ClutchFans Game Thread: Magic @ Rockets 12/19/2007

I'd rather have a dynamic basketball player than a player that requires robotic programming to perform well.

 

I prefer the Great One over Master for future reference.

Thanks!

 

Absolutely. I thought the Rockets would be one of the best four teams in the league coming in to the season. I thought Scola would be a polished, savvy PF who could score and defend (only partially, true ... he's not polished at all), one of our three (!!) new PGs could drive, shoot, create and replace Rafer and I had hopes that Adleman could give us a more creative offense without sacrificing much on the defensive end. Instead, all those things turned out to be wrong and we are looking very much like a lottery team. As we all know, this year is probably one of the most FRUSTRATING seasons for Rockets fans.

 

Well said, espeically the point in bold.

I think many of has had similar optimistic expectations and, sadly, almost none of those played out. On the other hand, many things got even worse.

I am not necessarily buying into the "bring back JVG" idea, but it will certainly take time to be successful playing for Adelman. The change in philosophy may turn out to be a good thing but it will take a lot of patience to endure the transformation.

 

I forgot the rejuvenated Bonzi. I think the jury is still out on him.

The really sad thing is that we now see who everybody is:

Hayes - Hustle, but nothing else. He's too short and has no offense. Why is he even starting on an NBA team?

Battier - He's had the biggest drop off this year. If not for his three point shooting, he is completely useless on offense. His intangibles include intangible rebounding because he rarely gets one. He is reasonably good at help defense, but not as good as people say head to head. It just seems like the only time annoucers say his name is after a foul call on him.

Head - We knew he had a terrible handle; I thought he would work on it during the summer. I guess he didn't. He also can't handle any amount of pressure except when shooting the ball. When he holds the ball in the triple threat position, it really isn't. It is just a single threat. He is also too short and foul prone.

Also, have we forgotten how to make a FT or a layup? When I see anybody but Yao go to the line, I've come to expect 1 out of 2 or worse. And why can't this team make layups consistently? Also, why do other teams get *so* many open looks and layups. We make every team look like the Harlem Globetrotters.

 

I thought the picture on www.clutchfans.net front page was another photoshop masterpiece by Clutch...

 

Again, I agree with you and this was a very entertaining read, especially the comments about Head and Battier.

I can't stand that triple threat play where Head's feet seem to be glued to the floor. He isn't fooling anybody. He will not have a long NBA career.

I am increasingly frustrated with Battier and not just because I am watching highlights of Gay hitting a game winner to beat SA as he continues his ascension to stardom.

The problem is more than just that with Shane. He is just another robot with enough intelligence to get by in this league. What a waste of 6'8" body. He was functional in a JVG system but he really isn't cutting it now. I say he is good trade bait at this point.

Did you see that dunk he attempted a few games ago where he realized after launch that he had no chance of getting anywhere near the rim? He laughed girlishly after he descended from his 2" leap as other players mocked him.

Battier just isn't that talented of a player. His skillset only includes good decision-making on the defensive end and solid spot up shooting from the corners. Bruce Bowen is better because he has much quicker feet, enabling him to be a truly effective one-on-one, shutdown defender while possessing similar skills to Shane otherwise. That quickness factor really separates these two players from one another and makes Bowen the better "glue guy" or whatever you want to call that unselfish, defensive role that they both play.

 

Hilarious!

It looks like Rafer is doing that Ed Grimley dance that Martin Short used to do on SNL back in the day.

Maybe Rafer can pursue an acting career after he leads the Rockets to a couple more mediocre seasons.

 

For those of you that don't know Ed Grimley, here is the link:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qCJBW7iFKEM

Copy and paste the URL if the link doesn't work.

 

Yao Turns the ball over only 2 times (the third one was a BS call in a offensive foul over Howard) How is he Turning the ball over more.

Yao this year more minutes less T.O. more asst.When Yao was dominating last year he was turning the ball over 4+ times a game because he was forcing the issue more.

No one can create their own shot once T-Mac is out the only way to get his teammates shoots is trough double team. And Houston got plenty today. In the first quarter he was scoring pretty well till Orlando found out Houston couldn't make a shoot and D. Howard couldn't contain Yao. Its been all year like that.

 

I love ROCKETS! But who can rescue it from this slumpy?

 

How about Donald Trumpy?

Or, maybe Humpty Dumpty?

If not, then Forrest Gumpy?

 

Ok I went to the game tonight...I was blown away by several different things.

1. If Stacey McTRADEy knew he was injured he should've benched himself because all he did was stand around and make our offense extremely stagnant. This guy is our "leader," and when he stands around and the other guys see him standing around it kills everything. He is bringing down the team with his passive attitude and offensive strategy. He shot 1-10 and left the game after he realized he was ice cold. Frankly, that is un-****ing believable. This guy is my favorite player in the world and something terrible has happened and turned him into someone I am starting to despise for his serious lack of team leadership, and inability to get other players pumped up/involved in any way.

2. I saw Aaron Brooks get some playing time, which at first I was extremely happy about. Then he missed every shot I saw him took, and even passed up a few good looks after he had lost his confidence. This guy is one of the few hopes I have left...atleast for the future of the team...and now?

3. Steve Francis wasn't at the game at all...nowhere to be found on the bench??? WTF?

4. I am the biggest Rafer Alston hater and he shut me up tonight by coming out and being the only player (other than Mike James and Yao...at times) who really showed hustle and knocked down shots. This game was the first one I've seen where I liked Alston. I was also proud of Mike James for saying "**** it" and driving to the hoop and drawing fouls.

5. Our FT shooting is horrendous...we should be fining players 5 grrr per FT they miss.

6. I still have no freaking clue what Rick Adelman is doing? I wanted to run on the court, knock him out with my white FT-distractor-tool-waver and beat him over the head with it.

_______________________
I'm kickin it with Steve Francis, Mike Tyson, and Roy Jones.

 

Seriously, I don't understand why there are so many posts here still criticizing Yao after he poured his heart on the court. Yes, he is a flawed star, but still a legitimate star who gives you everything back what he is paid for. The biggest share of the problem is still on his supporting cast and the new coach. Magics had 6 players scoring double-digit while Rox had only 2. Rox was lucky to even get the score so close.

 

actually, 3 rockets scored double-digit points, rafer and bonzi each had 17 while yao had 19.

 

Firing RA will solve nothing and will actually make the situation worse. I agree with the fact the RA is a very soft coach and our team leader, who is essentially T-MAC is also a soft player. That combination creates for a very lackadaisical team. Last year the Rockets had a very tough coach which reflected on the team. This year T-MAC feels he can do whatever he wants and don't get me wrong, he can be a great team player and all but the fact that he has no passion for winning is a killer on the entire team's morale. I don't think trades are the answer either. Look at the Rockets bench, we are packed with talent. They only lack confidence. Somehow the Rockets need to find some confidence and play with some fire and play like they need to prove something to the world. Right now all I see are over payed professional athletes who could care less if they win or lose as long as they get their millions of dollars. AND it all starts with T-MAC!

 

I was at this game. This team is not very good at all (Groundbreaking I know).

Rockets need to contniue to practice their free throws.

Somebody needs to continously tell the Rockets that good things usually happen when you take it to the hole.

T-Mac was uninspired. I wouldn't trade T-Mac or Me-Mac, depending on your perspective, because you can't get equal value - unless you get Kobe, which isn't likely to happen. He should at least come out and sit on the bench to support the rest of his teammates, which he hasn't done all season when he's left the game due to injury.

Bonzi played well.

Aaron Brooks has a long way to go.

Rafer is still Rafer, which isn't good for the Rockets.

Yao played very hard, but he settled for fade away jump shots too often.

MJ was effective in his limited amount of time at the end of the game. No way Brooks should've been playing ahead of him, but I understand RA was trying to shake things up.

Chuck Hayes should not be starting for any NBA team. He hustles, but so do I. He should back up Scola immediately.

Shane Battier is just not a very good bball player. He hustles as well, but like Chuck Hayes, it doesn't mean much when you're limited in what you can do as a player. I was against trading away Rudy Gay from the beginning, but it's gotten to the point that I don't think anybody can rationally support that trade anymore. He's horrible offensively unless somebody creates for him, but even then he still doesn't seem to be able to hit open shots (especially mid-ran ones where he's WIDE open). His defense is very overrated. He's been burned too many times by too many players to be considered a "glue guy." His foot speed and lateral quickness have deteriorated since he's come into the league. He is extremely unathletic. It hasn't worked out with Battier, Rockets should look to trade him immediately. Battier for Corey Maggette works straight up.

Luther Head has been atrocious this season. He can't dribble. He's too small to play effective D on opposing two guards. He can't really finish around the basket. He can't even do the only thing he used to be somewhat decent at, which is shooting and making the 3 or wide open jump shots for that matter. His confidence seems to be gone. At best, this guy is a 3rd string player who should only play significant mins if anything happens to the 2nd string player. Like I said in the Kirk Snyder thread, Kirk can't be any worse than Luther. Snyder needs to take Head's mins or Luther needs to be included in a package deal along with Battier and/or Snyder, and whatever/whoever else it takes for a decent, athletic 3rd scorer (Corey Maggette) and a good shooter (Jason Kapono, Kyle Korver, or Jamal Crawford).

If changes aren't made, be prepared for another first round exit or the lottery.

 

Oh man, that's funny as hell. I forgot to mention that the perimeter D was horrible tonight and put the bigs inside in some tough spots. The sad part about this game was that nobody for Orlando really went off (you can make the argument they played poorly) and despite the Rockets playing like crap, they still had a chance to win if they had hit their free throws. So in fairness to Houston, I should say that there was some energy tonight in the 4th quarter amongst the guys out on the court.

 

I thought aaron brooks played well when he was out there, he set some guys up for some shots but they missed, he was very fast out there to, it seemed like he was hard to keep up with. He missed his shots but so did the team to. It was a bad shooting night by all the rockets so its hard to criticize aaron missing his shots. But he did look like a rookie and I thought he deserved some more time out there. One thing that worried me was that dooling was abusing brooks as dooling looked so much more bigger than brooks. So I think we will find brooks will do well on the less physical guards.

For the team as a whole, they gotta go back to basics, because its the basic things like missing layups, missing foul shots, dropping simple passes and many other simple things that is costing the rockets games. I don't care if the rockets are having trouble with getting use to the system. Its the basic things the rockets need to do well before they learn the system properly.

For me once the basic things start to flow a little better then the rockets will start playing well and win some games, but until then we will struggle offensively.

 

what are u gays talking about????
DH>>YAO???
what about---
SB:3-10???
RA:5-13???
TM:1-10???
LS:2-7??
MJ:2-7??
STUPID HEAD:1-7???