ClutchCity.net Game Thread: Sonics @ Rockets 11/5/2002

Nice for the stat book.

 

Hey, I'm not at all pissed with the offense tonight. It's the defense. The defense was pathetic tonight.

Like I said, Seattle is a good team, but they looked like the f***ing Kings out there. The Rockets keep saying that they will committ to defense, and defending the home court. Tonight's loss proves that so far, it was all talk.

I don't care about the assists. I just hate seeing other teams score with such ease against the Rockets.

 

Hey, at least we only had 7 or so turnovers! Go team!

 

I hate Gary Payton.

 

If Rox can not learn anything how to play team ball from this game, they will not go anywhere. It is a shame with so many talents in the team can not get over the mediocre Sonics team.

 

Cat was 5-15 at one point, when we were blown out in the third. He had a bad game and a nice 3-4 spurt at the end isn't going to cut it when we lose our composure and fall so far behind.

 

MY RANT:

First off, congrats to Steve for another high stat game. Guess what Steve? 33 points.....ya still lost buddy. See a pattern? You aren't the whole team. There are 4 other people on the floor. Learn to pass. That was absolutely atrocious. That goes for your buddy Mobley too.

This team has a UNEXPLAINABLE tendency to NOT pass to the person with the hot hand. In this case - Eddie. He was playing basketball out there tonight. However, they FOR SOME STUPID F------ REASON stopped giving it to him. I don't get them. I don't get Rudy. He is clueless. Bottom line. This whole team is clueless.

This team undoubtedly has the lowest IQ. They don't learn from their mistakes. Iso after iso after iso after iso after iso after iso.......didn't they get a clue when seattle went on that 16 pt run? Oh wait, i forgot. This team is full of clueless idiots.

We shouldve won this game. Seriously. We were playing basketball in the beginning. WHAT THE F--- HAPPENED? Did we think that because we had a comfortable lead, we could just sit back and the rest of the game would just magically fall in our hands?

That was atrocious.

 

Hear, hear. What did the Sonics shoot in that 3rd quarter? 70+ percent? I don't even shoot that in my freakin' video games. I kept telling the Rockets through my television to put their hands up and get on up on their man. They never heard me...

 

For one, they could not be 4-0. They could be 3-1.

Playing with fire has nothing to do with being "inexperienced."

You could be 18, or 38. It doesn't matter. I don't care if you don't cause a
turnover. I dont' care if you win the game. At least show some fire! Show
the effort. There will be times that you will win games you aren't supposed
to win only because of hustle! Those are the games that you don't "deserve"
to win, but you slug it out on the defensive end.

I'm sure you saw the last 2 minutes of the game. They upped the presure
some. But, it was a day too late. They should have been playing that
way the whole game.

 

The only good defensive players on Houston are Hawkins (who seems VERY good defensively actually, a Bruce Bowen type) and Eddie Griffin.

Francis and Mobley take dumb chances to try to get steals and can't consistently keep their counterparts in front of them. Both are way below average.

Ming is being abused defensively. So far, he makes Cato look like Hakeem defensively. Yao has no timing, gets backed down and shot over by players a foot shorter than him, and committs lazy fouls.

The reason the Rockets have good defensive stats is simple: They played the awful Nuggets and the Carter less Raptors. Their team defense is atrocious as they give up open shot after open shot after open shot. And offensively they run iso, iso, iso. A recipe to make a great run at Lebron James. Maybe that's Rudy's plan.

 

I respect him.

He works on both ends of the court. He can score, and he can pass.
Balance.

 

If Rudy is tanking, then he must be good friends with Jerry West, because Memphis owns the Rockets' first round pick.

 

The Sonics were just better than us tonight. Yao was getting schooled, Payton had a career game, and the sonics couldn't miss a three pointer for about 12 minutes. They also played great defense and closed off the middle. I am suprised the Rocks didn't give up like some of the posters on this board.

I am not going to sugar coat this because the rockets stunk it up. No one came play except for Francis and the Hawk. Mobley missed a whole bunch of easy shots, KT sucked butt, and no one could stop Payton.

The Sonics look really good right now. And we looked average. Can't wait for the next game.

 

LOL!!!

Yeah, how do you like that "I'm going to put my hand up from 5 feet away,
and then I'll just watch him take the jumpshot in my face" defense.

 

Give the Sonics and Payton some credit. They made the extra pass in the third quarter and got easy 15-25 foot shots. They also made 70% of them. In retrospect, we might have been able to stop the Sonics in the third quarter by putting ball pressure on them or going to a zone. Rudy putting Joaquin on Payton helped in the 4th, but it was a case of too little, too late.

 

LOL... I didn't realize tanking can start this early in a season. WHat the hecj even Cavs and Nuggets managed to win a couple despite being lead candidates for tanking.

 

Acutally we were running a zone and that was why Yao was covering Payton on like three possessions. Rudy always said the way to beat a zone is with 3 pt shooters, and that what they did in the 3rd quarter. There is nothing you can really do when a team hits 70 % of their 3 pointers.

 

what i wanna know is why we doubled payton every damn time. one time he had even picked up his dribble on the sideline with mobley guarding him yet cato rotates to double (and everyone else rotates) and it ends up in a wide open barry 3. i mean geez, could we at least let payton prove he's going to kill mobley or francis in the post before we double. how many top of the key wide open shots did we give up to a team that was on fire (bad defense or not, they ain't that good at shooting) just to give a light double to payton. if moochie is guarding him ok, then double. but he wasn't killing mobley (wasn't even going around him) yet we continue to double and leave barry and radmanovich open. WHY!!!! it wasn't like the doubles were making it tough, they just left someone wide open who had an open passing lane. my god, let payton shoot. even francis woulda made 90% of the passes payton was making. double, toss to guy 10 feet away at top of key, swish. real damn difficult. at least rotate to that guy and worry about getting to the other side later.

and why did the sonics have to be on fire. we have enough trouble defensing good jump shooting teams (see timberwolves, minnesota), much less when they're draining every damn 3 they take no matter the pressure or position.

 

Because that was a play call from the Sonics coaching staff.

That was done ON PURPOSE by Payton!!!

Nate McMillan knows that Payton can take Yao off the dribble.
They ran the switch play.

That was NO accident on the Sonics part.

 

Just want to say, even though no one really cares, that I'm pretty upset with today's game. I could argue about how bad we played and blame players(some are just obvious) but it won't make a difference. Our team is bad, I'm very let down with our performance and selfishness. Thats all.