QQ with your revisionist history of the 22 game streak. the only game resembling "fool's gold" was the Lakers game where alston had the game of his life and singlehanded kept houston in the game. the rest of that streak was solid. while they had yao they were the best team in the league. after landry went out the team was still above average and those wins were tight but legit. it's the same mentality to causes ppl to piss and moan after every loss... it's like after the streak all people remember are the last 2 games versus LA and the blowout versus Boston and they say it was a fluke. it was NOT A FLUKE. it was solid D and great movement on offense. as for this last game. the spurs were at home and shot the lights out in the 1st half. the spurs are probably the worst matchup in the western conference for the rockets atm. they played awesome. tmac had a terrible shooting night but he did go to the rim and tried to make plays for his teammates. QUIT CRYING NOOBS. right now SA is probably the best team in the west, we're not going to be playing them in the first round in all likelihood and without yao it'd be a miracle for us to beat them in a 7 game. but we can still beat GS, NO and a number of other teams. quit crying
Stop all your b****ing. We got blown out by an elite team on their home court. It happens. The Hornets lead the West and they just got trounced in Boston. The Lakers are everyone's hot pick and they lost back to back at home against two of the worst teams in the league. Even the Spurs just had a 6 losses in 7 games stretch prior to their winning streak. We won 22 in a row. Now we have come back down a little. All that matters is that we make the playoffs and go from there. Seeds dont really matter this year. Get in and hope to get back to playing great.
T-Mac must be with Parker and Kobe the only player that shoots more shots when he is off than when he is on. Usually when a player is off he looks for his teammates. This was a clear "go-to Scola" game and T-Mac failed to realize it.
This is the problem. I think Alston is the one who changes the plays as well and making the timing of the change of playbook critical when the other team scores. Adelman needs to faciliate T-Mac in the absolute best position to score only when the other team scores. Score the ball. Go back to the other side of the floor play great defense make a stop get the rebound and come up the floor change the offense so that Alston and T-Mac become the primary playmaker to get others involved and focus on who gets hot and who is not based on match up situations. This is called Rhythem. Do this over and over and over and over through out the whole game and we should be fine and keeps other teams from predicting us to and far to easy. but overall Alston changing playes at the worst times makes us very stoppable because the other team zero's in on stregnth and weaknesses and knows what to expect. everytime Alston changes the play then the other team goes in "Audible" mode to try to take away our stregnth as T-Mac being the primary playmaker. Bottom line is he needs to score when he absolutely needs to score. T-Mac is the #1 scoring option and #2 scoring option and #1 playmaker option and this puts the team out of sink. Phil Jackson did the same thing with Micheal Jordan. The problem i see is the offense changes only as to when something didnt fall through the hoop. It should change only when T-Mac scores in the post and when the Defense makes a stop. Its the combination of both not just the one in which it should change and mix things up.
my problem with rafer. 1. his stupid, mid range pull up 2. shoots way behind the 3 point line, for no reason 3. keeps dribbling and ball hogs then go to the hoop, people blame stevie for doing that... 4. his inconsistancy (BIG PROBLEM HERE) my probelm with tmac. 1. his inability to focus for 48 minutes. i remember several times during the past game, he could have put a hand up on a shooter's face, but decided not to. that is lazy. 2. his heat check 3. when we are down by 2, on a run, him shooting a 3. 4. his inconsistancy overal, i'm going to have to say, we are going as far as rafer and tmac fg%. meaning, the higher percentage they make their shot, the farther we goin.
During the winning streak i was at the game cheering for the rockets. That still doesn't change the fact that Tracy and Rafer had a bad day shooting today, neither does that change the fact that I still will be at rockets game cheering for the team.
Well, I didnt except a big shooting game for T-Mac with the bad shoulder. He drived to the baskets in the beginning and then, they stopped his lay-ups, so he stopped to drive.
Actually, I am not that concerned about this lost. The Spurs were shooting lights out. Finley couldn't miss even when he threw up bad shots. We would have lost the game no matter what, with that kind of shooting. T-Mac was aggressive. He did a few strong move to the basket early. His injury obviously bothered him, not only the jump shot but the finishing at the rim. And Rafer just had those brickfest once every few games. This was a blow out because both TMac and Rafer happened to shoot poorly while the Spurs couldn't miss in the 1st half. Not to mention Battier made several uncharacteristic defensive mistakes. BTW, I agree with JVG that not starting Battier was a coaching mistake on Adelman's side. My concern is more about ball movement. The movement was great during the streak. Now it has gone stagnant. I don't know why.
Bingo. Its hard to face reality, but it will take an act of God to get past the second round. Sure I believe we can still beat any team on any given night. But over 7 games lacking any post up guys? Ehhh....
look cant fault mac or rafer on this loss...sometimes you have it sometimes you dont... today parker and finely couldnt miss a shot and rafer and mac couldnt make a shot....but we all know mac will find his shot and rafer is streaky no big deal... the positive is it looks like mac can still call upon that top flight athletic ability when the playoffs role around... I havent seen Mac take it to the hole as strong as he did tonight in a while....thats a positive
First off, we're not just talking about the San Antonio game here. We've lost several games since the win streak, and for the past 10 games, our starting pg and sg have been shooting poorly. The streak was fool's gold. We played a number of quality teams that were missing their best players. Not only that, but T-mac and Rafer were shooting unbelievably high percentages (a fact that Clutch already pointed out). The point is that we could not sustain this level of play. My definition of a solid win is where each player plays his average game and the team still wins. That's when you know you have it going on. If T-mac has to score 40 points to win a game, then the reality is we will not win many games bc T-mac can't do it every game. THAT is what I mean by fool's gold. It's unsustainable. Really, our only hope in the playoffs is for everyone to get hot again and ride out another streak. I appreciate your enthusiasm and it's definitely possible for us to get hot again and ride out a few wins in the playoffs. Is it likely? I don't think so, but I'm holding out some hope.
A good part of the 22 game win streak, Rafer played out of his mind, and TMac scored big numbers. BUT, when you look at the last two years, Rafer's shooting was just horrible, and TMac's shooting has not been much better. They are both inconsistent, and they both just keep chunking the ball when they are missing. Defense can cover a multitude of sins, but can't compensate for 9 for 38 shooting, nothing can. When you have two guards who are as streaky as Rafer and TMac, you are vulnerable. To make it worse, even BJ is streaky. This team does not have a starting quality consistent shooter. Not now, Yao is out. On the other hand, if TMac and Rafer are hitting consistently, this team is very dangerous. To do anything in the playoffs the Chunker Brothers have to be "on." If they shoot 20 or 30 percent, forget about it.
There comes a time when you got to tweak the rotion a bit more, for the current need, like when nobody is hitting, why not try Brooks (who can potentially create opportunities), or Novak. These two have more beautiful effortless shooting forms/stroke then the majority of the rest of the team, I think they deserve a bit more maybe, especially when people like Luther/Rafer are so streaky. I don't know if we should worry about t-mac that much, except for his shoulder. It seems to me at times he is in a mental battle of when to turn the intensity on. Like there was a brief sense of urgency today that even the TV commentators noticed and stated that he should be at that level the majority of times if the rockets want to ascend. I am sure he will at playoff time, but lest hope they can hang on and reach there.
Look i am not worried at all about T-Mac the biggest problem is Alston and there is no doubt about it. 50% of the time Alston has the ball and 50% of the time T-Mac has the ball and the biggest of all problems is when Alston has the ball 50% and trying to change the playbook is that 50% when he has the ball he is not even trying to get T-Mac a good shot or give him the ball in the post to where he can effectively score and this is the biggest problem.
It is not only the poor offense causing this lose, but also the bad defense at 1 and 2. Most importantly, the ball didn't move smoothly as it should since the late stage of the winning steak.
Sometimes I think Rafer has an And1 mixtape soundtrack playing inside his head, which leads him to jack up a rushed shot with no one to rebound or without the team's transition D set up yet. He's one of our best ball handlers, but those concentration lapses are killer.
In the playoffs the defenses will be even tougher and will have to be faced in a 7 game series which will compound the problem provided we make it there.
Not at the slightest. The fact that T-Mac can score anywhere on the court doesnt mean he can score at will. The fact Alston can feed him in the post which is his real stregnth is much more affective then having him take outside shots and trying to be a playmaker. This is what JVG said during the game is you want T-Mac taking more outside shots than anything which is indeed true not nealy as efficient.
