ClutchFans Game Thread: Rockets @ Hawks 11/16/2004

Rasheed had a quote that doesn't apply to playing the Rockets..

"Both teams played hard"

 

Agree on this one definitely. Not sure about the other ones. We dominated the first three quarters. So you cannot say Yao didnt' get good position. Guards played poor, etc. It's the fourth quarter. JVG didn't call right plays in the last quarter.

That is it.

 

We should make a petition to fire JVG!

 

instead of cutting and pasting other peoples comments, listen up son...

1) Way before 1:30, there is a bonehead named, "ward" who turned the ball over when we had the game under control.

2) Way before 1:30, we had players throwing the ball carelessly like it's some infectious disease.

3) Mo T suprisingly rebounds and then misses a crucial layup.

After that it was def. over. This game was very 'winable' despite the chock and our players fumbling like idiots... thinking about something other than the game...

 

We don't have the personell?

Look at what GS, Utah, Seattle have, GS/Sea won't keep it up. But Utah is a prime example of good coaching. They had a garbage team last season and Sloan found a way to make a group of scrubs, except AK47 play basketball.

Now Utah is almost unstoppable. They lost their 2 starting PGs and Sloan still got a guy to come in and fill in perfectly.

 

I think anyone who is reasoning that Yao has something to do with the loss didn't watch the game in the 4th quarter. The Atlanta coach told Drobnak to front, and they got Harrington to cheat over from the weakside to protect against the lob. This is almost an indefensible manner of denying the pass into the post. However, this kind of defense produces open shots for other teammates. Noone else was able to make a shot. That's zone defense. You can take the ball out of the low post player without any problem. I saw the Spurs do this to Shaq. Shaq got 6 freaking points in the 1st half.

I put this loss on the coach. I don't usually do that. I blame JVG for this loss.

 

This idea that Yao wasn't trying to get the ball is just crap. The team didn't even bother trying to set him up in the 4th quarter, and the rare times they did, there was horrid entry pass spacing pr they made him post on the other side after having position by swinging it around the perimeter.

I can't believe some of you are defending this piece of crap offense. On a key play off of a timeout in the quarter, Tracy McGrady takes a 15 foot jumpshot with no ball movement within the first seconds of the possession. On other plays, Yao is asked to set outside screens, only we don't actually use him in the pick and roll with them. We instead have role players like Jim Jackson forcing up 25 foot heaves with the shot clock winding down on a key possession under 3 minutes left in the game because we take so damn long to set up any offense. The sad thing is this happens every game. We have guys like Taylor getting more one on one plays than Yao way too often. At some point the coach has to figure out a way to space the floor to get the meal cow the ball, but Van Gundy doesn't do this. One of the best ways to watch a coach is plays after timeouts, and tonight when it mattered most our plays were pathetic(ball stolen to ice game, and T-Mac's badly hurried 15 foot jumper).

And like somebody else said, Van Gundy's substitution patterns suck beyond belief(no boki two games straight). For the love of God, Ryan Bowen cannot shoot a basketball to save his life, get him out of the every game rotation. Oh, I, forgot, he is a Van Gundy type of player. Then we have slow as molasses Charlie Ward who clearly wasn't on, but somehow he made it into the crunch time lineup tonight. Go figure. And two games ago JVG left Yao on the bench for about 7 minutes while LA piled up a huge lead knowing full well he was without T-Mac that night.

Of course some of this is on the players but it is Van Gundy's job when they aren't feeding what is working to design ways to get that done. He didn't do that whatsoever tonight and I'm sick and tired of watching him ask Yao to set screens on the perimeter that don't accomplish anything. That needs to be Taylor or JJ's job, not one of your two best players.

The bottom line is this idea that Yao just didn't want the ball late in the game(drobnjak took him out of it?) tonight is foolish and idiotic. The team didn't make a concerted effort to get him the ball in the 4th quarter, and somebody ought to teach these guards how to throw an entry pass. And in timeouts it's Van Gundy's job to draw up better inbounds plays than the ones I saw in crunch time tonight.

Plus, I'm sick and tired of hearing comments from Van Gundy like the ones I heard after the LA loss: The rebounding/defense bothered me but not the 34 percent shooting. The 34 percent shooting should concern you Jeff because you have to be good at both ends of the court to go anywhere come May/June. But I wouldn't expect anything less from a guy who runs set offensive plays for Dikembe Mutumbo when he comes off the bench.

 

if only we had steve nash, he set amare 18 assists ,and amare got 34 pts.

 

where are the post-game quotes? I am curious about what JVG would say about this game.

 

You are silly. Yao is not superman. Tmac did ok. You simply cannot complain about a guy with 25 points in the first three quarters.

And looks like you didn't watch the fourth quarter. I saw yao fighting, I saw JVG making calls to let Tmac take over, I saw everybody forcing shots everywhere because the first three quarters came really too easy.

Why don't blame those instead of Yao? I don't undstand your reasoning. You need to take a break yourself.

 

We still Lacking killer instinct
We should have put Atlanta away in the 3rd

I was afraid of this last nite with the Nets
I say BLOW THEM OUT . . .
we need some 20~25 pt leads

We need to be able to Cruise SOMETIMEs
but we let folx HHHAANNNGG around
and
sometimes it comes back to bite us

Rocket River

 

Yao will not lead unless he is absolutely forced to. With 6:00 minutes to go, he also thinks it's Tmac time. If Tmac was not there, I bet he would have played differently in the 4th.

 

Thanks tinman. You absolutely made my night. Now I can go to bed in peace laughing my butt away.

 

No edit. But could not say better than you do. Some of the guys here are just ridiculous. If coach called it, what do you expect yao to do? I am sick of these guys more than tonight's JVG.

 

Thanks tinman. You absolutely made my night. Now I can go to bed in peace laughing my butt away.

 

Haha, this made me feel better tonight.

stupid Lue needs to go. He was not even looking for Yao. In the past two games, I saw him at least twice moving towards another direction when yao is in a good position.

 

You long for the "championship years" offense... and I do as well... but that team had far better shooters.

Cassell, Horry, Elie, Clyde, Maxwell, Smith... they could all hit at least 50% of their shots if left wide open.

Tonight, we saw a semblance of that, minus the actually MAKING the shot. The Hawks were packing it in throughout the 4th quarter, daring any Rocket to make a wide open 3.

Ward almost airballed 2, Lue was terrible, JJ hit one... then went back to his cold self.

Boki or Padgett might have helped, but it wasn't like we were getting stops in the 4th quarter either... there's no way either of them could stay with Harrington or Walker.

The Rockets need to make their wide open shots on offense, or you'll never see Yao single-teamed again.

But, I'm not saying that this was all the shooters fault... this team did have a meltdown in terms of not getting Yao the ball, and not turning the ball over.

I'm not saying JVG deserves zero blame, but he doesn't deserve all of it either. It was a TEAM loss.

 

If in fact JVG is calling every single play, demanding that Yao sets picks for the last 5 minutes of the game, then I will back off of what i said about Yao not wanting the ball. Clearly, if that is true, then JVG is to blame for bad play calling.

I don't know, I just find it hard to believe that an NBA coach would be that stupid. If JVG thinks it would be too hard to get Yao the ball against that defense, we should still have Yao post up to suck the defense in, resulting in much better shots than what we got at the end of the game tonight.

I guess my main point is, in general, way too many times I see Yao trying to get position, and when he doesn't get the ball after a few seconds he comes all the way out of the post to set picks. Then again, maybe JVG tells him to do that.

 

rocket ought to sign someone who would like passing ball to yao,such as