ClutchFans Game Thread: Lakers @ Rockets 11/13/2004

Really proud of the way Rox fought back. The biggest reason we lost the game was that JVG went small ball in the second quarter. Not even Deke was on the court, when Lakers ran off to the 22 pt lead.

JVG, don't expererienment with any "small ball" line up !!!

 

No matter how u want to argue, there's no way rocket-tmac blows away lakers.

Yao+ward+boki+JJ+Mo+Deke+Howard+Bowen+lue+spoon+Padgett

Kobe+atkins+butler+odom+mihn+Grant+Cook+Walton+rush+brown

Actually if kobe is not an idiot off the court, i will happily swap both teams and do some adjustment later.

 

Buddy, you are bashing Yao and I am tired of the Yao bashers. Man the Yao haters won't be happy unless he plays like superman every night. Dude, he took some key shots down the stretch, missed some and made some, don't question his leadership because he passed out. He carried this team tonight calling for the ball, making shots, fouling out the whole Laker front court, thats a leader.

 

Right, that play got overlooked because of what happened after but that was a HUGE play in the game. I wonder alot of times about what the refs base a foul call on during a loose ball and that was a perfect example.

 

who's bashing yao, basically many of us are asking him to take more shots.

That's a good THING, isn't it?

Boy some of you people can turn someone into a true Yao hater when he is not.

Maybe I should follow Summer Song Giver's Sig the way some of these board members overact to "all about nothing" ?

 

everyone on this board should be proud of our team, we played a hard fought game and lost it due to some correctable mistakes.I had seriously doubted Yao ming the first couple of games, but he has shown me he can be a great player in the league and I have a lot of confidence in him. If you take the way our team played these last 2 losses and add t-mac I just hope once t-mac gets back in the players wont relax and let their intensity rest because they know they wont have to play as hard, if they can keep the same focus (minus Lue's genious plays) then we can be a very suprising team in our division. Both of these loses were winnable and thats without our best player who happends to be top 5 in the league. We are in good shape, we still have Sura to come back, i'm getting very excited about this team and I am confident Yao and T-mac will not let this season be a failure. We will make the 2nd round.

P.S. Padgett needs more minutes

 

I don't know why anyone should be pissed..we were solid..we played well..we came back from 22 ponits..Yao did good..we finally got SOME calls...lol Bowen did good on Kobe..too bad Tmac didn't play..but we showed again that we can do okay without him..and we're becoming a team..patience...it's not the end of the world good game be happy

 

JJ is a slow starter. He started slowly last year also and towards the middle of the season had everybody raving about how he was a great pickup. JJ will come around.

 

dragon, there's a reason why we were able to come back against the lakers off a huge deficiet. look back at my statement, i said the CURRENT roster. with vlade in their it may be a different story. just curious btw but did you expect the Rockets to win or lose this game? I totally expected them to win this one.

 

Yeah and as soon as Yao started taking more shots, you'd start calling him a ball hog and chucker. Yao can't win.

 

so what, we are still one of the best in the west w/ TMac back, and the fakers are still struggling for the playoff position.

 

Hope that he will come around as he did last year.

 

You expected too much. This team has 3 below average starters without TMac and JJ is not much better.

 

The Rockets are just getting their legs as a team.

Against Detroit, Minnesota, and Los Angeles, they competed pretty well, but nobody wanted to take over the game in the final stretch and make sure we won. Nobody has that killer instinct (except for maybe T-Mac against the Grizzlies the first time). That's actually something the entire team needs to develop. It's what separates the champions from the also-rans.

Think about the Bulls and Rockets and Spurs and Lakers. In their championship years, they kept it close, but when it mattered, they put it away for good, like they expected to win. The Rockets (i.e., Yao) did a good job of closing the lead in the games against the Timberwolves and Lakers, but they didn't finish strong and put it away. They didn't really expect to win the way that real contenders do.

But I am as excited as everyone else because it's obvious that if Yao continues his development, T-Mac gets back to form, and the team learns to play together, we've got a real shot beginning this year.

 

At any given night, any team can win any game. THat's nba. I think Laker minus Vlade is better than Rockets minus Tmac. Rockets came back maybe because kobe didnt explode, it's lakers 4th game in 5 nights, our shooters due to make some shots? My point is that there's no way our squard tonight can consistently blow away lakers squard. I expected a close game tonight. With the way kobe played, we should have won tonight. too bad.......

 

don't forget, I believe the lakers were running back to back, I think that they got blown away last nite by the grizz. anyways it's true that any given night any team can win in the NBA, but all I'm saying is that i expected the Rockets to lost to the Wolves, and i would've put money on the Rockets would've beating lakers. I was wrong. Our team still needs to figue out how to play all 4th quarters of the game.

 

I think this was an overall good game for the Rockets. Guys stepped up, especially those (Bowen, Padgett) that haven't really played this season. Yao was terrific as he took on the role of the go-to guy. His variety of moves in the post to create a good shot was a beautiful thing to watch. I think that this game exposed our PG play more than anything. Lue made some bad decisions with the ball and neither he or Ward could hit the 3 contistently. Both were able to get to basket some but couldn't finish in traffic. I'm not really overly dissapointed with the PG play, just thier weaknesses came out more tonight. Everyone says we need an athletic PF, and I would agree, but Odom is as hard or harder to guard one-on-one as the other PFs we have played so far. He is basically a SF is a PF's body. Could you imagine what the Rockets could do with Odom at the 3. Scary! Anyway, after seven games, I am even more excited about this team than before. Add a healthy TMac and Sura, get a little more chemistry, and this could be a team to be reckoned with this season.

 

I don't know Vlade = Tmac

 

I thought the same thing tonight for some reason. It wasn't the missed shots, I know he had an off-night, but he just seems out of place with the rest of the team right now. I just can't put my finger on it. I do feel there are times he forces his shot up even though he makes a good percentage of those. Just seems there are times where he could create a better shot by making the extra pass or getting inside the defense, but he just catches the pass and shoots with a defender in his face. I like JJ and think he is a good player but this is just something I felt the last few games.

 

I don't think its time to get rid of JJ yet. He has been solid in the past and the season is early right now.