After watching the last few games and seeing how we collapse in the end, it's become clear that we absolutely need Chuck Hayes to stop these collapses. Here's why: Teams do this to us by going small. We can NOT guard 2 or 3 quick players on the court at the same time. It's impossible. However, when Hayes was around, we'd punish teams for going small. We'd anihilate them with our rebounding edge, and tough interior D, making it clear that if you're going small and attack the basket, it will not be easy. Now we have Juwan, Padgett and Battier taking that spot. All poor rebounders, none of them quite tough enough, and their offense seem to dwindle when players with quick hands defend them. They also don't get easy scores, except for Battier to some extent. Hayes always gets those token points, those easy and quick 2's that are key to slowing down a rally from the other team. I really don't think this team is lacking anything but a backup PG right now. But we'll get more than we ask for in a couple of weeks when the returns of Bonzi Wells, Bob Sura, Spanoulis, and Chuck Hayes all come at the same time. Sura or Spanoulis will give us toughness in the backcourt, and rest for Alston. Alston is not a 40 minute guy, so reducing his minutes to 30 or so will help his focus, especially on defense. Hayes and/or Wells will give us size and our rebounding edge back. This is how we will punish small teams. I really don't think Detroit would go small if we had a line-up of Yao/Hayes/Battier/Wells/T-Mac on the court. For the things we're going through, we've got a good record right now. Considering the teams we've faced, we have a damn good record right now. I see great things for this team after the All Star break. We're going to make a huge push in the second half. I just hope we can stay in the hunt for the top spots in the West, and make a move for it post All-Star break.
And clearly, we need several good bench players. In last 3 games, basically, we use 6-8 players to play with 10-12 players. I am worrying about that if Jvg use Yao and Tmac as this, they may HURT around the all star. The proper time for Yao and Tmac shoud be 33-35 minutes at this stage. Not 37 minutes.
jvg doesnt get a free pass because hayes is hurt. every team has injuries. even IF hayes was back, jvg will play alston over vspan, and padgett over novak...meaning the rockets may be better with hayes back, but not as good as they could be with a better coach overall. if fans use injuries as a crutch to forgive jvg then you dont understand the new NBA rules. jvg is mssing the entire concept. even after losses he doesnt crasp the concept. he still is stuck in the ninties of "good defense beats good offense" but the new rules allow good offenses to offset any good defense. you could have ben wallace,artest,artest,bruce bowen,rafer alston and still watch teams score layups at will because of no hand checking and the refs. you fans and dawson and jvg dont understand this....gator does though i like his posts. the style to copy is jazz,suns,spurs,mavs of quick offense minded guards(vspan,tmac) and a good shooters (ming,novak,battier) clearly I am heavily against padgett ,alston, howard, snyder
With or without chuck hayes the team will collapse. He played against the bucks and NY right? And what happened. Yeah we won but the team collapsed. And no we didnt win just because chuck was on the floor, we just got lucky in those games. Anyway not hating on chuck, but its a team problem
Chuck makes a HUGE difference for this team. Having him and Battier on the floor with Yao, means that they can cover up for Yao's slow footedness and help stop penetration BEFORE it gets to Yao. Hayes would have been the difference in both the Spurs and the Piston's games....no doubt. But, JVG still needs to give Novak and V-Span a look, especially V-Span. DD
Van Gundy is an idiot. Who the hell is Padgett? That fool sucks...he's always out of breath (out of shape), he gets done up by the sorriest player on the other team (out of shape), and he barely scores (he can't even create his own offense). Aren't those the same reason he's keeping Bonzi out? Last I checked Bonzi would let Padgett sniff his "you know what" from all the times he would blow by him and dunk on his sorry...same thing with VSpan, this guy single handly beat the crap out of the US Basketball - and he's on the bench accumulating all the lost hair from Van Gundy's bald head. Novak got all this playing time in the pre-season and did WAY better than Padgett - so is he not playing him because he's a rookie? WTF? Get over your ego and play players who can actually contribute (like Dikembe would say)... We have players...lots of good players, but Gundy (the Idiot) refuses to play them? Why, because he has personal issues with these players. There is no reason to not play Novak. Padgett is not better than him, and by not playing Novak early you are going to lower his confidence as the season progresses. Same with VSPan...he always sits on the bench watching intently, but he knows in his mind he won't play. God...don't get me started on Bonzi Wells. The Idiot has to realize that Bonzi Wells is never going to get in shape. That's just how he is. By making him run or bicycle in place is only going to make that fool go and get some french fries or Jamaican food later. Bottom line. Van Gundy is an idiot. He sits back and watches the collapses for the past 3/4 games from the sidelines when all of us can see it coming way in advance. Is he blind? No...just stupid, because his counter to the run by the other team is Scott Padgett? And didn't we keep Lucas? Where is he? All these guys have huge potential...but see that is where the problems lies...The Idiot has never been able to utilize potential given to him. He has two of the worlds biggest Super All Stars...2 All Stars in Battier and Bonzi (I'm not just talking All Star game), that is 4 people that should be on the court...so what's the bottom line: Van Gundy is an idiot.
Agreed... Especially if Head is messing up in a game anyway, why not change the pace a bit with Spanoulis-- and send Luther a message that he doesn't get entitlement minutes, either, if he plays crappy. But step 1 is to get Chuck back...
Heck of a first post lol. Better than mine Padgett didnt free stroke it like Novak in the preseason but he was very solid shooting the ball and in some of those other areas like hustling, being in the right position, etc, all the traits a Van Gundy type coach loves. He rightfully earned his spot onto the team but I'd agree, it doesnt mean he should get all his plus Novak's potential minutes. Bonzi along with being out of shape had/has a lingering groin problem and possibly another minor hurt. From how its coming from Van Gundy its kind of a get-in-shape/ongoing rehab back to full health type thing. I think its both something thats been made too big a deal of and something of concern, if that makes sense If Bonzi didnt have the excused absense already it wouldn't be as huge a deal. Cuz he did, it fuels speculation for this current stuff. Van Gundy, yeah pretty soon he's gonna have to try something else if this late game collapsing keeps up, for sure.
It's funny how people go on and on (correctly) about how we need Chuck Hayes back, and then in the same sentence call JVG an idiot for playing Padgett ahead of Novak. Why is Hayes a good player for us? Rebounding, team defense, movement without the ball on offense, good basketball IQ. Padgett is stronger than Novak in all of those areas. How about some consistency?
To be fair, I would rather have Novak playing than Padgett. But Hayes starts and gets the most minutes, followed by Battier. I DON'T think 7-10 minutes of Novak is the difference-maker on this team. I DON'T think 5 minutes of V-Span is all the difference in the team. I do think that Hayes, Wells and one of the PG's (Billy or Bobby) should all get at least 20 minutes, and that is the difference in our team. As good as we can be? That's YOUR personal opinion (whoever said it). 6-3 with a brand new team, some missing pieces, and T-Mac ailing? How good do you think we are? You expect to go 72-10? Get real. 6-3 is good for around 55 wins when stretched out over 82 games. That's what we were complaining about. A record that gets you 55 wins. So anything better than that is good for 60 games. Besides, T-Mac wasn't too happy with Novak. He got in his way a few times, and got outmuscled some. Padgett is rebounding well right now. I'm not sure Novak can do that. But I am sure that Padgett will be a decent rebounder, know the plays, and make some 3's. Novak is an unknown and I don't think we're desperate enough to throw him in there yet. Same goes for Billy.
i tihnk it's pretty obvious to everyone here that we need chuck back. we also need bonzi to get himself in the rotation. i would put money on it, that with chuck and bonzi we would'nt have given up those leads on the spurs or pistons.
Ever since Chuck was out, Yao didn't have any good game so far. It is so obvious Chuck is the perfect side-kick for Yao and we need him!
We need Chuck back to be at our best, but I'm sorry, there is no excuse for the complete choke jobs we've had for 3 games in a row. We built the leads without him (including the Miami game), so clearly we can play well when Chuck isn't in the lineup. We are missing some combination of late game toughness & coaching creativity.
Chuck Hayes' main contributions to the Rockets are rebounds, garbage points around the basket, and 6 fouls. When Hayes on the floor, he saves Yao some energy on rebounding and Yao can concentrate to box out and do his other things. But is Chuck such a difficult role player to find? We have one in Bonzi Wells who CAN DO EVEN A BETTER JOB. It also shows how important it is to find a good rebounder to play along with Yao. The Rockets needs good rebounder.
