Well, that explains why Head and Novak didnt get in the game. I figured it was something. It was good to see the other guys play.
Seriously the euroleague is a freaking joke. We manhandled their championship team with no set plays and a bunch of guys that have hardly played against each other.
We played different guys & they got to see how the new system is supposed to work against live competition. The more times they see it work against live competition, the more light bulbs turn on and players say "now I get it". Yes by NBA standards the competition sucked, but it was a very usefull scrimage.
I wonder how the rockets would have done had we played their rules instead. Obviously the nba defensive rule that only allows you to play a semi zone because you have to be within an arms distance of a defender messed them up a little and they couldn't play a true zone like they are used to. They were still missing some players right? Even still we were missing one of our biggest players as well. It was physical but I don't think it was anywhere near as competitive as it could have been but that might have been because the game was out of reach because of the butt whupping we put on them =)
No doubt.....trapezoid lane, no defensive 3 seconds, zones allowed.... can take the ball off the rim....big difference. DD
NBA rules doesn't = EruoLeague Rules... Look at Team USA why the hell didn't they place? or just get Bronze that time. Obviously we own them with NBA rules. Actually it sorta reminds me of the earlier NBA rules.. Hand checking was ok, low block defense like in the 80's and earlier 90's was fierce..( Think about the bad boys of detroit ) .. The NBA rules of today are for more baskets and more points because they equal more excitement..Which intern equals more people in the stand == $$$$$
So I wonder why we had a scrimmage with those guys when they enforced the NBA rules not the international rules. That's a big handicap. I'm thinking maybe that was the Rocket's way to rebuild the bridge with the Greeks that Jeff broke.
The used NBA rules because they used NBA refs on an NBA court. Even in the Europe Live games in London Rome Turkey etc used the NBA rules.
This game was very significant to the Greek team, either. They flew across the planet to be here. We're playing at home. ... we should respect all of our opponents. ... (well.. except Lakers and Jazz)
I'm sure the score would've been a lot closer if we had played on their turf, by their rules. If you watched the game last night, it was evident the Greek players and coaches were having a hell of a time figuring out what's going on with the rules. They were getting called fouls in every other possession and sometimes even consecutive possessions. It was obviously frustrating for them to get any rhythm or chemistry going under the circumstances.
NBA rules were made in order to have better games offensively..This is why NBA game is loved by everyone, because of attractiveness and speed. This also why Europeans struggle at their first year at NBA. Take Diamantidhs for example. He is considered to be at top 3 guards in Europe overall and probably the best defensively. He is 27 years old. If i'm not mistaken he is currently playing at a very high lvl for 5 years and over 15 years with a standard FIBA rule basis. Yesterday he looked lost in there. You can't just expect from a basketball player to change his way of playing in just a matter of days. I'm not saying that they should play with international rules. But refs could be a lot more lenient with Panathinaikos. I live in Greece and watched the game last night(by the way the game here started at 3:30 AM!!).Sometimes they were hearing the whistle and didn't know what happened. I caught Tsartsaris at a replay saying to Batiste "What did i do? Please tell me...." Houston shoot 20 free throws and Panathinaikos just 2 Oh, by the way, Euroleague players are not scrubs just because they can't adjust to NBA rules in a heartbeat
Re: the rules In the nba europe live tour that takes place overseas as we speak, they use a hybrid set of rules which seems more fair to both sides: http://217.13.116.51/noticia.jsp?temporada=E05&jornada=33&id=229 In the US like we watched yesterday they play by nba rules because Euro teams are guests to the nba pre-season schedule.
