Just to give you an update, other people on the Mavericks showed up to play tonight. THat wasn't the case for the Rockets.
For Steve, a fast break means just another opportunity for HIM to score. Did you notice the last thing on his mind was passing? ... thus, a forced offensive foul was the result.
I wish Yao was starting. Even though he didn't play well. He's still better now, than Cato today. If we're going to lose, at least get Yao some playing time. So what if he fouls out. He'll learn.
Griffin missed too many shots,Cato did as well as he could. Moochie not much better than Griffin. Francis was trying to win by himself. Cat did his usual scoring. Ming got only 1 shot and looked weak on the defensive end,but he should gotten at least 6-7 attempts like Griffin.The only way he is going to gain confidence right now is by scoring points. It doesn't matter if he misses a few of them right now but eventually he will get going, part of the reason why he isn't getting the ball is because of foul trouble but Steve and Mobley have to start trusting him and pass the ball to him to have a chance of winning.
A lot plays went through Yao when he was in the game. I would like to have seen Yao in the last part of the game when it was obvious we were going to lose. But Yao didnt' really establish a good post position for them to pass him the ball. He was kind of getting pushed around out there. I think Yao will be ok eventually but it will take time. He did set a really great pick for that Slam attempt where Francis hurt himself.
Enough Said!! You are right on the money. I blamed Steve and Cutino the leaders for not following through with Rudy's game plan. In the early part of the game every time the ball came to Cutino he would jack it up regardless of whether it was a good shot or not. That's not good basketball. The only thing they were thinking about was getting their numbers
WELCOME BACK TO LAST YEAR! Do you have any idea how demoralizing it is to run up and down the floor and watch your guards go 1 on 5 and take virtually all the shots. It makes you wish you were somewhere else. Five assists between Frances and Mobley, that is unforgivable. The other players couldn't hit!? Well what do you expect when you get so few opportunities, NO MOTION, NO RHYTHM, NO WIN! ONLY TEAMS WIN GAMES
Cat shot 50% and Steve shot 48%. Steve was the only playing with spirit. Early on Steve passed the ball and got his teammates wide open shots, they didn't execute them. But if your philosophy is to blame the players who did well tonight, and not those that stood around and played poorly, that's your choice.
Assist numbers were horrible. Period. Everyone is to blame. There was not enough ball movement, and when they had the shot, they missed. All players had a part in that. It's hard to blame Steve but when you call yourself the team leader, you become the point of blame, unfortunately.
I don't like this excuse. They just don't trust their teamates. Law of averages will kick in soon enough and his teamates will start to make more shots.
They say shooters just have to keep shooting. Maybe they should say point guards have to keep passing.
Maybe he should have kept passing. We could have lost by thirty, and Steve probably wouldn't have had very many more assists the way the team was playing. There were times that Steve definitely should have tried passing before taking a shot. But I don't that's the biggest reason we lost tonight. I wouldn't mind the criticism if people weren't acting like that was the worst thing about tonight's game. The worst thing about tonights game was Only Steve and possibly Cato really showed to play and played with any fire. And it's not because the others got bored when they didnt' get the ball. They did get the ball early on, and many plays went through Yao when he was on the floor, but nobody else stepped it up. At some point Steve saw that nobody else was going to score, so he tried to do it all himself.
some of you guys are idiots. i'm sorry for the negativity but after ONE freakin game and you're ragging on a guy who gave us 39 points! let's see, who'll steve/cuttino pass to? ming? collier? griffin? hawkins? boki? let's see one scenario: pass to one of the other guys. they're all jumpshooters. bad jumpshooters. clang. long rebound. no inside presence. fastbreak indiana. basket. wide open looks for EG, for moochie, for collier (what the hell was that hook shot?) and it's the same result. we have no post game tonght. and guess what? our best shooters shot the ball. go figure. is cato an offensive threat? eddie isn't, yet. our team is supposedly built on the inside presence of a mo taylor or (eventually) a yao ming or a griffin that draws the defense in with their offensive ability and allows our slashers (mobley, francis, boki) to instill some motion in the offense--cutting, backdoor, passing---all those thing. and guess what? we did damm well tonight without mo and kenny and glen. yeah, sure, we needed to work on a couple of things. from what i saw, we definitely need to learn how to set and defend picks better, among other things. the pacers were killing us with the pick and roll in the second quarter. but what's the positives? i didn't see francis or mobley complain to the officials at all in this game? weren't some of you griping about that? how bout the monster game cato had? maybe his prediction a couple of years ago about being the league's leading rebounder might be happening.. i think there were a couple of plays that had inklings of the new offensive system.. i'm not sure.. and it seemed to work. and our zone defense did pretty well tonight. it's one freakin' game, without 3 starters, and you guys are cryin' about steve and cat not passing enough. the object of the game is to put the ball in the basket. and when your team's best and only scorers also happens to be the guy that dishes out the assists, you're gonna run into some problems. chill. and if i heard some of the stuff said here at a game, i'd call some of you dumbasses. but hey, it's just my opinion and you're entitled to yours.
Yes I would rather he get 21 and 8 because that simple stat shows he got his teammates involved, thus making the defense play honest. 21 and 8 does add up to at least 37 assuming no 3-4 point plays, even though he put in 39 in the end. It's pathetic that this team had such a hard time scoring. Griffin played outside of 10 feet most of the game, guys were standing around, not attacking the basket as usual and Steve could not get the team going. It's much easier to defend a team that isn't attacking the basket and whose ball distributor is dominating the dribble. Do you know what I want to see more of when our other guys are struggling?? Francis to Mobley. Francis to Mobley. Francis to Mobley. They play such a sweet two man game. It needs to be exploited during these rough times. It's not something we should rely on or run into the ground, but rather use as an alternative to times when we have trouble scoring.
Assuming you are being sarcastic, that actually makes a bit of sense. It is better to have the two of them giving each other confidence then one of them going one on one and feeling like the burden is all on them. It would be kinda like Walker and Peirce in celtics, where they challenge each other to step up their game.
Cat and SF blow out the second string backcourt of Indiana on the offensive end. Big deal. Maybe it's the same thing with Reggie Miller and Jamaal Tinsley. Or maybe we just get blown out in the end by more than nine points. We were not missing three starters. Rice KT and MT won't start at the same time. We could have played with a real small forward but AFAIK we went three guard rather than *risk* playing Nachbar too much.
Dude, how can people rip on Steve? He has 3 of the teams 8 assists...that's almost half of the teams assists. In that light, that's not so bad is it? If Steve can continue to average almost 50% of the Rockets total team assists, I predict Steve will lead the league in scoring!!!!
So what, a 10 point loss is as much as a 40 point loss in basketball. You lost. Thats it. When everyone got involved in the game, at least you feel like you r part of the team. One would feel more responsible for the loss. THAT IS GOOD. It give everyone more motivations to work harder next game. You win on the long run.
