I hate the Jazz, but man, Sloan has to be one of the best coaches in the league. He always has his teams playing TEAM BASKETBALL, something the Rockets don't seem to understand. And where do the Jazz come up with these point guards (Arroyo, Lopez, Williams)? They make it seem like they are a dime a dozen. I would love to have just one of those guys so we could cement Moochie to the bench or the IR. AK47 is also one hell of a player. He would do wonders for the Rockets but there is no way Utah would give him up.
Praise Mobley now but after a few games there will be a 100+ trade treads and that damn kirilenko is a hell of a basketball player!
Sorry if this was mentioned elsewhere, but it's a long thread. I haven't been able to see the rockets play much this year, but i did watch most of this game. the thing that stands out is how lousey the rockets are at catching the ball and holding onto a rebound. they fumbled soooooooo many passes and lost so many boards they shold've corralled. I don't know whether the fault lies in poor passing or bad positioning/ failure to block out, but the good hands people, these guys ain't.
i don't think i've ever been less excited about a win than I was last night. man...we really need to improve. the same mistakes...year after year after year.
What mistakes are you talking about. Did they not play well down the stretch? They shot 50 percent for the game, Francis took the ball to the hole at the end, did you really watch the game?
OK...I just checked the box score....The Jazz had more FT attempts than our boys... Jazz: 35 attempts ---- Rockets: 33. Harpring should check the box scores before making unfounded comments.
Well, Cat doesn't have to be the leading scorer to be shooting well. Here's our record when each of the three score 17 or more: Francis (18.53 ppg): 17+: 9-2 16-: 2-4 Yao (17.18): 17+: 5-5 16-: 5-2 Mobley (16.76): 17+: 7-3 16-: 3-4 Just as far as putting points on the board, and not considering contributions in assists, rebounds, turnovers and the like, it looks like Francis' and Mobley's contributions or lack thereof determine wins and losses much more than Yao's. This could come from his relative steadiness. Yao's low output is 10 and his high is 23. For Francis, they are 4 and 31; and for Mobley they are 7 and 32.
JV, good points! What makes "stars", "stars" is their level of consistancy. There are many players in the NBA that can score 20 points in one game. The "stars" and players that do it on a CONSISTANT basis. Yao seems to be pretty consistant this year but Mobley and Francis are not. They are up and down. Until we get at least TWO guys doing it CONSISTANTLY and a third doing it at least half the time this team can't get to the next level. It is that inconsistancy from Francis in particular that is really hurting us. Across the board this is not a very good year for Francis. He doesn't look very dominating. Look at what Baron Davis is doing in New Orleans to get an idea of where Francis SHOULD be on a nightly basis!! If we got that production from Francis then this team would have probably only 3 losses rather than 7.
Did YOU watch the game? The Rockets still made a ton of mistakes. 23 turnovers. And they won in OT against the Jazz. If they play like that against any of the powerhouses, they'll get creamed. And, by the way, Francis, though he wasn't outplayed this time, did not outplay anyone on the Jazz. He fought back to turn in an overall satisfactory performance. The real difference maker in this game was Cat, who, instead of going to the media and talking about payback like Francis, went straight to the video room and studied his opponents like a true competiter. They played well during OT, but they were lucky to even make it into overtime. If AK-47 made both of his free throws, the game would have been lost. THe Rockets were lucky on that one missed free throw by the Russian star. Even though we won, the Jazz still outplayed the Rockets. It's just that the Rockets made the shots that counted at the end. But if anyone is satisfied with how the ROckets played, then they're either stupid or stupid. We got the win, and that's the only thing that matters, right? Well, we won't be getting that many more wins, if they Rockets don't improve on their glaring mistakes. True, Utah has proven to not be one of the worst teams, and, true, they don't have any established superstars . . . yet. Utah is a great team-oriented team who can get wins without all-stars, but imagine when we play a team-oriented team WITH all-stars. Jeff Van Gundy should not be satisfied with the play in this win, and neither should the players, and neither should the fans. The Utah Jazz were just a sliver of bad luck away from winning, and any other team as good or better could have easily put away the Rockets at the end and won. The Rockets can't count on the opponent's missed free-throws to win games, especially close games. They need to make their shots in the beginning, not turn the ball over in baker's dozens, and start putting away mediocre and sub-par teams with 20 point leads and great teams away with a double digit differential. As of right now, the Rockets are going forward, but it's a really, really clumsy, awkward, and clunky plod. You can only win ugly so many times, and in an 82 game season, when teams find their stride and rhythm and chemistry and heart, winning ugly will become increasingly rare. If they Rockets want to keep winning, and avoid losing to teams like Utah--or avoid barely beating teams like Utah--they need to find a way to cut down on their mistakes and run on all four cylinders. If they want to be a playoff team, especially a playoff team that makes it past the first round, they need to not rely on close, draining, hard-way, ugly wins to keep them out of the red. With the way Utah is playing, and with the way the Rockets are playing, who do you think would win in a play-off best of seven series right now? The Rockets won, but they won the hard and ugly way. You can't do that in a long, long 82 game stretch. They need to learn how to win with more economy, and definately, with more ease. The Jazz lost because of Ak-47's missed free throw. The ROckets won because of AK-47's missed free throw. WOuldn't it be better if the Rockets won because they outplayed the Jazz all four quarters, or at least 3 out of the 4 quarters? The only way the Rockets will get respect is if they start winning and winning big, the kind of winning that has the coach of the opposing team say, "There's no way we could have won. That team outplayed us. The game was out of our hands." Right now, most of the teams we beat are saying that the win wasn' out of their hands.
ALso, this is not the kind of win that makes us more confident about the future. THe kind of win that makes us look at New Orleans and say that the game is in the big. This isn't the kind of win that portends a winning streak. New Orleans is a better team than the Jazz right now, and if want to win, we have to do better than last night.
How many turnovers did they make in the fouth quarter. They outscored the Jazz down the end and unfortunately missed some freethrows that would have iced the game, but they didn't turn the ball over much if at all in the last 4 minutes. Interesting, I didn't know you were with Cat and Francis the entire time after the game against the Sonics. Thanks for that informative info on who watched tape. I'm sure you know. And if the Rockets make their free throws, there's no overtime. It goes both ways, you can't criticize one team for missing and dismiss the fact that the other time did. Nice objectivity. So making shots at the end of games doesn't mean you outplayed your oponents. No one on the team took more than 18 shots. Francis only took 10. The shot over 50%, clearly not team ball though. How can a team be unlucky blowing a 14 point lead? They were clearly outplayed. They didn't play a mediocre or sub par team, you already established that. Every team has to work on mistakes at the beginning of the seasons, especially teams with completely new coaching regimes. Blah, Blah, Blah, missed free-throw, blah blah blah, ugly ball, blah, blah, blah, win big, 10 and 7
Outside of Yao and Steve, I would trade anyone on our team for AK 47. You've got to love the way that guy plays the game.
sad after a win, Utah had better point guard play, small forward play and PF play than we did. We were better at the 2G and Center. They executed much better and their ball movement was outstanding. I hope JVG can turn this team around, Utah at this point is = or better than the Rockets.
Of course, it's totally impossible that there was ever a situation in which there two leading scorers, for instance vs. Memphis, and vs. Golden State. What do you know, that makes 19 leading scorers for 17 games. I guess your next response would be that we should have a separate category for games with more than 1 leading scorer. So here you go: Mobley: 5-1 Steve: 4-2 Yao: 0-2 Jackson: 0-1 Steve and Yao: 1-1 Those add up to 10 wins, 7 losses. Happy? You sure like to nitpick, don't you?
