How come in 99.9% of the discussions about the Rockets problems, no one mentions that they were a very good defensive team last year and will be even better under JVG? Weren't the Rockets the 2nd best defensive team in the league in 1994? Didn't the Bulls and Pistons win championships through D? I don't know, I mean I know we need more offense, but shouldn't we acknowledge the defensive strength of this team? Oh, and please give Moochie his walking papers.
We just let go the best defensive sf in the league. Coaching will help but we don't really have any good defensive players left besides Yao. With our cap problems there really isn't too much we can do about it.
I believe we were a top 5 defensive team last year. I suspect that we will be in that area again. Legal zones can help mask the lack of good perimeter, on the ball defenders, so I am not really too concerned about losing JP. I think its important that we keep Mobley now. He is the only guy we have that can potentially lock up a hot wing player if needed (besides Hawkins). The maturation (hopefully) of Yao and EG should help both of their defensive games, which were a lil suspect last year. Obove all else, JVG teams usually really get after it on D. Therefore, the biggest area I think we will improve on, is forcing turnovers.(weren't we near last in the league last year in this area?).
either last or 2nd to last. that'll be interesting to see. can jvg get us to force more turnovers without sacrificing what made us good on D last year. rudy had a low risk defensive philosophy. it killed us for getting turnovers, but it helped us hold people to the 5th lowest fg% and 8th fewest points and kept us in position to be 3rd in rebound%. so really the only thing i think jvg can help us with is more aggressive individual D which will hopefully get the TO's to lead to easy buckets w/o letting our opp fg% or offensive rebounds go way up.
I've been meaning to ask about this. What will our defense look like through JVG? Was he the kind of coach that ran zones before they were legal, like Saunders? Does he have a quick rotating D ala Popovich? Or the kind of sink in, play soft on the perimeter style that the Rox ran last year? 1-3-1 zones, with all penetration going to Yao, like Nellie likes to run with Shawn Bradley on the floor? My impression was that the only real difference would be the speed of our transition from O to D, which could be pretty bad at times last year. I've only really watched the JVG Knicks once, and that was in the Finals. Could someone enlighten me?
Mobely isn't a lock down defender on anyone. He only plays d in spurts, when he's particularly motivated. He's had some good nights and some bad nights. Cat lovers want to point to the night Kobe shoots poorly, but forget when Kobe abuses Cat by going over him. Cat has zero value to the overall defense, given his propensity to create as many or more bad situations with his boneheaded me-first jacking as he makes up for on the other end. He's also prone to the brain-fart reach in foul and the frustration foul and the foolish grab after losing the ball, and the big baby whiner technical. You Cat lovers have been building him up like the second coming and its all a bunch of crap. He's no good on the drive and bites early on the fake. Cat just squats and waves his arms and bobs his head. A wirey 6'4" guy is a complete zero against an aggressive small forward in a 2 pack, and a zero against a guard springing off a pick, and a negative on rotations and switches, where he loafs. His only skill is in the open court - just like his o game. You could replace Cat with a cardboard cutout, add a badass small forward and you'd forget he was ever there. NBDL iso two guards are absolutely useless pieces of garbage and utterly replaceable. I cannot fathom you people's fascination with this reprehensible poster boy for loser ball.
pasox2, I think that if he has the ABILITY to play D (unlike Steve), then JVG will get him to concentrate on doing it the whole time he's on the court. However, I still don't think he's a good fit for this team. This team needs 2 PG's starting in the backcourt. One is Steve, the other is someone who can defend big Guards and pass the ball to Yao.
I have told many of my friends this before, JVG is a good defensive teacher and will help this team immediatly. He will show franchise and mobley how HE wants them to play d as well as everyone else. Thats why im not all mad about posey leaving and getting eric, our entire team will be good in D but we needed a shooter.
Finally a newbie with something intelligent to say. Props, even though you name is Easter Euro.... I wish all these nay sayers would remember what won us our first two championships and why JVG is a huge off season pick up, and more valuable than getting Odom or even Brand. We need a defensive philosophy and JVG is the man to deliver it.
I never knew a fan could hate a player on his own team that much. "Replace Cat with a cardboard cutout"? I wont mention Cuttino's defense against the likes of Iverson, Pierce, McGrady, etc. because you are too freakin blind in your hatred anyways. He took 14 shots per game last year. Damn what a freakin ball hog!
speaking of carboard cut outs I'm sure one could also run our fastbreak better and at least raise a hand on defense and would also have a higher BBall IQ than our current floor general.
and i thought Sane didn't like cuttino. but at least now i know not to take anything pasox2 says about cuttino seriously.
Any team that has players in the top 20 in blocks (Griffin, Ming, plus Cato is up there compared with the minutes he plays) and steals (Francis, and Mobley is 38) has to be considered a good defensive team. Sorry, but I just don't think you can count man-to-man defense as the only criteria for evaluating defensive performance. Teams that have high numbers of steals and blocks in individual players cause disruptions for other teams, so I just don't understand how you can say a top-20 steals or blocks player is not good. O.K., maybe they're not great, but not good? Truth be known, Olajuwon wasn't a great man-to-man defender, often because he had to leave his man to cover for other people's mistakes. But he was a strong defensive presence, and because of his shot-blocking prowess (like Ming and Griffin), he altered shots, as well. If I'm JVG, I build everything from defense and fine-tune the offense. Then again, if I was JVG, I wouldn't be sitting here playing Wednesday evening armchair point guard, would I?
If van gundy makes these guys live up to there shot blocking capabilitys then the rockets could easly be one of the best if not the best team in shots blocked.
we were not a good defensive team. and what does it mean to say Dream wasn't a good one on one defender. You know, sometimes Houston fans just infuriate me with their lame memory of the Dream. The Dream, Russell and, for non centers, Dennis Rodman, are the best defenders ever....one on one, help defense, intimidation defense...whatever. They are the best because they changed the way a game was played.
also, who the hell would compare Griffin and Yao's shock-blocking skills to Hakeem Olajuwon. This lack of respect for one of 2 best blockers this game has ever seen...just ... just well, just Smeggy that. It makes me mad.
good to se someone who watches the games and not the stats how can a team that allows constant guard penetration and opposition PFs to competely dominate be a good defensive team, stats can be so deceiving.
I don't get it then. We weren't good on defense. We were horrendous on offense. How did this awful team ever win 43 games and miss the playoffs by one game? Because we had the ability to play good defense. And occaisionally we were able to put together a decent game on offense, though not very often. When they played aggressive D, and had Yao commited to standing in front of the basket with his arms up, the Rockets could be a very frusturating team to score on. Unfortunately, we didn't always play like we should have, and almost never did on the road. Unlike most, I don't blame Rudy for this, not entirely. I'm sure Rudy told them the same thing every game, that they had to play tough D. I just don't think the players always listened to him. I'm not sure if JVG will be able to implement any tricky defensive schemes to frusturate our opponents like, say, Nellie does, but hopefully he'll get the Rockets to play solid D every night, or at least almost every night. Our offense still needs some work.
