Looks like Rox is going to be back to mediocre team after all...just as JVG had predicted, a .500 ball club. They don't have enough smart players on the court. You can't change a human brain, JUST CAN'T DO IT!! If you ain't smart, you aint!! They will lose to the Kings and drop even further.
Boki may have done well....I could almost hear him whimper each time Piatkowski hit a 3............ As for Moochie, I guess we'd have been better off playing Stiffy the whole game?
This is a team loss. The entire team shot pretty badly. But we did not play as a team. 11 total assists! 24 TOs! Nuff said. Hopefully we will learn something from the loss.
Pissed off about this loss. Malone and Stockton leave and we still lose... Main reasons for the loss tonight: 1.) Defensively, we (or should I say Steve) got lit up by two no-name rookie point guards. 2.) Defensively, Taylor got lit up by AK47 in the 4th. As someone previously mentioned, Boki would have been a great matchup against AK47. Both are about the same size and Boki doesn't lose much if any quickness to AK47. Taylor, while his hard work on the offensive end was much appreciated, was outquicked and outdone by Kirilenko. 3.) Offensively, Steve was beyond horrible. First quarter was good, but it went way downhill after that. 8 TO's? Please someone tell me that number is wrong. I hope it is. And he couldn't shoot worth a lick too. The times when they didnt' double him, he was still shut down individually. Can someone please explain to me this new move Francis has? He does a nice move or so and dribbles in and then comes to a COMPLETE STOP, and tries to do a pump fake or somethin and he ends up havin to jump back to shoot it. If Francis just has a decent game, we come out on top. On the plus side, Piatkowski is the man! It would be nice if all of our cogs in the offense played well together for a change. This team could be so devastating if Yao was playing well, if Steve played up to par, and then having people like Piat punishing you for double-teaming. Sigh
I would say our coach was just outcoached by Jerry Sloan for this one. You don't have to be that smart to beat j*zz without their top pg.
Didn't we MISS the PLAYOFFS last season due to just a SINGLE REGULAR SEASON GAME?! Improvement has to start somewhere, and we are simpy showing our disgust that we aren't seeing any improvement. We can be happy, and worry and rant at the same time. It's a talent. Right on the money, the rockets are extremely over rated right now. I have felt this way the entire season. They have 0 quality wins this year and plenty of telling losses. The best team the rockets have beaten record wise are the denver nuggets, yes people that is THE ONLY over .500 team the rockets have beaten. Mean while they have lost to pretty much every lower tier western conference team that they will compete with for one of the last spots. PHX is the only team they have beaten but they are below .500. This is not a playoff team with this mix of players. SF is the worst decision making point guard and the worst defensive PG in the league. I have been saying this since last year, he is not a winner.
All this and they DIDN'T EVEN FULL COURT PRESS! Can you imagine the outcome if the Rox were pressured like in Portland?
That Utah team did not even belong on the same court as the Rockets.... Talent wise the Jazz...suck.....but mentally, they are smarter and tougher than the Rockets. This Rocket team has mush for brains....and is mentally challenged. Our guards are the worst passers I have ever seen. Ship one of them out.....and watch the offense flow better. DD
The Chronicle article for the game mentioned how desperately Steve lobbied to get the points for Kirilenko's tip-in (they gave the points to Cato). I wasn't aware of this. I am sorry, but....God, I hate to do this, but....our team is going nowhere. If we were in the East, we'd be OK until the playoffs, where we'd get douched in the first round. I agree completely, DD. r****ded-a$$ guards. The Rockets fall to pieces, mentally, almost every game. Saying that "we need to give this team time together"? Four years in the league and Francis still plays like this. If this game didn't convince JVG and CD to hit the phones, I don't know what will. JVG mentioned the need to address our lack of size. DO IT! He has also mentioned that the team plays stupid. Address that issue, too. Lots of teams out East would kill to have Steve and let him do his freelance BS; and he plays as if that's what he wants anyway. If you got someone great in return who helped us actually win, who would miss Steve? Really. Who would miss him? No one shows up for the home games anyway. I know we all jump in here with our "trade Cat, trade Steve" threads after a dumb loss, but enough is enough. Maybe us mid-30's and older guys have reached that point of mortality when we realize these Rockets, in their current form, are doomed to mediocrity. Keep the young, stupid center. Get rid of at least 1 dumb guard. Please. Pleeeeease. CD, JVG: pleeeeease. They're giving me hypertension.
Only found 3 blocks against Yao from ESPN game log 3:15 Yao Ming missed 10 ft Jumper. Blocked by Andrei Kirilenko. 30-30 4:26 Yao Ming missed 7 ft Hook Shot. Blocked by Andrei Kirilenko. 45-43 7:24 Yao Ming missed Layup. Blocked by Curtis Borchardt. 61-64 Cato suffered blocks more than Yao.
Very well said. I was listening to the post game call-in on 610.. It seems many fans thought the same.. Guards' low Basketball IQ drove the fans away. This is why Toyota Center is so quiet, this was why Compaq Center was so damn quiet the last many years... Steve seemed to be outplayed almost every game by the opponent PG. But today is too rediculous, Jazz PG is a rookie. Both of them.. Gee..
Free agents have not worked for the TWolves this season, why would it work for the Jazz. Good coaching can only get you so far. You need talent with a high draft pick. The Jazz are wrecking their chances of getting a high draft pick by trying for the playoffs. It's going to backfire on them.
Jazz fan again who posted earlier: I am mystified as to how the Rockets lost this game. Wha' happen? But please don't blame the officiating. Yao is treated like an untouchable superstar in only his second year in the league. Why didn't the Rox get Cat and Pike more shots … ? P.S. MoT is da'bomb in fantasy leagues wherein defense is irrelevant.
http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/sports/2253538 The Rockets' offense had in the first half degenerated into such a mess, that when Kirilenko tipped a missed Kelvin Cato free throw into the basket, Francis lobbied hard and shamelessly to be credited for the basket, as if he was uncertain if there were be another. That is just disgraceful and shows how selfish a player Francis is and that all he cares about is his stats.
This is about what I expected from the Rockets and I expect many more nights like this. I predicted that they would struggle in the first months because JVG is forcing this cast of characters to actually play organized basketball for the first time in 4 years. How they play in the next month will determine whether they are headed to the playoffs or back to the lottery because if this keeps up there definitely will be a trade for a guard. My money is on Mobley being dealt with SF moving to the 2. A good bit of the anger & disgust being vented tonight is due to the fact that many here thought the Jazz were dead and buried without Malone & Stockton. I have lost count of the number of arrogant posts that turned their noses up at the Jazz. Well, this just proves one of my main contentions: The Rockets cannot afford to look down on ANYBODY. This is a team that has been in the lottery for 4 straight years! They are going to have to prove that they belong by producing on the court. They will not be able to BS their way into the playoffs - they will have to earn it by playing WINNING basketball on the court. And that's the rub. They have yet to show that this team AS PRESENTLY CONSTRUCTED, is capable of doing just that. They have picked up a ton of bad habits and it will be some time before JVG can exorcise this culture of bad basketball play and losing. A lot of these guys will not be around by the time this happens.
Read the previous messages. He got blocked mostly from behind by that super athletic Russian guy. Man, speaking of quickness, that Russian guys is really fast in terms of every aspect.
