Rockets make Hawks look superior Loss to NBA's bottom feeder extends skid to 6 By JONATHAN FEIGEN Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle ATLANTA - Juwan Howard went up for a short jumper that Josh Smith smacked as if swatting a fly. David Wesley pulled up with the rebound, but couldn't get it over Josh Childress, who then flew by the Rockets for an alley-oop that he spiked home with a one-handed catch and slam. By then, it seemed that being taller, faster and wildly more athletic would prove helpful even to the Hawks. It doesn't always work that way for Atlanta — the team with the worst record in the NBA. But when the Rockets dragged themselves into town with the worst record in the Western Conference and their who's who list of injured players, never had the Hawks seemed more loaded. The Rockets were not just whipped by the Hawks 94-83 on Monday for their sixth consecutive defeat, they were outmanned by the team at the bottom of the NBA. "There's a lot of frustration," Wesley said. "Every night, every game, we're there to a certain point. Is there a level we're not reaching? Is there another level of concentration we're not reaching? We're not getting it done when it counts. I don't get it. "The frustration keeps building with every game we lose. We feel like, 'This is our game, this is our game, this is our game.' Then we come in here (to the locker room) and talk about the same stuff. It's real frustrating." The Rockets talk about those things because it is certainly preferable and infinitely more useful than conceding how short-handed they are without Tracy McGrady, Yao Ming, Derek Anderson, Bob Sura, Stromile Swift and Jon Barry. "We're not short-handed," Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy corrected. "We have plenty. We're not winning." Misfiring at the line The Rockets had plenty they could have done better. Turning the ball over 20 times and missing 10 free throws probably cannot be blamed on being short-handed. "We left a lot of points on the board with missed free throws and turnovers," Van Gundy said. "That was problem No. 1. Problem No. 2 was our inability to defensive rebound. And then (Al) Harrington had a good night." Not-so-high praise Atlanta is "one of the better teams we've played lately," Van Gundy said. "I've watched them. Even in their losses to Washington and New York, I think they're a good, solid team. They're just going through the growing pains of being one of the youngest teams in the league." The Hornets, Kings and Bobcats might be offended at the Hawks being considered "one of the better teams" to beat the Rockets in the losing streak, but the Hawks did look the part. Atlanta hit the Rockets with the athletes they have collected in their annual visits to the top of the NBA draft. By the fourth quarter, the Hawks were scoring with ease, almost entirely by getting in the lane and shooting over the Rockets. For eight minutes of the fourth quarter, the Hawks went with a lineup with no player smaller than 6-7 Joe Johnson. Meanwhile, the Rockets, desperate for scoring, used three of their four mini-guards — 5-11 John Lucas, 6-1 Wesley, 6-2 Rafer Alston and 6-3 Luther Head — at a time. The Rockets were within five at 2 1/2 minutes into the fourth quarter when Johnson hit a 3-pointer to begin a run of eight consecutive trips down the floor in which the Hawks scored. Atlanta outscored the Rockets 18-7 in that stretch, building its lead to 16. By then, they had made nine of 10 fourth-quarter shots. Hawks shoot 50.6 percent With Harrington making 12 of 16 shots for 28 points and Johnson making nine of 17 for 22, to go along with 10 assists, the Hawks made 50.6 percent of their shots. It was the best shooting performance against the Rockets this season. "They have a young, athletic team," said Howard, who had 20 points to lead the Rockets in scoring for a fourth-consecutive game. "They used that to their advantage. There were times they outworked us on the glass. There were times they were able to shoot over us. It was just a ton of things tonight. "We are a competitive group of players in this locker room, that has pride, that cares. When we lose a game, it hurts. It hurts deep down inside." jonathan.feigen@chron.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ROCKETS SUMMARY No change on McGrady Rockets forward Tracy McGrady warmed up before Monday's game, but there was no change in his status. McGrady said Saturday he would be out for Monday's and Wednesday's games before he is re-examined on Thursday. He practiced with the Rockets last week in the hope he could come back on Saturday, but his back tightened during the shootaround that morning, leading to the decision to miss two more games. The Rockets are 0-12 in games without McGrady with three more losses in games he was unable to finish. Rockets guard Derek Anderson also worked out before Monday's game. Trainer Keith Jones said Anderson would need several more weeks to strengthen the area around his strained right calf. Dealing with adversity Rockets players say they have become too accustomed to playing without key teammates to lament their misfortune. "We've been short-handed all year," said point guard Rafer Alston, who has played just one game with both Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady. "We've got to learn to play together with what we have here. We don't know when we'll have our full team back. It's not guaranteed. "We just have to learn to play harder without making mental mistakes. We have to cut down on mistakes, because each possession is important." Going strong Center Dikembe Mutombo had 10 rebounds in his 33 minutes on Monday, and has averaged 9.1 per game in his 12 games since Yao Ming was sidelined. Since getting just two rebounds while playing just 10 minutes against Golden State, he has averaged 11.1 rebounds. "It's amazing to see Mutombo still out there running around like that," Hawks coach Mike Woodson said. "He played 32 minutes. He played great minutes for their ballclub. I thought eventually we would wear him down and make them play small ball and match us, which they did. That was kind of to our advantage." Last word "In the second half, for whatever reason, it seems like we just could not make a shot and we kept turning the ball over. I don't care who we've lost to, this was just tough." — Dikembe Mutombo Inside the numbers • 2 — Losses in nine games this season for the Rockets when shooting above 45 percent. • 38 — Hawks points in the paint, the most against the Rockets in 11 games. • 20 — Rockets turnovers, two shy of their most this season. • 20 — Juwan Howa rd's points, giving him at least 20 in four consecutive games. JONATHAN FEIGEN http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/bk/bkn/3591595.html
It wasn't just frustrating to lose. The Hawks looked like friggin' Michael Jordan out there. powerful tomahawk dunks, dazzling alley-oops, cold-hearted three pointers.... we made them look fantastic. That's what's most frustrating to me.
LOL, JVG is officially out of his mind. I think he is the one who begins to be very comfortable with losing because he think Hawks is "one of the better team". OMG
And don't give me all the crap about injuries, etc. Even with this group of people, they should have won at least one or two games against Hawks, Hornets, Kings, Bobcats and Raptors, all of them are at the bottom of the league. Talking about excuses, Indiana Pacers lost Jermaine O'Neal, Ron Artest, Stephen Jackson, Jamaal Tinsley for a long period of time last season, that was almost their entire starting lineup. Sure they struggled, but I didn't see Rick Carlisle losing every game and having a crapy record like JVG does. In fact, he held up pretty well and eventually made the playoff. In that case, I will say Carlisle is a much better coach than JVG is.
CD better make big changes in the roster this off-season otherwise the Hawks, Knicks, Chicago and Toronto are going to eat our lunch in the future. We have been exposed as a team too dependent on two players with a roster of players too old and slow. I just hope T-Mac has 5 more years left in him because I think thats how long its going to take CD to put enough pieces in place to compete for the NBA finals.
Even with a completely healthy roster the rockets still need some athletes. Thats why the Josh Howards of the NBA kill them. Thats why the Hawks looked so dominant out there.
Well, even on paper the current healthy Rockets team is crap, to put it bluntly. The relative talent and athleticism on all those other teams you mentioned is much higher. For the sake of comparison, if you took our mid-90's Rockets teams (great effort, intensity, and chemistry) and hit them with a comparable slew of injuries, I think the results would be largely the same. Say you were continuously trotting out the following lineup: Kenny Smith (Rafer Alston) Mario Elie (David Wesley) Pete Chilcutt (Ryan Bowen) Otis Thorpe (Juwan Howard) Charles Jones (Dikembe Mutombo) Bench: Chucky Brown (Lonny Baxter) Scott Brooks (Moochie Norris) Matt Bullard(Luther Head) Chris Jent (John Lucas III) The problem is this team, like Rockets teams of the past, is built to put experienced complementary players around our big 2. The difference between our team and the others you mentioned is that those other teams all have a number of talented, young, athletic players that just haven't learned how to win yet. Jeff Van Gundy is understandably trying to motivate this team to try their best, but the fact is this team does NOT have enough to win on most nights. (PS - please forgive the small amount of license I took mixing and matching the 94 and 95 teams to create the above fantasy roster...I was trying to find the correct doppleganger for each player on our current roster )
well this is the problem when u just depend on ur top 2 players. u put crap surrounding them and they get injured and we are the worst team in the nba. THE WORST. all i want to see is them winning 1 stinkin game without tmac and yao. and they got to play raptors, kings, hawks hornets.
So what would be you "soultion" to not relying on our top 2 players? I don't think the guys we have out there are crap, they are role players, reason they are role players is because they can not carry teams on thier own.
Indiana this season: All 4 played(Jackson/O'Neal/Artest/Tinsley) win 9/lose 3 No Tinsley only: win 1/ lose 3 No Artest only: win 3/ lose 4 No Tinsley & Artest : win 5/ lose 4 No Tinsley & Artest & O'Neal: win 2/ lose 2 Their best player O'Neal only missed 4 games. TMac missed 12 whole games and 2 half quarters.
I understand the sentiments Jeff, but that statement is getting rather old. At least Jeff got one of those right..... about the winning.
Like I said before. Take the Spurs, subtract Tim Duncan, Manu Ginobili, Robert Horry, Bruce Bowen, Michael Finley and Nazr Mohammed. Leave Tony Parker, Nick Van Exel, Nesterovic and a bunch of scrubs in there. You think that team could compete in this NBA? This injury-crippled rockets team would easily beat that team any day of the week. But no use being objective now, is there? Just rag on the team and how bad our role players are. Easy to kick them while they're down.
Why does everyone want to see the Rockets win? This season's pretty much over folks. We need to lose as many games a spossible and rest Mcgrady as much as possible and come back strong next year.
we won games without dream. in fact, when dream was taken out for along period of time by bill cartright, larry smith stepped in and the rockets won something like 7 in a row without dream. those rudy T role players played well with each other and had heart. you can't even compare any of these dudes to OT or Mario. come on dude.
