exactly. JVG depended on tmac too much. that's why u never see JVG criticize the guy. how can u when ur coaching career is on one dude? every player on the team has 1-2 specific job. yao - score in the post and rebound. battier - defend and hit the open 3. rafer - handle, don't turn it over. and so on. tmac was the everything guy. even MJ didn't have success until he had pippen does the ballhandling and primary defending and rodman/grant doing the rebounding for him to succeed.
Are you kidding me? Up 5 on your home court, with 6 minutes left, crowd's going nuts. Lebron wasn't even on his home floor and he scored the last 31 points for his team in the 4th and 2 OT's. T-Mac at least had the fans' energy. JVG rested T-Mac. When T-Mac was taken out with around 8:00 remaining, we were down by 2. When T-Mac entered with 6:58 or so remaining, we were up by 3. He had plenty of rest because Utah called a timeout somewhere in there. What do you know, first play, T-Mac gets an And1 because he took it to the basket. He didn't look tired on that play. And then he missed the free throw. So all of a sudden he got tired while shooting the freethrow? Are you telling me he missed 4 free throws in Game 7 because he was tired? Tomfoolery! Next 2 plays down, he settles for ugly jumpshots on Kirilenko. He didn't even try creating space or taking it to the bucket. And then what do you know, he somehow gets a sudden burst of energy and takes it strong to the basket to cut it to 2 with 10 seconds left. And then he got tired again and just watched Derek Fisher hold onto the ball for 3 seconds and let the time run out after JVG and his coaching staff were jumping on the sidelines to foul. Yeah, he was too tired to foul. If anyone should be tired, it'd be Rafer Alston and Shane Battier. Both played every single game of the season, unlike TMac who missed 12, and both played heavy, heavy minutes in both the regular season and the playoffs. I think Rafer averaged 45 minutes in the playoffs. Looking at the stats, Rafer shot a combined 58% in the 4th quarters of games 6 and 7, and he had a combined 5 steals. He hit a lot of big shots for us throughout the playoffs. Defensively, you couldn't have asked for anything more on Deron Williams. Deron absolutely destroyed Golden State and had a great series against SA before he got hurt. Even when he was hurt, he still played like a superstar. All these guys might have been hella tired or hurt or whatever, but they came through nonetheless. Battier never took a play off. Game after game, he'd guard the opposing team's toughest player. And he still hit a clutch 3 in the 4th quarter of Game 6, and hit 5 threes in Game 7. Had T-Mac made these comments immediately after Game 7, JVG might still be coach. Morey's gotten him help, so there are no more dang excuses coming from his mouth. Tracy should have went to college. It does a lot to people's maturity. Lebron and Kobe are exceptions to the rule because they've been hyped since they were born. Kobe had to follow his dad's footsteps, and people were talking about Lebron when he was in 5th grade.
T-mac's role was demanding. considering he had to setup the offense, score, play defense, and yet be double teamed on every possesion, it can take it's toll on anyone. however, this season, it seems wih the addition of james, scola, brooks some of the offensive and playmaking burden will be reduced.hopefully this will allow tracy to concentrate on playing he's natural game which is to score.
I can't argue with that. He'll definitely get easier opportunities with much better teammates and Adelman's offense. However, when the game is on the line in the 4th quarter of the playoffs, we're going to have to depend on Tracy to take over at some point. Will he continue to settle for long jumpshots like he did vs Dallas and in Games 6 and 7 vs Utah, or will he actually take over and play the way he did during the regular season last year when Yao went down?
again, tmac was never in shape the entire season. he came into the season way out of shape as we've seen how slow and chubby he was. then to have the injury and sit on his ass for 3 weeks again. his stamina and conditioning was no where near lebron. and why u keep brining up lebron? dude was pathetic in game 6 and they won. did we have any role player score more than 15 pts the whole series??? it aint like lebron tore in up in any other game. dude had basically just one great game in the playoffs. but fortunately, he played in the east.
we'll see. remember in 04-05, dude was mad clutch and he hit a ton of game winners. so he is clutch. we'll just have to wait and see. hopefully adelman and better teammates can help tmac. again, we have to make tmac's roles more specific. on offense, just score. on defense, just help out w/ the rebounding.
I think he was exhausted. might sound like a copout, but he really was exhausted. not only that, but our offense was so stagnant and obvious that the jazz knew our every play and they successfully took away every dribble opportunity possible.
Exactly. in the 04-05 series he was free just to be a scorer and did not yhave that heavy burden of being he playmaker, scorer, defensive specialist, and so on. we had a very good roster then. we had james, sura to be the playmakers and defensive especialists.
We also had wesely and jon barry tearing it up. with this seasons roster, i think tracy can go back to being the scorer that he is. hopefully he wont get burnedout anymore to due of our lack of depth.
he still had a lot of responsibilities, but he had other creators. james was ballin that yr. sura was great. wesley played great D. and deke was a beast then. so in fact, his role was bigger last yr than in 04-05. but i think it all comes down to tmac working on his game and coming into the season in game shape IMMEDIATELY. i never seen tmac be so inconsistent the whole yr. he usually improves month by month b/c he gets more and more in rhythm.
Yeah. If you were to graph TMac's productivity over the course of every season he's played in, you'll notice that he's a very slow starter and by March he's ballin'. Maybe someone can actually make a few graphs, going back to his first year in Orlando?
he's NOTORIOUS for that. 02-03 october - 27.5, 2.5, 4 november - 32.6, 6.9, 4.7 dec - 27.6, 5.5, 3.7 jan - 30.9, 7.4, 6.6 feb - 34.9, 7.7, 6.7 mar - 36.5, 5.7, 6.3 apr - 28.7, 6.6, 4.4 playoffs - 31.7, 6.5, 6.6 03-04 oct - 29.5, 5.5, 6 nov - 24.5, 5.7, 5.5 dec - 23.9, 7.4, 6 jan - 32.1, 5.1, 5.3 feb, 30.7, 5.9, 5 mar - 30.2, 5.9, 5.7 04-05 nov - 20.2, 5.1, 5.4 dec - 27.7, 7.3, 5.6 jan - 28.1, 6.5, 5.9 feb - 24.9, 5.4, 7.2 mar - 25.9, 6.4, 4.9 apr - 27.6, 6.3, 5.9 06-07 nov - 18.7, 5.8, 6.7, 40%fg dec - 23.1, 4.4, 4.4, 46% fg jan - 29.9, 5.7, 7.1, 47% fg feb - 27.2, 4.6, 5.3, 44% fg mar - 24.2, 5, 7.4, 38% fg apr - 26.1, 6.6, 6.9, 44% fg but the thing about 06-07 is look at his fg% up and down like crazy
Tracy as a rocket has been a very ntoriously slow starter . i think you're spot on that he's Fitness or lack of it has been a well documented factor into he's very slow starts. i also think having a bad back does hinder he's offseason activities. it makes it that much harder for him to do the excersizes that will help him get in shape straight off the bat. you seea alot of players playing lots of Pickup games during the offseason. however tracy has to walk a fine line between balance on what can do and what he cant do during the offseason.it's something we have to learn to live with.
idk, i just really want tmac to win a ring so bad. idk, i just think when he does win one, u just have to put him to another level in terms of greatest players, even if it's just one ring. dude is so good. he'll shut SO MANY haters up. i would want to read fran's blog if we do win a ring.
That just reaffairms my point. in orlando he was never a slow starter . when you look at that chart and compare the stretch where he waswithout yao and was told to go out and be a scorer he's numbers were as good as any month he had in orlando except the Feb and march of the 0-2-03 season. i sill think he is still the scorer he was in orlando. he needs to concentrate just being a flatout scorer again.
Yeah...thats the kinda bs that you really don't want to hear. I know he was overworked....just saying I wouldn't hear Kobe or MJ say some garbage like that. Tired....in round 1??
he really didn't take it easy in orlando. but he just took it to 2-3 more levels from a superstar level. in houston, that's quite different. the first yr was the JVG adjustment. the last 2, it has been the back. hopefully he'll come in healthy this yr and dominate right away. then he'll take it 2-3 more levels as the season progresses.
