Thanks, DD. The Rockets are a rudderless ship right now. Nobody except Artest is showing leadership. When will the decision makers understand: A Rafer Alston team will go nowhere. The guy is horrible. Players don't even guard him and he still shoots under 36%.
Unlike most around here, I don't have blind hatred of Rafer ...but even by Rafer's own low standards, he's sucking ba11s. Players go into slumps all the time ...but when Rafer slumps it gets ugly really fast. But I don't blame this loss on Rafer. Why did Adleman take out the guys that got him the lead in the 4th Q? It was odd.
If we want tmac to be the finisher, play AB to create more space for tmac. If we want tmac to be the supplier, play AB as he can score. Saying about needs for the 2nd unit to score, i see a lot of offense from artest and landry. Only time to play rafer, when opposite team is abusing AB on defense or when AB is bricking. Other than that, just stick with AB as his clearly the better player currently.
Used to be that when Rafer was out, everything went to hell. Now that doesn't seem to be the case anymore. When Rafer's been out, there's been a better flow to the game with AB running the show. Maybe that's because Rafer's best suited to play with a HEALTHY McGrady, and since he's not playing like a superstar, that puts more pressure on Rafer to pick up the scoring slack. Problem is, he can't do it. AB can. Another other problem is that Rafer seems to play his best when he has competition for minutes. Just like last year, there were roughly 17 PG's on the roster, but Rafer beat all of them out. Now, this year, he knows his job isn't in jeopardy at this point. I think a healthy dose of more/extended time on the bench might do him and the Rockets some good on all fronts.
agreed... having rafer play is like playing 4 on 5. I recall many games where rafer was left wide open by the opposition because... he cannot shoot. Now no defense will leave AB that open. AB can also drive and dish to an open man. His defense may be a problem but rafer's was overrated anyways.
You have to wonder if the Magic might be finding themselves playing 4 on 5 as well down the road when teams play the kind of defense against them that is designed just to make Rafer drive in to the hoop or shoot jumpers by just merly playing the passing lanes when he gets the ball? We all know that neither one of those areas are his strengths since when he drives in he only goes for those running floaters. When he has the ball, unlike Brooks, he really doesn't scare any opposing defenders.
Now this is pushing the limits just a bit. I can assume we are all Rockets fans, but there has to be some sense of realism here. Look Rafer was a terrible shooter, rarely pushed the ball, and shot those god awful floaters that never seemed to go in, so it was time for him to leave, but to proclaim Brooks was that great in what I saw so many flaws, is just mind boggling. Here are some facts about Brooks: Brooks is a penetrator which is something the Rockets direly need. Brooks can score Brooks can create his own shot Brooks can hit the Freebies and probably in time learn to get to the stripe more often by creating contact al la CP3 Brooks caused Yao on way too many occasions to have to leave his man to cover for him. Barrera's herky jerky style can be tough to defend at times, but the fact was Brooks was constantly playing behind Berrera, so when barrera got into the lane Yao had to cover, leaving his man open on the PnR all night long. Brooks plays reckless. Did I see him waiving off the called play when Scola got the play came out to set the Pick and promptly was waived off. I love his fearlessness, but Ill still take Scola's 50+ percent and Yao's 50+ percent with the lead and time winding down. Also did I see him run the break with the ball in his hands from the wing, instead of the middle? I think I saw one time in three quarters where he used his penetration to get someone else a shot. Brooks is lost on D. I saw a few occasions when Brooks was watching the ball, and creeping into the lane (for whatever reason) leaving his Defensive duty wide open for three's. His rotation is very poor also, and often very late. For as much as Brooks contributed to the win on the offensive side, he did way more damage on the defensive side. In the end, our PG's were outplayed by their PG's. This very well could be a trend as Brooks struggles on the defensive side of the ball. Its weird though, watching him play very much reminded me of a smaller, young Steve Francis, with less ability to incorporate his teammates. Now with all that said, it was time to give Brooks the reigns and give it a go. I think with Rafer (and trust me I hated Rafer most nights) he was in a lose lose situation as long as TMac was on the floor. TMac ran the offense through him on most plays, taking away from Rafers abilities. It will be fun to see Brooks play when and if TMac comes back next year, and the team is winning.
