ClutchFans Game Thread: Mavericks @ Rockets 2/15/2007

Postive from the loss: TMAC continues to show emotion (whether it is being "pissed" after a loss; something that never happened last season.

 

I Was at the game......2-10??? that was all cuz of rafer alston? are you kidding me?

 

Alston and Luther Head sucked real bad tonight. Luther Head in particular needed a spot on the bench in the 4th quarter as he decided to play the role of ballhog.

How the game is 78-77 and the rockets use their last timeout with 1:09 left(good job jeff, lmao) and the play they get was a couple dribbles by alston and a subsequent 3 by him is beyond me. Yeah that went well. Then with 11 sec left Luther Head thinks he's tracy and tries a ridiculous double clutch shot to win the game.

 

I know the GARM is going to go nuts over this los until Wednesday, but look the facts. The fact of the matter is that if we would have hit our free throws we'd be talking about beating a 43-9 juggernaut. We are missing the guy who was the MVP FRONTRUNNER when he went out. We are right there with a full strength Dallas team, free throws away from beating them, and we are missing Yao f'n Ming, a completely unstoppable post scorer. We also had double digit leads in both games in Dallas, and could have won those if we had Yao. Dallas has no answer for tmac or Yao when they are both in there, they better look out come WCF time.

That said, Rafer sucked tonight, and we missed to many free throws and got bad shots at the end. The ball needs to be in tracy's hands no matter what at the end like that and we have to hit 4th q free throws.

Go Rockets, f the Mavs.

 

Rafer Madness...

A quick reaction to this loss might lead one to think we are only a Yao, a point guard, and a little more composure away from challenging for a championship. I don't know. Yao IS coming back. The other two may not be so easy to come by.

Despite what Jeff Van Gundy says, this team DOES need a better point guard. Specifically, one who can reliably hit a jump shot and who also will attack the rim (like Allan Iverson), instead of the space in front of the rim. Iverson goes in among the trees on a regular basis and gets to the line for his effort. Even if they could get a better point it's questionable, with Yao coming back, whether he and the rest of the starters could adjust to each other in time for the playoffs.

We need SOMEONE, besides T-mac willing to attack the basket. McGrady seems to have gotten over his fear of back spasms, so what keeps him from attacking the basket more often? Is it the other team's defense? Or is it still the back in the back of his mind? Head suffers somewhat from Alston-itis. He will try to go to the basket but settles too often for a quick floater rather than mix it up at the rim. Battier will go to the rim and does get to the line for the effort. But he can't be relied on as that sort of player. Wells is mostly a post player and lacks the speed to go to the rim from an outside position. The Rockets only have one other player, other than T-mac with the ability and moksy to go to the rim from the arc. Kirk Snyder. I think JVG should rethink his dictum against dividing minutes between Wells and Snyder. If one isn't working out so great you might at least try the other for a few minutes to see what happens. JVG says Snyder needs to work on his focus.

... which leads back to Rafer. His mistakes (bad shots and bad passes) come at the most inopportune times -- just when the Rockets start to make a run at a critical point in the game. If Van Gundy doesn't want to play Snyder because he lacks focus then it seems obvious that he only plays Rafer as much as he does because he has no other choice.

Tonight, I wish we would have had the Mutombo we have been marveling at for the last month. Maybe he was shaken up at almost taking out two of his own teammates. It's hard to find fault, though, as well as he has played at his age.

So what will happen when Yao comes back? Is it enough to have he and McGrady on the court at the same time? Charles Barclay said at halftime that McGrady has to be the guy when Yao comes back. Of course, he had the nickname of "the mouth" for a good reason. He also said the Rockets couldn't beat any of the top four teams in the West in the playoffs, which I'm sure more than a few of us would disagree with. But I do think it is going to be tougher than we think. Yao coming back will not be a cure-all. We can only hope Rafer will feel much less of a need to "try" to go to the basket with Yao in the game. If Van Gundy won't divide time between Wells and Snyder I'm not sure he can divide possessions between Yao and McGrady with optimal results. Hopefully, it will naturally happen that the one with the hot hand in any given game will be "the guy" until the other team stops him or he cools off. And do we go back to primarily a inside/out game mostly taking open 3's? I think that is too one dimensional. And too often, we die by the 3 as often as we live by it. Inside/Out/Slasher would be better.

What a sour way to start the All-Star break, though. The only positive I take from this loss is, that, in spite of all the mistakes and no Yao, we only lost by one possession. Improve on 2-3 of our really bad possessions and we probably win. There is hope... even if Rafer sometimes trumps it.

 

Alston really needs to work on using the glass instead of that teardrop shot so much. He actually was walking away from the basket on most of his interior shots, actually moonwalking sideways away from the basket to avoid contact. If he could just finish a little bit, we would be so much better.

 

Synder was on the bench. He played 0 minutes in the last 2 games. why? he had his best game. He deserves it.

 

attack the rim like ai? rafer would have to grow a pair for that to happen.

 

no comments on Battier's 0 rebounds?? Rebounding is the most deciding factor against mavs. Yet we are out rebounded again.

TMAC , was always trying to do too much againt mavs. if he can get someone else involved a little bit, the game will be different.

JVG, sucks as always.

 

tmac trying to do too much??? he needs to do exactly this and just a bit more tonight. nothing less is expected from tmac than the very best. if it wasn't for tmac, it would be trying to piss in a cup 10 feet away and not a drop spills!

 

i thought we had this game won. most dissapointing loss of the season, by far for me and it was pretty much all on missed free throws.

i still believe we roll them in the playoffs when yao is healthy.

we beat them once with yao and definitely should have had two of the other three.

 

I think we really played well against the team that edge the Rockets in the end. But playing without Yao and a lot bad shots selection towards the regulations. It was kind of rare kind of game to Head missing those shots on the final posession. Despite of the lost against Mavs we really got a good shot of winning it all!

 

we were supposed to lose by 30.......we dont have our best player. thats the way i see it

 

If we are going to roll them in the playoffs, then Rafer and Luther are gonna have to hit shots. It's just that simple.

 

Damn right. I'm as disappointed as the next guy that we lost, but some of you guys should just be thankful we kept it so close when we got blown out the last time. There were many mistakes and things we could've done differently but please let's stop with the Rafer bashing and JVG firing threads. We lost to one of the best teams in the league by 3 points WITHOUT the best center in the game. The only time we should be pulling each other's heads off is if we lose to them WITH Yao in the lineup. Cause I'd be damed if we lose to them with our pair of duo.

 

.......and it's games like tonight's that cause me to wonder.......what could VSpan could do with all those drives to the rim????? Contact, finish....

 

that being said.......rafer still sucks. he doesnt get a pass from me. i will admit when rafer has a good game. how often is that though?

 

I think we're all being a little bit too critical of Rafer. The Rockets brought him in to bring the ball up court, take care of the ball, throw the ball downlow to Yao, and shoot spot up 3's (which he hasn't been able to do so because he needs Yao to draw the attention and kick it back out). He wasn't brought in to be a primary scoring option. When either Yao/T-Mac goes down, someone has to step up and Rafer has been trying to do that. I'm by no means trying to give him a free pass because he does throws up reckless shot and makes bad decisions every now and then. He's far from being a playoff-caliber pg, but I think he'll do as long as we have both a healthy Yao and T-Mac. Someone has to give him a little slack right?

 

How soon we forget the "Why is Rafer taking more shots than Yao" posts