ClutchFans Game Thread: Bobcats @ Rockets 12/22/2004

Expansion team or not when you have that many unforced turnovers AND your top two gunners (Yao & T-Mac) get the clamps put on them in the 2nd half then you are staring at another loss. The Bobcats followed the book: they doubled Yao & forced the ball out of McGrady's hands and once again the Rockets had no answer as their offense stalled out for minutes at a time. This will continue to go down until the Rockets start making teams pay for using this strategy (don't hold your collective breaths waiting however...).

I have to admire the job Bickerstaff has done with the Bobcats. They are one or two scorers away from being truly dangerous.

 

Yes, you are absolutely right. Please trade Yao who donot belong to this team. I can not believe what i watched that the rest of team were such suck and stupid. And t-mac is not a franchise who do not aspire after winning. Please trade yao, no matter where. If yao is not at this team, i won't watch the game of rox who always perform the worst and the ugliest game in the NBA. So please trade yao!!!!

 

can't see any of these players sharing the future glory:

Deke, JJ, Howard, Ward, Spoon.

Win or lose, should just play the rest of the team

 

Not sure we are there yet, but that day may come unfortunatly.

DD

 

Let's say Rox can't be built like the Lakers with Shaq and Kobe. Rox needs a third star or a defensive star.

 

Derek fisher is not a star, but he can shoot the 3 and make an entry pass. Shawn is not a star but he can kill you with 3 pointers. Horry was no longer a star in those championship years of Lakers, but he can hit 3's at the right time. George can rebound and hit 3's. Do I need to go on? YOu get my point?

 

I don't know why Lue is playing for the Rockets anymore.

 

lol, shoulda seen that coming.

I like to vent after bad losses. It helps my chi.

I do think the team is improving. Obviously not improving in the area of playing against a zone.

10 TOs!!!!!!!!!

5-22 JH MO Lue!!!!!!!!!

why can't we have a kappono.

 

Exactly! Yao & TMac need better role-players PERIOD! The guys we have now do nothing to what thier role suggests. Well, maybe everyone outside of JJ. Our PFs can't score or rebound, our PGs can't get good assists, and our whole team can't hit an outside shot to save thier lives.

I feel the same way about the Bobcats as well.

 

no need for a third star. if we can find an average starter (belonging to the middle pack of respective position) in 1, 3 and 4. and an average bench. it will be a 50+ team.

A little bit of luck, it can go deep in the post season.

As much as JJ is liked here, the team will be better off without him.

 

JJ does not stay with one team for a good reason. besides he is too experienced to be part of the future.

Give Nachbar a chance. Let him start, give him 30 minutes a game,



Starters: Yao, MT, Nachabr, Tmac, and Sura

sub, Deke, Padget, Barrett

bring in Lue, Spoon from time to time.

after the first 20+ games, what do we get to lose?

 

This is what happens when JVG slowed the game back down in order to allow the Bobcats to play a kind of a defense which causes this much problems for Yao and TMac.

It doesn't help that Barrett, who is their best uptempo pg, gets put on the IL. The Rockets need to push the tempo in order to allow Yao and TMac to take shots while the defenses aren't all surrounding them.

 

Charvo,

You are on the right track.. It was posted on another thread about JVG's coaching style. He believes in the "Hoosiers" pass the ball so many times before we shoot the ball. Basically I will beat you with my defense and not my offense, that's his theory and belief.

JVG, is not going to change his styly and the way he coaches, so basically we have 2 choices...
a) Look at the Rockets play and deal with it
b) Don't look at the Rockets play at all

Because of JVG's no adjustment style of coaching, the Rockets are suffering and the players are getting frustrated.

I posted this earlier abut T-Mac, but it actually goes for all the players.

They are in a no win situation at this point. If they buck JVG and do their on thing they will be blasted by JVG in the media or they will not see any playing time...
ala Steve F. last year and Boki this year.

If they do as they are told, then the media and fans blast them for not stepping up and taking control.

So no matter what, they are in a no win situation. So there is no need to talk about a players manhood, sexuallity or anything else. These guys are just as frustrated as the fans, but they have to follow the coach's game plan. Just as we have to follow our supervisor's game plan at work "No matter how stupid or dumb we feel the plan is."

So no matter how many "We hate JVG" or "Fire JVG" threads we start, things are not going to change. There is no one on this board that can fire JVG or hire the next coach. It's up too Les and until he starts to see it affect his pocket book he will not change.

 

So basically, you're saying we were outcoached?

Hey, I agree! FIRE JVG!!

 

Truth is cruel and hurts, because it's truth

 

I try not get annoyed at the Yao only Fans but sometimes they really try my patience.

Have you figured that maybe Yao's 10 TO's might have cost us this game as much as the crappy outside shooting?

 

Look at the best teams in the NBA. They have their best players shoot the most. Look at the Suns. Their starting 5 shoots basically 90% of their shots. They don't have the guys who are garbage take a bunch of shots. JVG is slowing down the game which is allowing defenses to totally take Yao and TMac out of the game. You've got the garbage on the team taking a lot of shots. TMac doesn't even try to shoot past a double team on the perimeter. When Yao tries to shoot past a double team, it's a turnover. You speed up the game to prevent defenses from setting up so quickly on TMac and Yao.

Come on. I see it. Everyone else sees it. Why does not JVG see it?

 

Absolutely disgusting.

How many minutes do we gotta see Ward and Lue out there before Van Gundy figures out they can't get it done? Dude yanks Nachbar after 3 minutes, won't give him a chance, but he's got Lue and MoT just chewing up minutes and not even slowing down anybody. Lue and Ward are just an open sieve for the opposing team's perimeter players to either drive or shoot the 3 ball. They cannot defend anybody. And MoT cannot stop anybody either. Why is he getting minutes? I don't get it. And then Van Gundy takes out Yao and brings in Padgett and leaves Mo in there clogging up the offense and letting Primo and Okafor go off. Yao was the only defensive presence in the paint, and he was the only player big enough to score. Why isn't Van Gundy bringing out MoT for Padgett?

10 turnovers? 6 of those TO's were total bologna. This game was not lost by Yao. This game was lost because Van Gundy put Lue in and then brought in Ward and MoT and left Lue and MoT in when they were sucking on both ends of the floor. He even had Ward and Lue in together there for awhile. We might as well just roll the ball upcourt to the opponent and let them bring it back down and shoot on us when both of those 2 are in there together. They can't stop anybody, they can't score, and they can't get the ball to Yao and TMac. Put 'em back on the IL please. Sura and Barrett should be getting all the PG minutes. Yeah, Sura and Barrett aren't exactly stoppers on the defensive end, but they cannot possibly be any worse than Lue and Ward. And on offense both of those players are easily better than Lue and Ward.

Once again, Mo and Juwon were like 4 out of 15 from the floor while Spoon gets a DNP. I did think Juwon played fair defense and he did rebound a little. MoT did nothing besides throw in a couple jumpers. He was non-existent on the defense end.

I do not understand what Van Gundy thinks that Lue, Ward, and MoT are adding to this team that would cause them to be chewing up minutes.

 

The more I watch this season's Rockets, the more I'm convinced that Jeff Van Gundy is a bad offensive coach. I remember during the Rudy days, when we're down by 3, Rudy will call a play for Glen Rice or Steve. More often than not, that offensive plan worked. Since Jeff Van Gundy became the coach, I've not seen anything like that. Yes, there's 35sec-13pts comeback. But can you attribute that to Jeff Van Gundy's play calling? More and more, it seems to that Van Gundy is only capable of coaching the grind-it-out defense-oriented game. Granted, defense wins champions. But is it a little too amibitious to think about that right now? without a tough-nosed rebounder and a stingy defender, Jeff Van Gundy's system's effectiveness is totally nullified. What's more, Yao is not the ideal center to play his ideal system. Yao is someone to whom the ball distributor should find a fleeting moment to pass the ball. As observed in the past two games, it probably will take some height to pass the ball to him without a TO. That means our power forwards should do the job. Excuse me for wandering away from the topic. My point is, unless Jeff Van Gundy is willing to learn some offensive schemes and implement them, which I think he's capable of doing, I don't see this team is moving into the top eight before ASG. Yet, clearly Van Gundy is a disgrutled coach who even though plays some offense now but still stubbornly holdS on to his Knicks formula. Until he gives up on this Knicks formula, has a brand new start, tries to coach more offensively, this team will remain mediocre.

 

Another thing about an uptempo offense is that Yao shoots the ball very quickly after getting the ball passed to him. The coach of all people should not put players in a position to fail. He should elevate them. Antawn Jamison is a solid low post player. He gets the ball and shoots within a second. Yao did that a whole lot in the Warriors game because it was up and down.

Someone needs to egg JVG's car.