ClutchCity.net Game Thread: Rockets @ Sonics 3/18/2003

stevie did all right, the rox lost, but he did good. all his critics tonight are just haters.

 

Exactly, man. I'm really starting to see why a lot of you guys say Mobly needs to be traded. That will almost force things to go through Yao-Francis. Has to be that way. I know Stevie is a loyal homie and everything, but Mobley has to either become a helluva sixth-man again. Or has to be that star that he covets to be on another team.

 

We badly need Rudy T in the western road trip! Rockets laid an ugly egg tonight. It is a totally different team with Larry Smith! Rudy T, get well!

 

Yeah, seriously, Stevie was not the reason the Rox loss tonight. Hell, if everyone could've had his, Cato's, and Yao's hustle and overall play tonight, we (the Rox) would've been all right.


Only thing to b**** from me are his turnovers and making it a point to get yao the ball. Even whe Stevie doesn't have the ball in his hands (like when Mobley/Moohcie bring it up), he needs to tell them to get it down to Yao. He does it sometimes, but not as often as he should.

 

Yeah, my fault. I think I said that (or meant to say that), but worded it incorrectly.

 

in steve's defense, 3 of his turnovers were complete BS. 2 bogus palming calls along with a bad charging call (barry was clearly inside the circle)

 

waaaaaaa

 

Yao Ming with the headband

 

Yep. I forgot about those bad calls be the refs.

 

I don't blame any Rox player for the loss, but I am really disappointed with Mr. Mean. He failed in many aspects of the game: substitution, offense execution in the fouth quarter
and stupid three-guard lineup. I thought He might be better than
Rudy. But one thing I do know he has the gut to bench Yao during the crunch time.

 

Yep....WTF was going on with the 3 guard lineup? The sonics had ray allen as their point and rashard lewis as their SG. Nice logic there Mr. Mean. Rashard was raping mobley on the post up...so yao comes and helps and then he gets dunked on by jerome james...so take yao out. Man Larry Smith, you make Rudy look like a genius.

Maybe that was the plan? Did rudy tell you to make him look like a genius compared to yourself tonight? Hmmm????

 

I'm pretty sure Larry Smith accepted bribe from the Suns!!!

Steve showed he can be a PG tonight, Mobley thought he was MJ but he never realized it's not even close. Yao Ming just couldn't get the ball...

 

"They didn't have a post-up game," Radmanovic said. "Yao was out of the game, and Steve Francis and Cuttino Mobley tried to penetrate and pass, but our defense was good enough to prevent that."

Larry Smith's crap game plan!

 

A Sonic saying the Rox have no post-up game? Obviously doesn't get to watch his own team much.

 

i think he was referring to the game from last night...and he's right. We had JACK down low.

 

Yao came out at the end of the 3rd quarter, as is the usual pattern. In the 4th, he came back in with around 5-6 minutes left in the game. Within about 2 minutes, the lead ballooned to 14, that's when he(coach) took Yao back out.

To me it seemed obvious that he was kinda throwing in the towel, and trying to rest Yao in what he considered a lost game. I think we have another game tomorrow(Por). To me it seemed a little early, because a 14 point lead with 4 minutes left is not a sure thing. But Cato played very well(imo). I don't think he(coach Smith) made a bad decision, but maybe an early one.

And the reason Yao did not get a lot of shots off was not because of non-involvement by his teamates.

The reason is because they were doubling Yao IMMEDIATELYafter recieving the ball, and hard. All night long. He had no chance to drive in.

The thing that made it hard is that they were doubling off of Posey, at the top of the key, instead of the closest defender to him. This forced us(Yao) to throw out to Posey instead of swinging it around the perimeter, like we usually do. Since Posey was/could not hit the outside j tonight, this was extremely effective.

What I would like to see the Rockets get is a 3, or 4 that can drive the ball to the hole and score/draw fouls. That's the way to make that kind of defense pay, not swinging it to Posey for a 3-pointer. Mo T, and Eggie are perimeter players, not the drive in, and dunk kind that we need.

 

Bottomline: analyze this the way you want and your observation of the kick out to Posey is right on btw...but the other thing that stands out even more is 18 assists and 21 turnovers....this stat equals is an immediate and definite loss 99% of the time!


you have to protect the ball,especially on the road and while Steve had a great assist game, no one else did.....

Other game points:

1. I thought our defensive intensity stunk tonight

2. not enough ball movement and not enough Glen Rice!

3. Ming's major issue right now is not being able to recognize the double and triple team quick enough and holding the ball way to long. I watched him hold the ball for an average of 5-7 seconds on numerous occassions before either passing it or turning it over...and the passes were questionable....

bad play tonight....but to be expected every so often.....

 

Then how could you justify James "I can't shoot" Posey playing 39 mins (shooting 4/10) while Glen "hottest shooter on the team" Rice playing only 13 mins (shooting 2/4)?

 

absolutely unbelievable that Rice played only 13....of that probably 5 were at the end of the game, so we basically got minimal minutes and that was not good....

 

This was the poorest coached game I have ever seen, even with all the talent the rockets have, they were still in the game till the end. However, stupid and key turnovers and the line-up in the last 4 to 5 mintues with Ming out, really hurt. I bet Rudy was killing some Tvs and his liver and home But on a serious note I wish the best for Rudy and wish him a speady recovery, we have enough problems with a team going through learning pains to learn how to play together the last thing we need is a coach who is just learning to, I wish CD would come out of the front office and coach.