ClutchCity.net Game Thread: Rockets @ Blazers 11/26/2002

Patterns can be broken. And in this case, it probably should have been. Nothing was working, but at least with Ming they were getting more open shots than any other center Rudy put in. Rudy is not forced to get Cato or Griffin or Mo or ANYBODY a certain number of minutes each game. But he is expected to try to win every game, and putting Ming in for more than 18 minutes would have gone a long way towards reaching that goal. Then there is the fact that Moochie got 30 minutes tonight. I tell you, I was really happy with the way Rudy was running things before the Clippers game...but lately I am scratching my head.

 

I feel the exact same way.

 

My eyes.. hurt so bad.. bleeding. Jeez, can't believe I just watch an entire game of such nasty basketball.. Both teams played b'ugly (butt ugly) ball.

Sad thing is, it's happening around the league.

 

the rockets are playing very ugly basketball as a team. No blame should be attributed to any particular player. But the team needs to shape up and hit their shots. If they keep playing like this, they might just get Lebron James with the #1 pick in the lottery. hmmm...maybe that's what they're thinking. good idea. ^_^

but i think i'm going to stop listening to rockets games from now on, they really suck as a team. by the way, i think its really stupid how people are blaming yao for the loss. yao shot pretty well in 2nd half and in the little time he played, he scored on almost every posession, but he was also fouled pretty hard a lot. he barely played in the first half(2 minutes, 2 points, 0 shot attempts, 2 personal fouls). my biggest surprise though was how he was actually missing free-throws. wonder if he's trying to imitate shaq??? or maybe the rockets brick-itis and overall bad shooting is contagious.

anyway, the rockets awful play seemed to have started when cuttino mobley went down. hope mobley comes back and helps the rockets get out of their losing streak. and i hope yao gets more playing time.

 

man, we have one good quarter and half of motion against Dallas, and cannot replicate it.

Anyone else think they see a motion set setup by the forwards on occassion and not executed. The dribble penetration seemed to be missing on the sets I have in mind.

Nevermind if you don't...and I can't describe it more except that it is not our standard pick-n-roll. Describing sputtering motion offense is about the most impossible thing to do via typing. I wish I could post some tape, to see if anyone agrees that we ran some ugly motion sets.

<b>Who has tape? I could post some game times.</b>

 

Well look like this team is totally out of sync. I don't think the players know their role. They all wanted to start. Players losing confidence as they got bench for making mistake (except for the Mooch). The coach doesn't know which player is best to put on the floor. There are alll kind of combinations with no continuity. Until this team define the role of each player, I think they will be continue to be out of sync. One day you got Eddie the majority of minutes, another day would be Kenny thomas. You play bad in the first quarter, you sit for 2 quarters . How do you expect chemistry to develop with all this chaos. This is the growing pain that we will have to go through. I think the coach should develop a rotation and stick with it to allow the chemistry to develop. He should go ahead and define the role of each player and take control of the team. If any player want to put himself above the team then he should sit until he learn to put the team first. And this goes for everyone including the star players. If any want to play for a contract only, let him go somewhere else and play. I think it is time that Rudy put his foot down and enforce discipline on the team. He might lose some love from the players but if they are mature enough, they should understand why he is doing it. May be with a ltitle more time hopefully Rudy can find his combination and we will see a smoother team.

 

All those weightlifting would sure mess up your touch for a while.

 

I will say this in the BBS repeatedly after a loss:

Change the system. Change the coach.
It's obvious he ain't in control anymore.

 

Have the Rockets hit rock bottom? It couldn't get any worse, could it???

 

None of them have the killer instinct.

That's why you'll see them give up with 30 seconds to go a lot.

 

That's what Mario Elie gave this team during the Championship years. To date, we really haven't found a replacement for that.

 

I think I Yao Ming could be iin at the begining of the 4th, the game result would have been different. I think Ming played pretty well dfensively. The Blazer's shots were altered because of Ming's presence in the middle. As matter of fact, after Ming was in, Blazer stopped scoring, but it was too late. Like Portland's anchor Steve Snap Jones said "Rockets dont understand what they have with Yao Ming, they need to identify themselves."

 

We made our last push right when Ming came in the game. Ming should definately have come in earlier; if he had we could have started our push sooner.

1 good positive I noticed was that Stevie is growing more comfortable on the court with Yao. He's looking AND finding him much more. In the end, how we do as a team depends on Stevie and Yao finding that cohesive on the court bond like Shaq and Kobe.

Also, lol how bout that totally unselfish as well as unnecessary pass from Steve to yao at the end of that fastbreak! Shows me STevie is really trying to get Yao involved.

The thing is... as I look at this team, it seems like they are just... how can i describe it... just itching to bust out on a massive tear. We are seeing more ball movement and better passing, but the team is stilll not comfortable with the new things they are doing. there are miscommunications, there are options that are never taken, avenues to beating the defense that are never used. Why? Simply b/c this is is all new stuff for the team and mistakes will be made. The key is to learn from those mistakes, <b>but you cannot learn from them if you don't make them</b>.

Heypartner's statements are basically a result of this learning process... a "sputtering motion offense" is what we may be employing, but the only way to learn truly great motion is to go through these stretches where the offense sputters.

 

This game was so ugly that I regret about watching it.

This has to be one of the ugliest NBA games that I've ever seen.

Let's get a win tomorrow in Oakland.

 

One more thing, rockets gotta knock down open jummper when Yao Ming pass the ball out of double team on him.

 

Ming was the 2nd best scorer for Rockets, 10 pts, all others are sigle digit, that was ugly,

 

edit.

 

Also, this game shows how much we missed Mobley... havin Moochie in there towards the end taking the 3 was detrimental. Moochie's shot continues to struggle altho I liked his lil floater.

We needed offense desperately, and having somebody that can create or spot up for a consistent jump shot like Mobley would have been invaluable tonight.

This game can be considered an aberration, simply due to Ming's poor ft shooting. Normally he's around 80% but he missed 5 or so ft's today. I don't expect him to make all his ft's but he should have AT MOST missed only 2. When the game was getting close towards the end, they could have proved to be a big difference.
Incidentally, he would have had about 15 points if he just did wat he normally does from the ft line.

And Glen Rice missing all those shots? That wont happen too often either...

 

When Moochie gets 10 shots and Yao Ming gets 4... well that's not a good thing.

 

The quote of the season... if only because those words will be said after the forty other losses we'll endure this season.