JJ and Cat were both having bad shooting nights. Still both almost shot their way through it......it happens, both will come back strong soon Yao will be up and down until his conditioning improves. JVG is right though. when he scores early on, his confidence is up and he plays well. otherwise its a struggle, offensively and defensively. So dont blame, just live with it!
My observation is that Cat isn't even considering passing it to Yao. Cat's been playing well lately, but he really needs to start thinking about more than himself and SF if this team is going to really benefit from him in the long run. It just seems that he's giving up on passing it inside or off the pnr to yao no matter if the entry is there or not. If this doesn't change, I think Cat will be better utilized off the bench, where he can become the ultimate 6th man who can come in and light it up when we need to rest the starters. That way we'll always have a scoring threat on the floor, cause it seems there's too many guys starting now that need to score. When Cat's on, he's awesome, but when he's off we suffer too much. Again, if he were coming off the bench, we could make more efficient use of his inconsistancy.
I agree. When Cat feels that he needs to shoot through a mini shooting slump, he does not think to pass - no matter who is at the low post. I saw a couple of occasions last night where he was obviously thinking about shooting. He ignored everyone (not just Yao). He was determined that he would take the shot, and he did. It certainly looked like he was ingnoring Yao who was at the low post at the time. Is this a good principle? Not necessarily. Sooner or later he will learn to play smart instead of following a silly priciple like this.
Why yes I did. You missed the gist of my sarcasm. We should not be mad at Memphis just because their organization knows what they are doing and it shows on the court at our expense. We need to direct our emnity toward the clowns in the Rockets organization who have constructed this team. I give Memphis all props, they played aggressive smart basketball. Their gameplan exploited our huge problem at forward. They pushed the ball up and down the court to exploit Yao's lack of stamina. Each time I watch the Grizzlies, I come away impressed by the job Jerry West is doing to resurrect this sadsack franchise. Posey and Miller are role players who actually PRODUCE on the court (what a novel idea!). Memphis WON that game last night and I was LOL watching Posey torch them in the end (all together now: We saved $6 million dollars by not resigning James Posey!)
Lots of people say that great players make other players better. I'd like to know how a team of any NBA players having to slow down to a snails pace, IE adjust to Yao, are being made better. The Great Dragon of the East who is out of Breath!
Jimmy Jackson has practically identical stats to Posey and he makes half as much money, brilliant move the the Rocks brass. On top of that, he has playoff experience, something Posey doesn't.
First, what the heck did I do. I haven't even posted about this game yet. Second, I could have told you we where going had lost this game just by looking at Steve's stat-line. He had 21 shots on goal. We are not going to win many games with Steve shooting 21 times. I have said this all along, and Clutch himself recently posted a thread (later duplicated by Hottoddie) that backs it up. When Steve has 19 FGA, that means no one else is getting the ball, 'cause he starts with it and keeps it the whole possesion. That is playing 1-on-5, and that is not a winning formula. Third, Cat had 6 assists and 1 turnover from the SG position, I don't think his passing was a major issue in this game. In fact, late in the game he was getting hot (a pair of threes and an easy shot, all going in) and then Steve decided he was going to "take over the game" and everthing went to ****. This play happend with 4 minutes to go in the 3rd quarter. Cat passed it to JJ who had a better passing lane to Yao, JJ passed it back to Cat, and then Yao got called for the offensive foul (after stiff-arming Swift right in the face. Cat did absolutly nothing wrong on the play. Ahh, the joys of having the game on tape when the baseless bashing comes in.
You know what would be novel? All these guys who b**** and whine about specific plays.....why dont you have a paper and pad beside you for the entire game...and when you see something like that you will want to b**** about after the game....write down the time and quarter. that way, those of us who have the game taped can go back and look at it and either back you up or tell you that you're full of it. It would go a long way towards facilitating reasonable discussions if you would be more specific about what plays you think the Rockets screwedup on. Does this sound like an idea that all fans can agree on? this whining and snipping back and forth does no good...f you have a problem with a player...be specific about which play it was with time and quarter so the rest of us can see what you mean...maybe we were taking a bathroom break or a beer run while that play was going on and we didnt see it. Lets try to facilitate some better dicussions guys...this is just stupid the way we are doing it now.
Yeah, no kidding. I just happened upon the one play mentioned in criticism of Cat (apparently he needs to be drawn and quartered over one play), and it was total bullcrap (see previous post). My recommendation is that if you don't want to jot stuff down and miss the action, watch the game on tape so you can pause when you see something you want to b**** about, then note the time and quarter.
actually....that play Cat passed to Mo who was tryin to pass it to Yao when the offensive foul got called...Yao had almost gotten position when the ref blew the whistle. look here to see what I mean.
OK, a little later in the day, I want to admit that StupidMoniker and SamFisher are great posters, I just get sick of the Cat advocacy. It's like the guy can do no wrong in their eyes. It's like they teamed up to take the Poster on Crack's former lofty perch. I'd like to commend y'all for fine writing. I wish y'all would see things my way sometimes, but...oh well. That's the way the bbs crumbles. My position as stated above remains. If the player doesn't complement Ming, nothing else he does well or badly matters. That's true for Cat, for Taylor, for Cato, for Steve. This team isn't going to go anywhere with little supporting cast free agents playing an individual game, even if they do it well. That ultimately won't deliver the team in the crunch; they will collapse like a house of cards. You've got to ride your star to win it all; and that star has to have a little help from the refs. If your star can't get respect from his own teammates, he's never going to carry you anywhere.
You can slam Cat for not playing as well last night as he has in the past...but to claim that Cat isnt a good piece of the puzzle based on those few bad performances is just wrong. He has been one of our most consistent players all year. He plays good to great D against most teams....has one of the best shooting percentages on the team...and seems to be truely buying into VG's way...his shots are down..and he plays D the VG way. All it takes to see this is being fair...I understand that you feel the need to jump down his throat for some perceived snub of Yao...but he doesnt do it all the time and I have tape to back it up... look at that play above that I provided a link to and tell me honestly that Cat screwed up that possession.. honestly and fairly...I challenge you to do it.
count the fricking time he does pass the ball to Yao you guys are so fricking hypocritically blind........
Doh! You're right it was Mo, not JJ. Mo did pass it back to Cat before the foul was called though. Basically, just the same thing I posted before, but switch JJ with Mo. I think Sam is actually more of an anti-YOF than a Cat advocate. Smeg is actually more of a Cat supporter, I think. Cat does plenty of things wrong (turnovers, long shooting slumps, picking up dumb reaching fouls), but yesterday, passing was not one of them. I do wish he would break out of his mini-slump and get back to shooting the three like he was earlier. It is like all of his long ball stroke has been transferred to Jackson recently. I will disagree with you when you say that Cat doesn't complement Yao. I think you need good shooters and slashers to play off of a great big man, especially one that is a good passer. I think that Mobley brings that, in addition to good defense and at a cheap price. I guess considering all the things that Cat provides and the contract he does it on, I don't understand why more people aren't closer to MY positinon on him. I do agree with you in that Steve is not helping Yao very much though. BTW, thanks for the complements, always nice to get a little ego stroking.
I don't think Mobley has anything against Yao. That cat is just not smart enough to pass the damn ball.
