Watching today's game against the Mavs, I realized how well I can forcast an entire game that the rockets are playing in. The bad substition pattern is a DIRECT reflection of Rudy T's bone headed coaching ALL YEAR. I watched the Lakers/Blazers game today also. Watched an injured Kobe/Shaq play almost the entire game and pull out a W. Then I think about how Rudy has this COMPLETELY idiotic set substitution pattern. Does he think Yao Ming is a girl or does he think he is 40? Even MJ plays more then Yao at this point in time. It's one thing to rest a player if he just CAN'T stay on the court anymore due to being fatigued, it's another to just sit a player for the sake of well NOTHING. Yao was heating up, scoring 9 straight points at the end of the 3rd, when Mr. Bone Head himself decided he had seen enough and benched him for a good 10 minutes when they were losing by 15, just as I told my non rocket fans watching the game. I told him Rudy T will not bring him back until there is no point to bring him back. He likes to make sure the game is well out of hand before he puts him back in the game. Even when the rockets were winning in the first half, I thought there was NO WAY they would win this game. They were trying to play like the MAVS, which pretty much no team except for the Kings can do. You HAVE to play a half court game to beat the MAVS, that is the only way to slow them down. But our bone headed coach along with our "star" guards just don't seem to get it. They keep playing to the strenght of the other teams. I don't care if Yao goes 0-10, you still got keeping dumping it inside and start the offense that way. He proved that he can make the adjusments to be effective in the game but ofcourse right as he got it going, he got benched. Would it not be worth a shot to have Mobley come off the bench? Since the 2nd unit just plain stinks. That would also take one ball hog off the court so they could establish the post in the first quarte. Just a thought, I am no coach but it just seems logical considering they are not exactly winning these days.
I posted this comment in a thread but I guess it can apply here as well. I agree with you on the "playing the Mavs style" bit 100%! There team is tailored for that style of ball. We are not. We may be able to hang with them for a few quarters but in the long run, we will lose. We simply dont have that those type of players. On the other hand, we have a force in the middle. Granted, Yao did get his touches but in a game like this, we need him to shoot 25 times! Go to him every play and get Lafrenz AND Bradley fouled out. If we implemented this earlier in the game, the outcome would have been different. Better spacing for Yao would also be helpful. Some back picks like the ones Utah sets for Malone etc. But the MOST frustrating thing about this loss is that we played Dallas 4 TIMES NOW! In the 4 games combined, we lost by 80 points! Doesnt Rudy realize that what he did in those games do not work? Why not try something new? Again, I dont mind losing but not learning ANYTHING from the losses really sucks.. Thats my venting for the night... Hope we can beat Memphis and Eddie can hold Gasol to 30 pts and 14 boards.. Goodnight!
agree with you 100 percent. my bro was at the game sitting behind the Rockets bench and he said the fans around him were confused about Yao being benched for so long during the fourth.
From the title of this topic, it looked interesting. But let Rudy do his job. Critisize when the 'finished project' (in 3-4 years) is complete, and then judge. RUdy has 12 years of head coaching experience and 34 (?, i might be off on that #) years with the Rockets organization. He is a good coach. 2nd youngest team in the league. Besides Glen Rice, the most NBA-experienced player on the team has 5 years under his belt. Give this team one hell of a break to battle it out with all the good teams in the West. Damn.
Stop blaming Rudy everytime this team loses. He benched yao cause he stunk almost all night, except for a small period in the third. I mean Shawn Bradley was doing a job on him when he was on the court. Yao was slow and looked preety ordinary and only managed to beef his stats up late in the 4th in garbage time. He needed to go to the bench and Rudy did the right thing in sitting him down. Just cause we couldnt hold it together its not Rudys fault. I'll just sit back now and wait for the "troll" comments to role in, cause half you people are so wrapped up in YAO that you cant look at both sides of the story, and see what the real problem was.
I wonder if you ever watched Rockets play or not. Resting Yao and Francis at start of 4th quarter is Rudy's rotation pattern, he did that many time, regardless what happened in the games.
Funny, when we were running them out of the gym, that was when things were going great. When we slowed the game down and got Yao involved, it all went to hell. The first time Yao played them, he dominated, last night just wasn't his night and that happens. Whether it was the piss poor refs, good D by Raef and Shawn, or just a bad night for Ming these things happen. 0 for 10, keep going to him? What if he goes 0 for 20. I guess Rudy and the "star" guards still get the blame for some reason or other.
Were you guys watching the game? Yao was dominating when he was taken out. That's not when you bench him. When he's playing as well as he was in that stretch... you wait.
In the 1st quarter, we run our offense mainly through Yao in half court. In early the 2nd quarter our lead was lost when Yao sat. Later when Yao came back we hardly got him involved, Mavs then took the lead. What game were you watching? Or were you even watching at all?
in the 1st quarter, we built the lead as we are running and gunning like mad, have lots of easy dunks..... 2nd quarter..... well, they seems tired and Ming is owned by Bradley that quarter...... Francis did a good job in this game...... he do makes mistake once in a while, but in those games I saw him play, I dun see that much mistake as everyone here always b****ed about...... maybe he plays better in international telecast....I dunno.....
I hope we meet the Mavs in the playoffs and get sweeped. To get season-sweeped and playoff-sweeped is exactly what this team needs. Unfortunately, I'm posistive that Yao will win the next encounter between the 2 teams. What the Mavs have done is simple. They have realized that Yao adjusts to playing the same person/defense in the 2nd time. So first time, they play a zone. Second time, they throw Najera at him. Third time, they throw Lafrentz at him. This time, they throw Lafrentz and Bradley at him, alternating between the 2.
1 more pt, if you really thought we could run with Dallas all game long and shouldn't slow the game down, then you had a problem.
Thats funny, slowing it down by goin through yao really helped us win the game didnt it. If we kept the running game going maybe we might have come away with the W
Before the game, Mark Cuban said that the reason we gave the Mavericks problems in the past is becuase we were so athletic and they had a hard time countering our athleticism. He said Yao is a great player, but having him in the game also slows us down a little. They also take advantage of Yao on the defensive end of the court py running pick and rolls against him all night. Until we figure out how to counter that, we're going to keep losing to the Mavs.
Mavs is the best "run and gun" team in NBA. They run and shoot much better than Rox. You can't count on Rox to use the same style to beat the Mavs, especially with an injured star PG.
At least you have the chance. We had many open shots, but couldn't make them. Also remembered Yao had a bad first half. So if Yao could play like the second half from the beginning and our "shooters" make their shots, we had a chance to beat the Mavs. "Run and Gun" just like the Mavs? That's the strength of Mavs and they have perfected their style with the improvement of Dirk. Mavs is a much better team than last year. And their zone greatly limits the penetration of our guards. We would have zero chance against him if you take out Yao to run and gun with Mavs, not mention Francis has a sore back.
