ClutchFans Game Thread: Rockets @ Lakers 12/25/2003

I know it's off topic, but did anyone tape tonights game. Hell, does anyone have Yao-Shaq I and II on tape?

 

actually we lost our last 2 national tv games..it's just that it's against the Lakers...and it's on Christmas

 

A really gut wrenching first 3 quarters when I saw Francis & Cat ignore everyone and just go one on one to the hoop. Yao set like 35 picks and only get 2 really ugly passes out of the roll from Francis.

If not for the lakers' 4th quarter collapse and Rox's brilliant 4 quarter defense, Rockets can't win this game with Cat & Francis chose to ignore this teammates for 3 straight quarters.

It's absolutely not good news for the Rockets because now Francis is going to think that's the right ways to do things by being the hero tonight and want to be the hero all the time even though he does not have Michael Jordan's ability to have it every night.

You guys argue that Yao gets enough pass from teammates. I can count it with 1 hand. In fact it's so few I can list all the passes here:
1. start of the game, Yao pick and get an ugly kick out to bury the 20 foot jumper.
2. Yao gets a nice pass from Kato to lay it up for 2.
3. Yao's only field goal in 2nd half, same as 1 and he gets a really good jump shot in.
4. pass to Yao in post , Yao fake, and turns around bury the jumper over Shaq
5. 2 really ugly passes to Yao, Yao missed both because Shaq is all over him
etc.

It's amazing Yao gets 18 points off so few passes from other guys. I can count his other points:
1. a offensive rebound dunk put back, great hustle
2. another offensive rebound tip in after Cat missed the easy layup from a nice Yao pass

I know you guys are going to say who gives a damn about Yao, Rox beat the lakers.

If you guys know basketball at all, you know the 1st 3 quarters are painful to watch as time and time again, the guards ignore their teammates. Even though Yao is automatic from outside, he only get 2 opportunities to shot the outside jumpers while Francis & Cat lost the ball driving into defenders. At the same time, Lakers crept back and tie the game after Rox goes on a scoring drought. Simply because there's no pass and no ball movements.

I will give credit where Credit is due. Props to the Rockets showing amazing defense in the 4th quarter, Props to JVG for defense. Rox can not pull this out without some great stops at 4th. Francis does not turn the ball over too much, except 2 really stupid turn over cause by Payton stole the ball from Francis.

 

I could tape the game. It is being replayed here on my satelite's ESPN channel. I am not at home with my computer where I could just burn it directly to DVD, but I think I could do something with it here.


Great win. Stevie Franchise hit some HUGE shots. Mobes and Moochie put this one away for the Rockets. (big 3's)

 

DUDE...You need to chill out. Stop this pointless annoying whinning over nothing. The team one. All the Rockets did a good job in this game.

You say you can count how many touches Yao got in one hand?! What are you some kind of FREAK?! You have 10+ fingers on one hand?!

Stevie had 7 asissts, Mobes had 4. YAO took 14 shots, second most on the team. (SF had 18)

It's posts like your last one that make me not want to enter the GARM Forum.

 

I'm happy for the win, on national TV too. Read my post again, Uprising, it's not how many touches Yao gets, I said how many good passes Yao get from his teammates.

 

Oh yeah, here is the link to the box score:

Rox and Lakers Boxscore

Stop the hate. Keep your idolizing to yourself...you are making me sick. (I have no problem with people who support Yao. I for one am a HUGE Yao supporter, but why type all that crap about how bad the team was?) Statistically the team was good.

 

I saw that in your post, but I replaced the word with touches...I don't know why.

Anyways, He did get a lot of passes. Our entire offense revolved around him in the first half. That is until he got into foul trouble.

Ok, I guess my question to you is what is your definition of "good pass" to Yao? A pass to him in the post isn't good?

I don't get what you are trying to say about our guards playing bad ball by not giving him good passes.

 

Nevermind RVPALS, I just checked out a couple of your other posts in the other threads. I see that you love to bash Steve Francis....so that explains it.

 

What a wonderful christmas present! I dont have NBA League Pass so the only Rockets games I see are the ones on ESPN/TNT etc. I havent seen one since November.

Man were there a lot of different things since the last time I saw them.

Some of the important things that I saw that I think made a BIG difference are.....

1) JJ brining the ball up. That's right, Steve is NOT the PG. How many times have we said this? Having Steve be able to roam and be free of the burden of bringing up the ball makes the offense start much quicker. Steve might be PG in name, but the reality is we had a Point Forward last night start the offense. This is a nice "stop gap" measure but I think it just continues to alert us that the GOAL should be to get a REAL PG and move Francis to the SG spot where Francis can flourish. That does not mean Francis can't play some PG, just that it is better normally to have him off the ball to start the set. Francis played a really nice game last night. Very low turnovers. Low turnovers, because he wasnt playing PG all night.

2) High Pick N Roll's with Yao. Francis and Mobley using the PNR with Yao were unstopable! FINALLY we get to see the high post offense from Yao and it was brilliant! Yao should still continue to play in the low block but he was killing the Lakers at the high post. Using this offense against Shaq, moving him away from the basket, is a great coaching move!

I think those two major OFFENSIVE adjustments along with some pretty decent outside shooting really made this team look good tonight.


Pretty much ALL YEAR our defense has looked solid! The KEY to the entire thing is just getting some good offense (like tonight) to go along with the defense and put it all together.


I am going to be really interested to see if the team continues with the high pick and rolls with Yao and with JJ playing point forward. I hope this is not just a one night thing. It needs to be used more often!

 

Rox beat the Lakers

"Ya Boi! Ya Boi! Thats what im talkin about! Thats what im talkin about" <-- Steve

It always seems to me Steve brings his A game when its on national tv so i hope we play on ABC every game!

 

If WE knew basketball??? Damn, this is one of those moments I wish I could pull Jack Ramsey out from behind a movie poster like Woody Allen did with Marshall McCluen in the movie Annie Hall so Ramsey could say, "Son, you know nothing about basketball. How you came to the conclusion you could make objective observations in a public forum is beyond me."



Deuce: JJ has been used all season long to bring the ball up across half court. I wouldn't exactly call him a point forward. He really just brings up the ball and gives it up to the guy starting the offense. Mainly, I think it is designed to give the defense a different look and give Francis some rest. But, hey, whatever works.

 

Why is everyone in the media saying that Kobe wasn't involved in the offense and wasn't aggressive? He took 26 shots (9-26), the next closest laker (Devin George) took 13 shots. I still think when it's all said and done the Kings or Spurs will be in the Finals.

 

Nevermind UPRISING, I just checked out a couple of your other posts in THIS THREAD HERE. I see that you love to bash Yao....so that explains it.

 

I don't care...what a great win.

But I can tell you that the Rox played better with Yao out of the game. In the 2nd half, he reverted back to the timid Yao of the past. 5 fouls or none...he needs to keep the passion up.

And btw...I hate it when Yao stands in the high post waiting to set a pick. That's why he doesn't get a pass. He needs to assert himself and ask for the ball more! He needs to get dirty.

Also, Yao needs to stop "volley-ball" tipping rebounds. I think these are bad habits from playing in the tourneys in China. Grab the board and hold on to it! People in the NBA can jump or are just as tall as you Yao!

And that jump hook you learned from Ewing has got to go!!! Use the footwork that you had emulating the dream. What happened to the Shanghai Shake?????

 

I don't know that I have ever seen JJ as the guy that brings the ball up the court almost exclusively when he was in the game. I'm not sure when I first noticed it but when I did I never saw Francis bring the ball up the court in the first half....not even once. Not saying that I could not have just missed it but Francis usually received the ball after it crossed the 8 second line, he then ran the half court offense but I think JJ bringing up the ball just took a tremendous load off of Francis and he might have been better able to concentrate while in the half court sets which I thought he did and outstanding job running in the first half.

Ironically enough Francis started the second half bringing the ball up the court and for a long time the pick and rolls disappeared. We also started turning the ball over a lot as a team. I have know way of knowing if that had any effect on it but I just thought it was a little ironic. I think anything we can do to reduce the pressure off of Steve is a good thing. When JJ started bringing the ball up the court again the it appeared as if the offense ran smoother, of course I also know that JJ was on the bench during a stretch in the 4th when the Rockets took over so who knows? I may be making entirely too much out of it.

 

intimidating haha

 

That last sentence may be the stupidest thing that I have seen in a recent post. Not many teams with good PF's. We are in an era dominated by PF's! We are currently the only WC playoff team without a good/great PF.

Besides, Slav didn't play a terrible game. 10/7 at a 45% clip. Sure, Malone may have done better(If you wanna talk season averages, Malone would have thrown in a few more points and a couple more rebounds), but I really don't think it would have made a difference. The defense contained Kobe, Payton, and Shaq last night...Throw Malone in for kicks if you'd like, but I don't think it would have mattered last night.

So, please, open your eyes, close your eyes, just do whatever it takes for you to appreciate a quality win and acknowledge that Yao is only a component of this team, just like Francis, Mooch, and Pike are.

 

The NBA always screws the Rockets on holiday games. They either play the night before or after a nationally televises game. Christmas day they looked & played like a playoff contender & 2nite they will come out flat against the Nuggets.

 

Couldn't be more proud of our guys. We had our share of Turnover's that could have been prevented, but other than that we played great.

Yao was on fire this game. His rebounding seemed suspect as usual. Cato is a lot more important than most people in here seem to think. including me.

JJ can shoot, and shoot lights out IMO. He always has. just had a poor shooting start this year IMO. Cat played hard on D, Kobe had a 9 -26 day.

If we can bring this intensity and shooting % we should win A LOT more games. Lets see if they can keep it up.

Merry Christmas everyone.