Right now...any coach with an ounce of credibilty can formulate a defense to stop the Rox predictable offense. Basically do not guard Cato and use that man to stop SF from driving and harrass Yao in the post. It would force JJ and Cat to hit shots and if/when they don't, the Rox are in BIG TROUBLE.
the article was so on point.....i feel like those nba players on those esp(n) commercials. how did he read my mind?!?
JVG doesn't agree with Clutchfan.net He is not blaming ANY ONE OR TWO PLAYERS He blaming the whole team that is something that just does not happen here. .. . . . Rocket River
Clearly there are a number of problems with the team but the lack of offensive production from our starting Forwards is staggering. While I like JJ he is more of a role player off the bench than a starter. He is really a starter by default here. And Cato while at times he has looked good I think teams are figuring out how to beat the Rockets with him in the lineup. It just does not look like it will work "long term" with Cato at the starting PF spot. This team desperately needs scoring and a fair amount of the scoring we are missing is from the forward positions. If we could upgrade either the SF or PF position to get us someone that can score 15+ppg and also add a SG that was more of a passer (to compliment Francis) then I think this team would do a lot better.
Anyone including JVG, was just fooling themselves if they though Cato was a permanent fix at the PF spot. He can hold his own against the less athletic 4's, but he will get exposed more often than not in this league. I really liked this quote: "Those things we have to be better at. We have to become a little less hesitant, more confident and more efficient. Our turnovers are so high that you go on the road in Portland and hold a team to 34-percent shooting and lose. It shows you're putting too much pressure on your defense because you turn it over, give up second shots and foul recklessly." He is dead on here. Less hesitant. More confident. More efficient. I would also like to add "play to your strengths". It needs to be a motto that the team should fully understand before they even set foot on the court. If they every player can truly believe in those 3 things, I have no doubt we will be a playoff team this season.
even though we hate eddie, you gotta admit we need him. Atleas he can consistantly give us 10+ pts, and atleast he can gaurd a shooting power forward...
Agreed. Cato is ok against the "banger PFs" but more and more we are seeing more "athletic" PFs like the Nowitzkis of the world, AK 47, Radmonovic, and to a lesser extent Cliff Robinson in Golden State etc. Guys that are not the traditional bangers really give Cato problems. These are the types of players in which it would be REAL nice to have Eddie Griffin guard against. Sure Griffin doesnt have the bulk to bang with the big boys but he does have quickness and long arms to defend against the athletic swing PFs that are in the league these days.
These two quotes summarizes our season so far. The Rockets played like crap on this road trip, they know this, but that doesn't mean we need to rip them apart. It's still very, very early in the season, we've seen what the Rockets are capable of doing, things will get back to where we started.
True we have seen what they are capable of doing, primarily against inferior(Eastern Conference) competition. Of our 9 wins, 5 of them are against the East while 5 of our 6 losses are against Western Conference teams. We will not be battling the East for a playoff spot. I understand it is early in the season and there is alot of basketball to play still, but we have been hearing the same excuse from the same people every year. There is too much talent on this team for there to be so much trouble scoring and simply playing as a team. It's time for results, not excuses. disclaimer: yes, I know Jim Jackson hasn't played with us in the past. the point is we've heard this song before.
yes, yes, yes... blah blah blah.... "We need to play smarter".... "It's not just one item causing it".... "we're learning about ourselves"...."we need Yao to be more aggressive"...."we need to pass the ball more".... "we need to make our open jumpers" We've heard these things from JVG before. Those are our problems. When do we get to start seeing solutions? Yes, it's early in the season, but time is flying by. Don't look now, but we're almost 20% through with the season (19.2%, actually). It's time to start picking things up. And remember: if you wanna get in the playoffs, you gotta win early. Also, we should be getting our crap together BEFORE the season starts and BEFORE we play the games, not DURING the games. If we haven't , that's a failure on JVG's part. Don't get me wrong, I'm very happy we have JVG, but I'm ready for Jeff to stop talking about it, and ready to start seeing some improvement. Pointing out our problems doesn't make a great team. A great team is made by overcoming those problems. -- droxford
This may sound crazy, but I would really like to see Francis playing around the basket instead of dribbling around the three-pt. line trying to make plays. He has such great timing on rebounds, he is quicker than most small forwards, and he is a deadly shooter within ten feet. That position on the floor would play to his strengths. I am not suggesting that he play forward, but that he give up playmaking which is does poorly and "lurk" around the basket as a guard and second small forward. Could Pike be the playmaker? What do you think?
One definite mistake or falsehood in his observations. The Guards are not forced to get rebounds. They have waited for rebounds to pad their stats for FIVE years, it also enables them to be in a position to dribble the ball all the way down the court, which is what they are realy good at doing.Did he realy look at last years Tapes?
Pike can't dribble. Jackson would be the best option as a point forward. He'd be serviceable. There's no reason why Mo can't average 15 if they gave him the touches. It's not Rick Adelman, it's Pete Carril...from Princeton So we either need a 15 point scorer or (and) a playmaking SG? Is that after we get rid of Cuttino, our 15 point scorer? A playmaking SG? What's that? Steve Francis. There aren't many pure PG's anymore. Sit Cat on the bench and he'll get pissed. Trade him and you'll get a worse player. If Cat didn't get pissed, and we got a PG like Eric Snow who is a solid role player we'd be better off. Getting another 15 point scorer is not going to happen unless we lose one of our scorers such as Cat right now. So be content barely making it into the playoffs until JVG finally realizes to run the offense through Yao in the high post. This will be a huge blow to Francis' ego since he wants to feel in control of the team with the ball in his hand.
Secoind mistake Cato has been effective on most defenciver assignments. Cato is a POOR defender out on the Court against any decent Power Forward.He belongs under the basket backing up Yao Ming.
why not let cat play point for the second team? he did it effectively his rookie year, and he's the same type of player as SF.
I am not kidding. But why not let YAO brings the ball up and run the offense?? He can be our point center. First of all, the opposing center will rarely press him full court or guard yao effectively on the perimeter. If the defense trap him, yao is a good passer and he is so tall, he should be able to easily pass out of trap with some practices. It will take the ball away from "fancy" stevie and "shooting" mobley. and yao listens to the coach. Yao can play high post while taylor plays low. we can still post up yao once he brings the ball up, he can't be any slower than guys like mooch or steve brings the ball up.. so it won't cut time on running the offense. and steve and cat can use their althe...cism to run the fastbreak.. without worry about dribblign the ball. comment..? suggestion?
Maybe we can compensate by not posting him up as much.. and pass him the ball early and repeatedly when he does post up.. so he doesn't waste much energy fighting for posting down low and rarely touch the ball.
The only way I make that move is if we position Moochie in the low block for some post ups. You have to believe that Yao would be able to make a nice entry pass to Moochie in the low block for post ups. Seems like a winner to me!
