ClutchCity.net Game Thread: Grizzlies @ Rockets 2/22/2003

Rudy says it's "human nature." True. But, it's his job to remind his team to NOT LET UP! If he forgets, in his goofy way, then the players will just come out lazy.

It's so easy to fall into that trap. I mean, think about it. Let say that it's the mid 3rd, you're up by 20. And then you hit a three pointer to end the quarter. Now, a logical man would say they game is over. But a reasonable man would never take chances. What do you is this...

The start of the 4th, you come out with the mind set to BURY THEM!!! Now you might ask, "Why would you try to "bury" a team that is down by 23?"

Well, because if you come out lazy, before you know it it's a 12 point game with 7 minutes to go, you can't hit any of your shots and the momentum as swung.

Why put yourself in that position when you could have buried them by 28? Not win by 9.

So, either "bury" them when they are already down by 23, or get ready to do some work later in the 4th. Either way, you still have work to do. It's just that one is a nail-biter, and the other is a blowout.

But don't mess with "nail biters" because some of those games become loses (unbelievable comebacks). And we don't want those.

 

because how else can EG develop his offensive game without taking any shots?

 

CUT TINO

 

MAD DUX...CUT DUX..TITO TINO...CUT CAT...ah, no more play on words...

 

Unfortunately 1 game against a substandard team means nothing, especially since it doesn't put us back in the playoffs. I'll get more excited if we get a win streak going or halt our losing streak. At this point I'll take either.

 

Why are so many people like MFW so negative on a win??? A W is a W regardless of whoever we play, and right now, what we sorely need more of is Ws.

Let's also not forget that the Grizz beat us on one occasion AND we have a tendency to lose to these upstart, "nothing to lose" teams. No reason to take losses against sub-500 teams for granted and, vice versa, there is no reason to take wins against these teams for granted either.

Every W counts.

JMHO



theSAGE

 

No comments on YAO?

 

It's always hard to play without Francis but the guys did a pretty good job,the passing was nice to watch.Moochie played well but we need Francis back really quickly because without him our scoring suffers.

 

How many game we play without Francis this season?
Let us do some experiments on Rox, I bet Francis-less rockets will be much better.:

 

I hope Posey will recover from his sprained knee we need his defense and energy. I think T-Mo might get more minutes in the next game.

 

I loved watching Tito push push push the ball (but, hey -- did he take shooting lessons from EG???).

Mooch looked like a real player tonite.

Cat was sleek and smooth.

Yao, as often, was beat up upon -- and keeps coming right back!

How bad is JPo's knee? SF's back? Ouch. And ouch.

 

"I just wanted to come in and make plays,'' Norris said. "I'm not going to shoot the ball and try to score 20-plus points like Steve. I'm more of a playmaker. I think I did my job tonight. I did my job, we got the win and the coaches were happy.''

I guess that means that Francis is NOT a play-maker. Maybe we should move Francis to the 2, so he can "score 20-plus points."

Francis will be reevaluated on Monday prior to a game at Boston but Grizzlies forward Lorenzen Wright thought the Rockets might have even been better off with Francis nursing his injuries.

``They play better when he's not out there,'' Wright said. ``That lets the other guys show what they can do. The other guys pick up their game. He carries so much of the scoring, when he's not out there, everybody else can play and divide it evenly.''

 

Wasn't even close man. Rice is becoming clutch off the bench.

What happen to Miller and Gasol? It's not good when Lorenzen Wright is your leading scorer.

Good game to watch, I had great seats.

Yao is getting NO respect from the refs, blown calls everywhere...

 

Ohh, I forgot.

BIG Props to Cat!

I told my wife before the game started, Cat has to have a big game for us to win. Boom he exploded in the first quarter, had at least 11.

Offense stalled in the 4th, Rudy brought Yao back in and finished it off. This was one of the first times this season that the Rockets actually BEAT a team that they should have beat. They didn't scrape by, they went up by 25 and coasted. Nice Win.

 

Pretty decent game by the Rockets tonight even though it was against the Grizzles. They really needed this win to not only maintain atop the playoff race, but to improve their mental state of mind against sub-.500 teams and the lottery teams. The teams performance shows me that even if Moochie just dribbles most of the time, if he can just give out a modest amount of assists along with the occasional 10 points, that'll do wonders for our team. Yao Ming had a good game tonight with 18 points and 7 boards unlike last night. Mobley was the main man tonight with 29 points.

I hope this trend continues into the east coast swing. I think Rudy should be telling these guys that don't worry about the losses in the past to the "basement" teams at this point since they're still pretty much in the playoff race. I also think he should be telling them that outside of Dallas, to not lose a season series. That's still a possibility against all the other teams in the league as well as less ISO-plays and more movement without the ball. They did that with Dallas in the first half, but just fell apart in the second.

 

Maddox+Moochie: 12 assists, 0 turnovers

Sweet.

 

Nice game. It's the first time this season we put away a game in third quarter against a sub 500 team. (We did play some blow away game before against good team like Jazz, Minisota, but we never play as easy as this one against a weak team, which we should do it on 9 out of 10 times.)
See the difference? SF is not playing. He is not playing his one on one game. Cat is ok to play some one on one, because he is the SG, not PG, it is ok for him to take 10-20 shoot, even he had bad shooting night. But he need build up his confidence to shoot all open shoot. What I am saying is, SF not only took the oppotunity of Yao's game, he eventually took away Cat's chance. It's like 2 SG + 1 Center, that is why never play like a good team. The win is because we do have good player and when everyone shooting good. Now with Steve out, we play really like a team, everyone step up play team beasketball. Even when Yao was struggling in first half, we still build up 10 point lead, when he play better, we got 24 point lead in third. Look the scores of other good team, that is pretty much what they did. I hope we can continue play like this.
Go Rox!

 

man i'm glad that guy steve isn't holding us back anymore. playing such a dominant D like memphis that never guarded the middle it was amazing we were able to score for 3 quarters. start moochie!!!!

 

Is Griffin shooting three part of the game plan?? Personally, I would like to see him just stop doing that, even though I know he does make the shot sometimes. Imagine if he no longer takes 3, then he will has to pass the ball back to yao to re-post or just swings it to other perimeter people... or he may crash the board more to get his points.