. If the ball happened to pass through someone else's hands through some freak of nature, that guy was so surprised that he probably didn't know what to do with it. Hence, you have people like FranchiseBlade saying that "no one else came to play" and "Francis was the only one trying tonight". Bull****. People ask, "do you want guys like Nachbar and Hawkins shooting instead"? Well do I think those guys can make a wide open shot if they had the chance? Yes I do. They wouldn't be in the NBA otherwise. It's up to the guards to get those guys wide open shots. Nachbar had one. He made it. That's all he got. I'd rather have those two rookies shooting wide open shots than have Francis and Mobley dribble dribble dribble, and jack it up, while everyone stands around and picks their ass. Hell, Indiana was missing their STARTING BACKCOURT, and they weren't forced to have J. O'Neal play 1-on-5 as a result. Maybe they're just a better team, I guess. It's entirely possible.
