Hey guys, can u give me some account of the things Steve had done in this game? I've read earlier that he got a tech... Any other more? If we can prove that we can win without him then ship him out for a better PG..
Yup yup. If memory serves me well, the shot that J² hit to break all our hearts in that game was from just about the exact the same spot on the floor.
Nothing humble about it. He took 3 straight shots in the closing minutes of the game. Made one, and clanged two in a row afterwards without much time eaten up on the clock. The Bulls got a one point lead thanks to Curry's fastbreak layin. Immediately after was a timeout where the Rockets went to more options in their offense. Sometimes through him where he got a dunk, and an assist. Cato with 5 points, Mobley with a lay up in the crowded paint, and lastly JJ with the almost 3 point shot to close out the game. Plus JJ had that low pass to Yao that resulted in a turnover when Hinrich stole the ball that almost cost us the game. I stand by my previous statement but think JJ deserves MVP, Greatest Hall of Famer living or dead, etc. for pulling out that game winning shot
JJ brought us through. He is the only true pro on the team. But if we have to depend on him all the time then we are in big trouble. Mo T's poor performance on defense is leading to Weatherspoon having to pick up the slack but we have a lot of problems when Mo doesn't score. I just wish that Francis, Cat, and Mo learn how to play as professionals from JJ. I'm happy with the win but I doubt that we can win much more with the way we are playing.
Rockets need a good jumpshooter at point guard who can pass well. The scouts need to go look at game tapes. I've seen plenty of white senior point guards who can't jump but can shoot well and pass.
OMG! WE F***NNNN SSSSSSSSSUCK!!! we shut down in the 4th YET AGAIN against the 2nd worst team in the NBA ......AT HOME screw this
Anybody else notice that Steve didn't force anything like he usually does in a close game? Ya, he did get the 3 pt foul and the tech but I think this game might be the first in breaking all Steve's old bad habits. It's also a good thing because of his quote that "he'll play how he wants to play" because I think that he ran all the plays that JVG called in clutch time. Anyways, just thought it was worth mentioning even though Steve didn't have a particularly good game today.
Hinrich had 1 turnover to go along with 6 assists. Van Gundy has got to like that. His effective field goal percentage of 50% tonight was pretty good too. That's a Western Conference point guard right there. Rockets needs to draft a senior point guard.
I didn't see this game - so I don't know. But it really isn't fair when people get attacked for wanting someone to have had the ball less - when they've missed quite a few - then hit a "big" one at the end... and others say they need to eat "humble pie." Bull****. Hit more of the shots during the rest of the game, and the end is irrelevant. Happened a few games ago with UT. Brian Boddicker was crap the entire game, but he kept on taking shots. Then he finally hit a big one at the end - and nobody care that he really sucked most of the time. It's what you do the whole game - not just at the end.
C'mon haven, Remember when Pippen was here and the man would just not shoot anymore when he wasn't on. That's not what you want from your shooters. Take the shot if it's a good one and that's what JJ kept doing, thank goodness. You don't make shots if you don't take any. And good luck with your law firm interviews
Oh, I have no problem with a shooter trying to shoot out of a slump, as long as they're good shots. I just dislike it when a player hits a game winner (or tying, whatever)... and the fact that the team would have won by 10 if he hadn't stunk up the joint the rest of the game instantly gets forgotten.
You love JJ..? Hmm. for your information, he's 5 of 15 tonight, Cat is 5 of 13.. Cato was pretty solid.
I was saying that in jest. It was obvious that the player who controlled the game was Yao for the Rockets. When teams do not front Yao, the post entry pass arrives much easier which allows him more opportunities to score. The Bulls did not opt to front Yao. I've said that Yao is a roleplayer, but he fits better than Steve in Van Gundy's system of strong defense and ball control offense.
You're right. And Jackson had a good game despite missing some shots. The one he made with no time left was just icing on the cake. Mobley jumped on his back, the team just mobbed him. You should have seen the grin on Yao's face! Should we have clobbered them? Sure. We got very sloppy. But sometimes a great play at the end can make up for a lot of sins. That was a tough shot, but he made it.
The Chronicle's game coverage for those who haven't seen it. A good job by Jonathan Feigen: HoustonChronicle.com -- http://www.HoustonChronicle.com | Section: Sports Feb. 7, 2004, 1:25AM Jackson scores Bull's-eye Shot at buzzer allows Rockets to pull out win By JONATHAN FEIGEN Copyright 2004 Houston Chronicle ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The last play was drawn. The last words were said. Then Jim Jackson said just a few more. With the Rockets' 16-point lead over the Chicago Bulls long gone and the game tied heading into its final 12 seconds Friday night, Jackson slid over to Cuttino Mobley's ear to share one final thought: "I'll be there if you need me." Jackson, having seen it all, saw it so clearly. Mobley started his move, and just as Jackson had predicted, the Bulls' Jerome Williams strayed. Mobley remembered Jackson's last-second reminder. Jackson took the pass he envisioned, then nailed his 21-footer at the buzzer to rescue the Rockets from their fourth-quarter collapse with an 82-80 win at Toyota Center. "It felt good when it left my hand," Jackson said, "I didn't see it because Jerome was right at my face." But he saw everything else before it happened. "I know people at the end of the game watch the ball more than they watch their man," Jackson said. "The easiest thing for me to do is to stand in the corner. But I told Cat, `My man is going to be paying attention to you. I'm going to circle around.' " With Williams flying back to him late, Jackson barely got his shot over his reach. But after it swished, Jackson was mobbed as if the Rockets had beaten the Spurs in June, instead of the Bulls in February. Mobley lifted him from the floor as Jackson had lifted the Rockets to a win they had to have, if only to avoid the indignity of a horrible loss. The Rockets had played well enough defensively to think they had locked up the Bulls for the night. With Chicago playing the seventh game of a seven-game road trip, the Bulls would have seemed more likely to head for the charter a quarter early. "It just shows that we're not a mature team yet, and it also shows that they're not a mature team," said Yao Ming, who led the Rockets with 22 points. "If they were a mature team, I think they would have won this game." Instead, by the time they reached the fourth quarter, the Rockets were counting down the minutes like schoolchildren waiting for the final bell. The crowd was dead. The Bulls barely had a pulse. Then with a few turnovers and a sudden flurry of Bulls perimeter shooting, the lead was gone. "We felt the crowd wasn't into the game, so we had to get the crowd into the game by giving them something close," Jackson said. "We relaxed on `D' and they did what they were supposed to do by taking advantage of it -- penetrating, offensive rebounds, and Jamal Crawford got hot (Crawford had missed all seven of his attempts before he scored 13 of his 15 points in the fourth quarter). "For us, it's about finishing off in the fourth quarter so we don't have a game that comes down to a final shot." Asked how he felt about taking a win that had seemed assured so long before, Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy harrumphed, "very happy." The Rockets had begun to pull away in the third quarter when the Bulls left them little choice, with Chicago making 11 of 43 shots in the second and third quarters. When Steve Francis passed to Yao for a slam with 34 seconds left in the third quarter, the Rockets had their largest lead, 62-46, and were cruising against a team that was 1-27 when trailing heading into the fourth quarter. But the Bulls completed a 21-5 run to their first lead since the first quarter when Eddy Curry beat the Rockets up the court on a break. With that, the Rockets heard boos from many in the Toyota Center crowd of 16,970. That finally snapped the Rockets out of it. They went inside to Yao for a dunk. But the Rockets could no longer stop the Bulls or rebound. After a Mobley drive gave the Rockets a 77-75 lead with 2 1/2 minutes left, Antonio Davis tipped in a miss to tie the score. Kelvin Cato gave the Rockets a three-point lead when he cut to the basket where Yao found him with a pass with 1:25 left for a three-point play. Crawford missed an 18-footer, and the Rockets moved in for the clincher. But Kirk Hinrich came from behind Yao to steal a Jackson pass inside. After an Eddie Robinson free throw and a Yao miss, Davis tipped in a rebound again for a tie at 80 with 12 seconds left. With that, the Rockets set up the last play for Mobley. But when Davis came to help Crawford, Mobley remembered what Jackson had told him. "All I had to do was go in there and shut my man down," Williams said. "Now I'm on ESPN. That ain't right. "He hit a great shot. He broke our backs with that one because, I swear, I wanted to go in there and play some defense. That hurt man, that really hurt." But it could not have hurt as much as the pain the Rockets would have felt had they blown a 16-point lead and lost. "It's important," Jackson said. "We're in eighth place right now (tied for sixth after Friday's games). But we're just a couple games out of the fifth or sixth spot (two games out of fifth). Our goal is to win these four games going into the break. We need momentum going into the second half of the season." After proving so prescient, if Jackson says the Rockets need momentum, who would argue? -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rockets summary Change of plans The Rockets' week of off-court issues added an unusual twist when coach Jeff Van Gundy halted the morning shootaround and sent the team home to try again with a pre-game walk-through. Van Gundy and the team downplayed the issue, if downplaying a shootaround isn't redundant. "We're just getting it right," Van Gundy said after the second attempt. But given the bizarre week, and last week's lethargic losing streak, Van Gundy's taking the unusual step of calling for a walk-through and a shootaround the same day was not a good sign. "I guess we weren't focused enough," Cuttino Mobley said. "He cut it short. His cutting practice kind of gave guys some time to think about what happened this morning. "It affects you. It might not individually, but as a team, it affects you. And that's what this game is about, the team. We got to come with everybody's head on their shoulders tonight. It bothers me. I can't dwell on it. If I worry about things that bother me, a lot of people would be in trouble." Shootarounds are generally light workouts to go over the game plan. Though Van Gundy mentioned the poor shootarounds and practices last week as part of the problem in the losing streak, they are not easy to get wrong. Even the usually loquacious Maurice Taylor left it at: "I just feel like we got out early. It's like a half a day. We got out early. I guess he wanted to leave early, too. "How coach was feeling or how we were feeling, that's between us and coach. He wanted to let us out early. He did it. He wanted us back early. He did that." But Taylor ended up missing the walk-through when he was stuck in traffic on the Katy Freeway. Lead the way With the Rockets again demonstrating their tendency to lose interest recently, there seemed to be a potential benefit of someone screaming his way through the locker room as Allen Iverson did this week in Philadelphia and Michael Jordan often did in Chicago. Veteran Jim Jackson would seem the most likely candidate, but he said he has gotten his point across without hysterics. "People have different personalities," Jackson said. "One person may rip. One may get everyone together and talk to them. It doesn't have to be the way Michael did it or Allen did it. Our team understands what we have to do. I'm a vocal leader. But more than anything else, I'm going to lead by example. I'm going to make them understand, in order to be a good team, you have to ... play hard, play together and understand how to play the game, understand what coach wants. What do you want out of it? "I voice my opinion. That's just the way I am. I may do it individually. I may do it collectively. It just depends on the situation." Jackson has spoken all season about the Rockets' lack of consistency, a particular problem lately. "We go in and out of focus," Jackson said. "It just depends. To compete at this level, the highest level in the NBA, every game is important, every practice is important, every situation is important." Captain Kirk Rockets coach Jeff Van Gundy went beyond membership in the Kirk Hinrich fan club and all the way to club president. "I love Kirk Hinrich," Van Gundy said of the Bulls rookie point guard. "I haven't seen him enough, but I've seen enough to say he's going to be a great point guard in this league. I watch him, he's more athletic than you think. He does not back down. He's a big-time competitor. "When I watch Hinrich, in my limited watching of the Bulls, it's not a stretch to think he'll be a star point guard in this league, as much to do with his competitive spirit and toughness as for any particular skill. I see a guy who is a very, very, very strong competitor." Press row view Suddenly the Rockets were talking about playoff spots. They did not pretend they had claimed one with a home win over the Bulls. But they talked about the playoffs as if they were searching for a motivation to drive them. The problem is they need to be motivated at all. The Rockets played with intensity and desire for several stretches. But no matter what mind games they play to push themselves, they won't be consistent until they play with that kind of tenacity every night, automatically. Failing to play that way for 48 minutes nearly cost them. It will catch up to them if they cannot make that the way they play, rather than the way they really would like to if they can convince themselves. By the numbers The Rockets' two 3-pointers matched their fewest this season. ... The Rockets' four offensive rebounds were their second fewest of the season. Jim Jackson had 10 rebounds to lead the Rockets for the second time in consecutive games this season. ... The Rockets were outrebounded for a fourth consecutive game. Did you know? The Bulls had the fewest points, 11, scored in the third quarter, and the most, 32, scored in the fourth quarter against the Rockets this season. -- JONATHAN FEIGEN
