ClutchCity.net Game Thread: Spurs @ Rockets 12/3/2002

We lose again...

Spurs 97
Rockets 89

We can't beat the Spurs without our 2nd offensive weapon Mobley.

Yao needs to come up big... if he does... we win.

 

I'm sure many people have mentioned this before, but God, it's just insane how much negativity this board sees after every loss and how much love the team gets after... most wins. Usually different people doing the talking after different results, but sometimes it's just flip-floppers that can't seem to decide whether or not they like where this team is going.

On a different note, a lot of the negativity this time seems to deal w/ Francis' lack of defense this time. I thought I had been hearing he was improving... before the last game. I heard this about his defense lot last year, but I was hearing better news this year I thought. Based solely on boxscore results of opponent gaurds, looked like it could have been true most of the time, too. So I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and say people are just throwing some more fits after the last game...

 

The Rockets will win, and the Spurs will teach everyone on Clutchcity how to spell "lose".

 

If they give the ball to yao and let him operate, the rockets will be in it, if AND1 mixtape shoots all the pills and continue to run in the land of the trees and get turnovers or poor shots, we will lose big,very big.

 

man rockets better win. they need to get yao on tim and mo taylor or cato on robinson and robinson is kinda hurt so hopefully he wont do alright and yeah steve francis will show them wasup!

 

The Spurs are going to win this gam........Oh, I forgot, the Spurs have Kevin Willis on their team....

Rockets 97
Spurs 93

 

Rudy needs to get Yao the damn ball!!! It hurts to watch him open for the feed and the guards just shoot it. He has the highest fieldgoal percentage but they still don't use him! No more francis highlights just to lose the game. Yao still needs to move more on offense, especially against the Spurs.

 

does anyone know what happened to menk bateer on the spurs? he was a yao stopper in china and he probably would have some good advice for robinson...

 

well lose unless we stop the gaurds, if the gaurds go off like they did in Sac-Town we are doomed. a blow out. otherwise our gaurds should neutrelize their big men, and maybe a big game from any of our F's or C's will help us win this 1. but i doubt it,,,,,,,


GO NACHBAR........................
and eddie(hes on my fantasy team.)

hahahahahhah.. Tru dat.

 

i mentioned it a long long time ago, but good job repeating it.... i hope we injure Duncan(nothing against him), then we will surley get in the Western conference playoffs

 

I want to say GO ROCKETS WE WILL WIN but then I get this little voice telling me that rudy will find yet another way to bewilder us en route to a puzzling loss. in which Yao takes like 4 shots from the field. none of which come in the second half. and mooch takes like 11 shots for the game. and kenny goes like 2 for 8 from the floor again, all coming outside the flow of the offense. if you wanna even call it an offense. Damn it's hard to be a Rockets fan.

 

Bateer is on the injured list. If the Rockets just play good team ball on offense and defense I'll be satisfied no matter what the outcome will be. I think the Spurs will win.

 

I am really going to lose it if I dont see Yao shooting the ball alot. he needs another 10+ shooting night... not only does he need it but so do the rockets.

 

Some IF's for this win

IF we shoot 45%

IF Yao gets at least 10 shots

IF we have less than 15 turnovers

THEN we will win. Otherwise it will be very tough.

Good Guys 92
Spurs 85


Yao with 20/10 plus and Steve with a huge game also, maybe a triple double.

 

Don't ask me how or why. I just got this feeling that Rocks will finally have their coming out party, season's first blowout by third quarter. Let's witness the birth of perfected team zone defence and marvelled Team Motion Offense (TMO) !!!

Im excited !!!!!

Score? Rockets by >25 pts

See you all pessimists after the game!

 

Shaq had trouble aginst twin tower, so will Yao

 

Man, we gotta give Yao a break. He's going to have a quiet week or two, getting some rest. He's really tired, we really have to lower the expectations for a while.

I hope Cato starts. With Robinson playing like trash, and Cato playing great, this can be a good matchup for us. Robinson is one of the strongest players in the league, and I don't know if we'd want to put Ming on him.

However, if non of our PF's are eye opening, I would like to see us put Ming on Duncan, and Cato on Robinson. That would be interesting.

I get the feeling Francis is battling an injury, so I don't think he'll carry us. This one will have to be very balanced scoring, and impeccable Defense.


Rockets 85
Spurs 84

Not as close as the score indicates.

Look for T-Mo to have a very nice game if given minutes. Hopefully, KT can be helpful against Malik Rose.

 

a couple weeks ago i read that bateer is still in china and was having visa problems, i dont even know if hes in america now, just wondering because shaq said last year that he was one of the only guys in the league he couldnt push around.

 

Rockets' search leading nowhere
By JONATHAN FEIGEN
Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle


His patience for such failings long ago exhausted, Steve Francis thought about a win the Rockets turned into a loss and was crushed.

His first three NBA seasons would seem to have given him ample experience in dealing with losses. But this one, against the Clippers in the first game of a five-game road trip, hit Francis harder than any ever had.

"After that game, I told Yao (Ming) it was the first game in my career I thought I was going to cry after the game," Francis said. "He said, `You remember in Indiana, after my first game, you told me, `Don't worry about it.' That's what he told me after that game. I thought, `Man, he remembered that.' He told me, `Don't worry. There would be more games.' "

The road trip alone brought four more games, four more chances to make real progress. And Yao could have as easily been talking about the seasons of games he and Francis will share, with the potential to make a last-minute collapse in Los Angeles a blur in their memories.

But the loss at LA did not mark the last time they could feel each other's pain. By the trip's end, Francis found himself pretty much where he started, frustrated and angered by a defeat.

Aside from Yao's ability to become a starter and a focal point of the Rockets' offense, the Rockets do not even seem far removed from opening night, when Francis consoled Yao. Glen Rice was out with an injury (a sore back). The other forwards could not hit outside shots. And the Rockets seemed forced to wait for young prodigies to develop enough to offer Francis consistent help.

"We've been patient for three years," Francis said. "There's nothing about a young team jelling. We have a core group of guys that have been together. If this is about jelling, we have a problem."

Coach Rudy Tomjanovich said the team needed to keep its "head above water." It did that much, beating woeful Golden State and putting together a tidy second-half run past the SuperSonics. But with three losses on the five-game trip, including Sunday's latest rout at the hands of the Kings, the Rockets looked worlds apart from the upper echelon of the Western Conference.

More troubling than that, however, is that a month into the season, the Rockets do not appear to be closing the gap. Yao, the player who had seemed to require the most patience, has progressed at an inspiring rate, and Francis shows no signs of the injuries or illness that haunted him last season and which he still treats. But there has been nothing else upon which the Rockets can rely.

Tomjanovich said he has never had as little feel for what his rotation will be game-to-game. On the trip alone, Eddie Griffin went from starter to out of the rotation entirely to starter again. Maurice Taylor has filled in merely with cameos off the bench. Neither played in the second half against Seattle. Rice went from keying the offense in Los Angeles to barely able to fold himself into a place on the bench because of his back.

"This is the first time I've ever had a situation I don't know who's going to play," Tomjanovich said. "Not even close. It is frustrating. I feel for the guys, too.

"Are we competitive? Do we work hard? Are we a better defensive team? Yeah, I know all that. I just don't know what our rotation is. I don't have that feel, especially at that one position (power forward)."

Tomjanovich said that in many ways, only players could answer those questions. They play their way in or out of the rotation. But with second-leading scorer Cuttino Mobley out for at least another game, the Rockets need something from what was supposed to be their deepest position, even while the rotation keeps rotating.

"Everybody wants to play," Tomjanovich said. "I was the worst. I wanted to be out there every minute. It's a difficult deal. One game to the next, a combination goes good, or a guy plays well, and so it knocks somebody else's minutes down. Then, of course, how does that guy react to it? Does he take it personal? Does it snowball into a lack of confidence? Those are tough things. That's why usually you have those things worked out."

Instead, with the shooters missing from the outside, teams have backed off Kenny Thomas, giving him outside shots he has not been able to consistently make while limiting his still-effective drives to the basket. Taylor and Griffin have not shot well all season. With five presumed scorers -- Thomas, Taylor, Griffin, Rice and Mobley -- all misfiring on the perimeter or hurt, teams have easily ganged up on Yao and Francis.

"You want to say it's a concern, but it's still early," Taylor said. "We honestly did want to be further ahead than we are right now. I think it's little adjustments, little stuff. We just have to get it going. I don't think it's anything major, but we're definitely having problems scoring points. It could be an easy fix. Maybe we just need to step up the defense more to get our offense going, get more transition buckets.

"The Kings, they've been together so long. It's easy to have chemistry when you've been together that long. With us, we have new guys. We have young guys. We're still searching to find the perfect chemistry."

But Francis is tired of searching. As impressed as he was that Yao remembered his first-night advice and returned it to him, the hard part turned out not to be giving the advice but listening to it.
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I change my mind, Francis will eat the Spurs up. He will make them want to slice lemons in half, and rub them against their eyes all week.

Francis: 38pts(14/28), 9assts, 9reb, 3stl, 2TO
Jesus: 9pts (2/10), 3assts, 2reb, 0 TO

 

The day the mermaids hit 115 points in a game , that day I will win the Lotto, the mermaids are not a good offensive team and they are also a very BAD road team they are something like 3-5 on games played away from the SBC Center, this game is a no brainer, Rockets by 15, Yao Ming abusing the overrated twin towers.

MARK MY WORDS