A fair analysis on Rockets' up and down after Yao's injury

Good post.

 

excellent, 5-star

 

where is kirk snyder

 

Looks like we intent to pick up Spurs as our playoff opponent with all these loss to sub-par teams

 

Very good points.
And I expect that Yao would come back asap. Without Yao, we have barely no offense in the paint, that is why T-Mac always get double teamed.

 

Nice thread. Good job, Queeni.

 

Hopefully, when Yao gets back, teams will have trouble re-adjusting to the Yao-Mac style of game, and then Rox go on long winning streak to finish off regular season.

 

It's true that McGrady has been drawing more and more attention. I think there was a good six week stretch there where the entire NBA forgot how good he was, and he was making them all pay dearly for it. They've clamped down much more, doubling and even tripling him at times, but there's more to it than that.

Deke's decline is hurting a good deal still, too. He wasn't meant to give starter minutes for this many games... he's just running out of steam. He's nowhere near the rebounding machine was in January. We need Yao back ASA-F'in-P.



But nonetheless, of our last three losses, one of them was without McGrady (and we really had the game in the bag before a choke job), one of them we played fairly well, but clearly just underestimated our opponent (the Hawks, lacking defense, and they played aggressively), and one of them there is no excuse -- we were just outplayed. So it's not as bad as it looks.

Still it is a MAJOR concern to me that we've been outrebounded in SIX CONSECUTIVE games. That was one of our biggest strengths... Our defense is also worrisome, but I think we have always sort of had streaks of good/bad D in years past.

 

Damnit, I always forget something...

One thing I meant to add: I wouldn't be worried about meshing Yao and McGrady's offense. There isn't much JVG has to do there. Trust me, now that McGrady has his confidence back, that fusion will occur very naturally with these two. McGrady has always known how to play with Yao very well (and he is more important in making that pair work than Yao), and besides that, a dominant inside/outside combo like this is the way god intended basketball to work. I have full faith that things will fall into place last year.

Last year, mind you, the Rockets were 6-10 with McGrady and no Yao, 7-23 with Yao and no McGrady, and 20-7 with both.* And I promise you they haven't gotten any worse since last season...

* I'm only including games where they played the ENTIRE game together, as McGrady left early in three losses.

 

Gotta agree, teams probably started to pay attention to our source of offense (T-mac) after we built up a respectable record...and countered it with restounding efficiency. We need Yao back now to make it hard on the other team to defend!

 

I agree with the part about Vspan. If you look at the pointguard minutes on the other team TJ Ford got 25 minutes and Calderon 22 minutes. On the other hand, rafer got 38 minutes , and our own european sensation Vspan only got 4 minutes. If you look at Toronto's progress this season, things actually started getting better for them when TJ Ford went down and Calderon got significant minutes and showed what he's made of. I think its time to put the personal grudge match aside and for the team's sake Vspan should get some playing time. Enough playing time to show us more, enough for us to assess his performance... You can't really assess how well someone plays in practice , its like comparing preseason to the regular season. Anyway, I hope we start winning again or we should try something new.

 

I think with the new Tmac the additional defense on him is expected and JVG and tmac should know this would come sooner then later. No surprise here.

What JVG need to find is another player to be our starter at the C. namely Jake. he is why he brought him here for to play the center position. Give Deke rest and put him back on the bench for the playoffs. rotate jake and hayes and little bit of deke at the center now.

I think JVG is still trying to teach jake how to play the team's defense scheme. depends on how it would fare, we may not see jake until much later.

What i don't want to see is rockets pulling YAo's return too soon. We still got a tough playoffs to go thru against either spurs or jazz, no easy task.

 

great post queeni. especially the idea of hiring an offensive specialist as the assistant coach. this will definitely help the team a lot. as great as phil jackson is, he has tex winter. if the rockets want to go further with jvg they really should get an offensive specialist to help out.

 

I like the idea of adding Adelman to the coaching staff but that is probably not gonna work with JVG. I am so tired of double Tmac and Rockets DIE scenario.

 

I like the idea of Adelman as the head coach.



DD

 

Great idea in theory, not so good in practise. Calderon is far and away ahead of Vspan at this moment. Watching him in international games already gives you a clue about his maturity in handling a team, as well as his offensive game. He's a very much in-control kind of PG.

That's something that Vspan just isn't at this point. The potential might be there, but barring some flashes where he plays great, Vspan is still VERY raw around the edges now.

If you guys remember, there was actually a stretch last season where the Raptors started Calderon, and he posted double digit assists near-nightly. Can we say the same for Vspan? I doubt so. Still, it's just his first season, let him get one season under his belt, and lets see how he improves.

 

Upon Yao's return, i forsee a lot of losing initially. Yao's gonna get outrun, outjumped, and totally out of the offense as he will need to get back in shape. if you think the GARM is bad now, just wait til Yao returns and our record gets worse.

 

JVG and Mr. Alston, Rockets' weakest links, I mentioned it again and again, but got criticized by those "senior citizens" here.

Several players worked very hard and gave their best perfomance before trade deadline, they just want to stay in Huston. But now, you see what is happening.

I still believe in Span, bull **** JVG, give him 15 minutes.