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

edited.

 

Yao's footwork are wonderful and now he is really hard to
stop .

 

JJ stunk it up tonight. He took like a zillion shots to get his 15.

 

where was boki this game? he didn't do his part.

 

There's a saying that goes something like this:

A great player makes everyone around them better.

Yao gets his teammates easy shots. It's up to them to make their shots. If they can't, it just makes it harder for Yao to operate in the paint.

 

This was a great game. Rockets were down 22 points, came back to lead and could have won. Luck wasn't on their side. The refs didn't help on that dunk but that's all part of the game.

Like a lot of posters said. What would you say if the open 3s were made? That Yao was a greate team player and trust his teammates? Well, Yao is a team player and trust his teammates to come thru in the end. They missed. It's life.

Even Yao only made a little over 50% of his shots. He missed the 2 makeable shots (for him) before the passout. It was the wise thing to do.

Would have loved to have beat the Lakers but without T-Mac, it's the best they could do WITHOUT winning.

These 2 games established the fact that Yao can carry the team. He can't win without them contributing.... When T-Mac comes back, then with 2 "GOTO" guys, we are set for a long time. I don't know how good Sura is be he's likely to be better than Lue.

And the fact that BOTH PFs (Mo and Juward) disappeared tonight didn't help things. This is the first "off" night for Boki so I'd give him a break. He was making his 3s, defending and driving...but not tonight.

 

Im not blaming the loss on the refs but that made it a lot harder for us to win with some of thier calls and some stuff they didnt call.

 

He had problems guarding Kobe and his shot was off even though he took 3 shots.

 

Excluding Yao and TMac, the Rockets players have bad statistics versus their career averages. I don't know how Lue maintained such a high shooting percentage in Orlando. Ward looks like he will roll into shape in regards to his 3 point shot. JJ is coming back to his career average, and the guy is beginning to freewheel more. However, he is missing more than last year. Mo is still good from a shot percentage standpoint. Juwan's statistic are suffering. He is going to be upset when he has to update his website after the season.

 

A lot of people say that Yao Ming should have a mentality like Dream at crunch time but Dream was able to push the Rockets over the top when he started trusting his teammates.

I really don't know but who was it that passed the ball to Mario Ellie for the Kiss of Death shot?

 

I think Horry was the one who winged it over Elie. Can't quite remember. Long pass tho.

 

Bingo! Not mention Yao was dead-tired then and had already
bricked two shots in a row.

 

This is a league where you are going to need two superstars to put you over the top. I mean look at teams like the bulls (MJ and Pippen) and lakers (shaq and kobe) really needed two superstar players to win championships. Look at the Lakers with only just Kobe carrying the team (arguably, Lamar Odom will become the second superstar), they are 4-4 after last night's win, not that much better than the Rockets who are 3-4. Yao and TMAC both need to be playing for hte ROckets to fire on all cylinders.

Look around the league and the top teams:San Antonio (Duncan and Parker) Utah (Kirilenko and Boozer) Miami (Shaq and D-Wade), Phoenix (Stoudamire, Marion, Nash), Dallas (Nowitzki and Stackhouse), Indiana (ONeal and Artest) all of them have at least 2 players that put them over the top. With T-Mac not playing, Yao is carrying the load by himself, and in a league where you need two or more big play guys to carry your team, Yao can't do it by himself- no superstar can. So Yao played a good game, but if T-Mac was playing last night, Rockets would have won.

That said, Yao really needs to improve his rebounding...8.3 rpg? he should be averaging 12 at least...