Its not just those two. Non of the 3 fit together and i'm not jumping to conclusions here. Last year, Yao (playing through an unknown injury) played just as good WITHOUT Mcgrady. Then, when Yao went down, Mcgrady played just as good WITHOUT Yao. The truth is that Yao Ming is dominant if he gets the ball in a specific area but almost useless if he gets it a little further out or under pressure. Mcgrady is only useful when he's hot and Artest has to jack 3's to keep from getting in the way of the other 2. They won't ever fit. We should trade one of them but only one guy has any trade value.
This team right now simply lacks glue. We have three major pieces to the puzzle, but they need to be glued together. With Alston and Battier out for this game, and with Hayes not even getting 10 minutes today, there was no glue today. DaDakota, are you allergic to putting two sentences together without double spacing?
I am no fan of Tmac as a leader, I was hoping that Artest or Yao would take over and Tmac would take a back seat. I love his abilty but hate his work ethic, he is just a lazy player. The game has come easy to him all his life, and now that he is struggling it is showing just how little he tries for most of the game. He can elevate and shoot that jumper any time he wants, and he uses that as a crutch. I am no fan of JVG, but I do concede that JVG had him playing harder, for the most part, but Tmac is fools gold, he is just never going to be able to get it done, the team needs someone else to step up, personally I hope it is Yao. Aaron Brooks did exactly what he was asked to do last night, and while he gave up a few drives to Hill, he had no time to rest in the 2nd half at all, and was exhausted at the end of the game. Still with 4+ minutes to go Tmac comes back and takes the ball away, and the team did not score one more point the rest of the way, not one single point. Tmac was the problem, and his after game comments where he whined about defense....Hey Tracy, your team gave up 77 points....perhaps if you could lead the team to score oh, say 78 points, you would have won the game. It was frustrating to attend, I sat center court surrounded by Spurs fans....and was enjoying the entire game, we were in control...Brooks was doing a fine job....and then to watch Tmac come in and crap all over the game......I was just sitting there with my wife, and we were dumbstruck. The play at the end of the first half where Tmac let the ball go towards the sideline and failed to reach down to pick it up and the Spurs tipped it and got the ball was a microcosim on his career....all he has to do is reach down and pick it up, but his highness could not be bothered. My wife kept saying...why is Tmac not playing hard.....and I was like..."Exactly"..... He needs to get with the program, or Adelman needs to sit him for a while, because an unmotivated Tmac is a team killer. DD
Funny how adding a 3pt shooter to our lineup as a catch and shoot guy makes so much difference. Von Wafer made a massive difference. Ron Artest and Tmac still do not fit together well, but at least Rick got some jump shooting talent in there to clear some room for Yao to operate. DD
well now.. he certaintly helped.. but i wouldn't same he was what made the difference.. other things that contributed: less Tracy iso's, more ball movement, off the ball motion, all and all more dedication to the offense by the team overall.. those nasty lulls in the late quarters however.. where they start to habitually move away from what started them off with such success.. still need to cease..
The only good that comes out of a T-Mac iso is if he drives it in. If he doesn't, he probably doesn't make the shot because for whatever reason (injury/age) he can't elevate over the guy to shoot anymore. The offense looked better tonight, and a little more of what the team should strive for. "Motion" is too strong a word for this offense, but ball movement should be key. And DaDa, hasn't T-Mac always looked like a lazy player? Even if you watch clips from Orlando it looks like he's not trying. It always has looked like the game comes so easy to him and that he doesn't put in any effort. I am by no means saying that T-Mac couldn't afford to put in a little more effort right now (especially on the defensive end), but I think he's the easiest target since it doesn't look like he's trying, ever, and that pisses a lot of people off to no end...
Wow. This is the most constructive thread I have seen on this board for a long time. 5 stars to everyone! I think a lot of points you guys have touched: Yao needs to post up to be effective. T-Mac can't be that lazy to win a champ. Artest is rough and needs ball to be effective. 3 of them don't fit each other quite well, esp. T-Mac and artest. But we don't need three of them on the court at the same time to win ball games. With Artest working with our 2nd unit, we can beat every reserve team in this league. When 3 of them has an off night, take hime out and we still have a competitive group on the court. That's our advantage we should explore. Yao's high-post move is not effective until he can take down the face-up jumpers. Unfortunately he has lost his touch through his bang-bangs after these years. But with his sound fundementals, Yao could and should regain that skill if we want to be successful with RA's motion offense. This team needs a leader on the court. Due to the work ethics, Yao, batteir and artest may fill that role. Yao needs more determination than frustration on his face. Right now some times he just can't make up his mind on how to deal with the ball.
We have always struggled to get Yao AND Mcgrady going. Now, we seem to be doing a better job, much better job. What we need now is to get Artest going as well. If we can, we can win it all. However, when I mean get it going, I mean our big 3 does something so they still remain a superstar on court. Like today's game, both Yao and McGrady played relatively well, Artest didn't shoot well, but had 7 assists. We need these plan B in our big 3. McGrady is known to either score a lot, or pick up a close double double through rebounds and assists. We know McGrady can do that, but now we need Yao and Artest to do that. We need Yao to grab rebounds when he is off. We need Artest to pass when he is off. Today's game against the Hornets is just a start for us, and something we need to continue to improve on and get used to. We all know that it is hard to get Yao and McGrady both on fire (but like I said, we seem to be improving on that), but we still have a damn good record when they both played together (I forgot the record). This is because one of them does something else to synergize and keep the other supplied and on fire. If our big 3 can have a plan B everytime, we don't need them all to score well to win.
While I think you have a point DD, I'm not entirely sure I agree. Or perhaps I do, but I agree with the more optimistic side of what you're saying. You say that we have redundancy, which is definately true, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Having McGrady and Artest on the opposite wings causes immediate match up problems for the opposing team. They're going to have to put their best defender on one of them and, unless they're crazily lucky enough to have two elite defenders ( ) a weaker defender on the other. The problem lies in the fact that as it stands we haven't put a solid shooter out there to give spacing and mkae the defense honest until tonight with Wafer, although he's not a long term solution. I think this all comes together with Battier. The defense has to respect his shot so that opens up room and makes double teams suicide. One of them will inevitably get the better matchup and can exploit it. When you throw in the fact that TMac is an excellent passer it only furthers the possibilities of what those matchup problems can cause. There is no denying that RIGHT NOW there is a problem getting these pieces to gel, but I'm inclined to give them more than a few games to figure it out. I think Battier's return will have an incredible impact. I for one like the possiblities of our 4 quater unit. Having two incredible defenders on the floor and 3 guys who demand double teams whenever they touch the ball. Basically, yes, there are issues now. But just because they're having problems now is no reason to believe it is an unsolvable issue. Give them time, we have something special here.
Good stuff DD. It's very clear now that Ron will probably come off the bench once Battier comes back. It's true that Artest and McGrady just don't fit because they both just stand around waiting for a one on one. That's just their game and I' am not sure if it's going to change. I' am really interested to see what our rotation will be like once Battier comes back.
