I see your point. Come to my house, and you will see nothing but Olajuwon posters, and Rockets Championship posters. Remember when we had The Save our Rockets drive? Well My brother and I were about one of twenty people that showed up the night Jeff called us out. Think I'm Lying about the turnout, ask Jeff. Anyway, I did my part, and was there the next day to vote for the Referendum. Back then there were not that many people that were bigger Rockets Fan than me. As a cadet at Texas A&M, I wore my rockets colors louder than I wore Maroon. I was no 2-percenter either(Aggies no what I mean). All in all though, you are right. The Rockets of today are not the Rockets I fell in love with as a Kid. I'm not as big a fan as I was before, but I'm still a fan. That's why it hurts so much to see a Knick break up my "Family." That's the main reason why I broke down and rooted against them on Saturday.
You forgot to mention some bad calls at the end of the game. However, the bad calls should not be a factor if we play well and not let the game come down to the refs. If we only playwell all 4 quarters. Last two games are really winnable if we can hit some outside shots especially early in the game, so we don't fall behind and try to come back.
Yeah, it's pathetic. We lost by a combined ten points to two Western Conference playoff bound teams without our leading scorer, assist man, and 2nd leading rebounder. TMac scored 23% of our points in the first 5 games, and had 31% of our assists. That's a pretty good chunk of offense.
So, should we start the "Fire JVG and hire Phil Jackson" thread? Seriously, if Rox misses playoff this season, I know it is still early but nobody could guarantee anything, JVG could be fired and guess what happened last time Phil Jackson had the chance to coach two young super stars? He took the job.
If JVG doesn't make the playoffs this year, Les is going to make a call to Phil Jackson. If Phil accepts, JVG is going to get canned. JVG get his old Knicks job back with the way Lenny Wilken is going.
I'd rather have Rudy back.... Its funny that we are seeing the "sky is falling" syndrom so much inhere lately, especially since we lost our main guy for the two games against good WC teams that would have been easily winnable if the guys on the court woudl have just hit their shots....notice I said the "guys on the court".....they were in a position to win the games....but the players could nto hit their open shots.....a coach cant make them hit their shots...can he? you can have the best coach in the world....but it aint gonna help if the players dont do what they are supposed to do. Make a Difference... Keep the GARM Civil
Van Grumpy is a micro-managing control freak. I don't think the players are having any fun out there. The Rox do not feel like a fun team to play on. I think someone will soon tell Yao that its okay here in America to bad mouth the coach if you don't like him. If Yao does that he will get millions of more fans and get on ESPN a lot more often. Van Grumpy will then be FIRED right away. No way are the Rox gonna let Van Grumpy jeopardize the development of Yao and T-Mac!!!
I'm not saying losing to the wolves and laker was the end the world, but I can't stand JVG crying about stuff,when it is his job to fix it. I'm tired of him saying it is all about effort and crap like that. It seems like he makes no offensive adjustments whatsoever except moving people in and out of the lineup. If turnovers are our problem, then run some plays that are simpler and more effective. Sloan can get a bunch of scrubs together and they look like studs, JVG can get a bunch of studs together and make them look like scrubs. I'm just tired of his crying. It's time to own up and put an effective offensive scheme together and stop b****ing outloud to the media. If JVG spent half as much time practicing offense as he does on defense, we would have no problems at all.
I hope that never happens. If he has a problem with JVG, keep it in house or go to CD or Les. Fighting with your coach in the media never helps the team.
has anyone heard a rocket player say anything negative about JVG? winning is fun. you win by everyone buying into the system and getting on the same page. if we get healthy and get on a little run, the players will be having tons o' fun ...relax people.
on the same hand before JVG came here, wasn't one of the pluses that his players with the Knicks were fiercely loyal to him?
I dont have any problem with VG preaching hard work and doing things right....any players that have a problem with that, I dont want on my team anyway. His ex-players are fiercly loyal to him cause if they made it thru playing for him...they saw that doing things the way he wants will bring wins. and that is what everyone wants.
The players should follow the organization's lead. Van Gundy has no issues with airing dirty laundry in public, so why shouldn't Yao or T-Mac feel free to tell the media what is on their mind?
It's hard to see the results of adjustments when the guy who's your primary playmaker and scorer is out of the lineup. I'm gonna go ahead and provide you the assist and turnover numbers of our first 7 games. Game : AST/TO Game 1: 8/16 L Game 2: 16/15 L Game 3: 20/19 W Game 4: 23/9 W Game 5: 20/24 W Game 6: 24/14 L Game 7: 21/13 L Do you see a trend there? The mistakes have been significantly cut down. Rebounding is not something that is easily coached on the NBA level. Fact is, TMac is our 2nd leading rebounder, which in some ways is disheartening since he's our SG. We knew going in we'd probably be a below average rebounding team with Mo Taylor at the PF slot, and Yao Ming an inconsistent rebounder. When you lose a guy who not only contributes so much to the offense, but also has the sheer athleticism to get a few more on demand rebounds, it's going to hurt. It took Miami 2 OTs against the Bucks at home without Dwayne Wade. As the coach, Van Gundy saw these as winnable games, which they were- we put ourselves in early holes in both games, and came roaring back, but fell short. He has always been the gloom and doom type- that's the way he is. We're already seeing the improvement in the AST/TO probem- hell, look at the 5 straight 20+ assist games; I would venture to guess that we never had a 20+ AST game streak that long last year. The rebounding primarily depends on Yao- he's really the only one on this team with room for growth in his rebounding prowess. The rest of the team are known quantities- Mo Taylor will never pull down 9 boards a night.
also....another thing that never gets mentioned when talking about rebounding problems is that when you have two teams putting up so many outside shots, you haev lots of loooong rebounds... which, of course puts them out of the range of your big men that are normally in and around the paint. I dont find it surprising that TM gets so many rebounds as a SG...he is normally out where the ball is going. this doesnt excuse our big's problems with fighting for the boards that are intheir area...but it needs to be considered when discussing the rebounding(or lack thereof).
It seems to me that Van Gundy just won't take any excuses for losing. He finds something to criticize and he opens his negative mouth and criticizes what he sees wrong. He seems to try to be somewhat honest about the areas needed for improvement and yes he does come across very critical and negative. I don't personally like this, but I don't know what his relationship is to the players; maybe they respect him and they are motivated, maybe he wears on them. If the players are trying to think too much they may suffer out on the court, the game is so fast you have to have it instinctively; that is the flow of the game and the chemistry. If the players are getting their hearts, minds and concentration on the game and the system, then come playoff time they should be a good team with chemistry and efficiency. I don't know how this is going to go. Last year I thought our team was well prepared for the Lakers, we were the most efficient and mentally tough when the playoffs came. Just some stupid turnovers cost us that series in the final minutes of two games. So if we make the playoffs and we are peaking all will be well. JVG has no personality, just hope the players relate to him and respect him. I hope he has a good relationship with Yao and Tmac. The greatest tragedy for this team would be to lose Yao to another team and find out it was because of JVG. He would need a bodyguard.
Rebounding is never the key quality of a championship team. The Rockets in their championship years were poor rebounding teams. The top rebounding team in the NBA did not make the playoffs in the East. The top shooting percentage team in the NBA did make the playoffs. If the Rockets don't improve on their horrid shooting percentages on folks other than Tmac and Yao, JVG can only be blamed for the lack of pregame preparation or training. I think there is a significant reason why the Mavericks and Kings have some of the best jumpshooters in the league while the Rockets seem to wish for jumpshots to go in even when the shooters is wide ass open. Even Yao's jumper is nowhere to be found. Rockets need to establish a trend of high shooting percentage games. High shooting percentages prevents fastbreaks which in turn prevents easy baskets by opposing teams.
