ClutchFans Game Thread: Rockets @ Mavericks 11/13/2003

Here are my thoughts after sitting through yet another Rockets waste of time...

Memo to JVG: Dude, you are now in the WESTERN CONFERENCE. This means that you cannot play NY Knicks style basketball and expect to win on a consistent basis much less be competative night in night out. Teams in the West can score points in bunches. Oh, and you really need to go look up the definition for "zone defense". The Mavs play more zone than anyone else because theirs is a team full of guys who cannot defend one-on-one. Maybe it will prove helpful the next time the Rockets get blasted by, er, play the Mavericks.

Yao Ming: I've held back saying this for sometime but after tonight I cannot contain myself any longer. There is something definitely wrong with Yao. Yao is struggling BIG time. He most definitely has a stamina problem - he was looking winded in the FIRST QUARTER! He also looks completely lost out on the floor as if it's a complete surprise to him that opposing teams are collapsing their defense on him in order to take him out of the offensive equation. His rebounding effort was just pathetic - he gets caught out of position constantly and often gets out-hustled for loose balls. Many times tonight, he was unable to do even the simplest things like boxing out and staying with his man. In many aspects tonight he was outplayed by Shawn Bradley and if Yao is "supposed" to be as good as everyone says he is, that is something that should NEVER happen. He's not playing with any fire at all and he'll need to really step up his game in order for this team to have a chance at being competative.

Stevie "Franchise": Once again you got schooled by Steve Nash so you should be used to it by now. One would think that watching a TRUE POINT GUARD up close might eventually rub off on you but that is still not the case. As usual, you gave a clinic on how not to play the 1. Nellie sends his thanks for all of the turnovers and your usual dumbass level of play. Just keep this up and at the season's end you'll get to see first hand what it will feel like to miss the playoffs for FIVE straight years.

Kelvin Cato: NOT the long term answer at PF. The Mavs exposed his inability to really play out on the perimeter where he was often caught flat-footed and out of position. Expect every team to challenge him and make him defend out on the floor until he proves that he can do the job. Maybe he wanted to complement Yao's play when he, too, was consistently caught out of position.

Moochie Norris: Enough said...

The Rockets as a whole: In many respects, they remain the same offensively challenged bunch they have been in previous years. They will be hard pressed to score 80 points on a nightly basis and this will be the factor that will make or break their playoff chances for this season. My question for this team is where will the points come from? The name of the game is to put the ball into the basket, not go for long stretches without scoring nary a point. Mobley demonstrated yet again why that he can't be depended on for consistent scoring. Francis still appears more interested in making SportsCenter highlights than in running the offense. This team is a virtual turnover machine and still needs real frontline players (Griffin, Piakowski and MoT are hardly what you'd call "difference" makers).

Just my 2 cents...

 

uhh..when Shawn Bradley tips away the ball I think that stops Yao from scoring.

 

I was pretty upset by that too. Yao is awesome, but he should have bowed up and become a 300+ pound brick wall. I don't want to see anyone get hurt, but Nash should have had his bell rung on that play. Instead, Yao looks like a chump.

 

As an outsider it seems like SF is still resisting JVG and JVG will not back down. If he keep that up JVG will bench him for a while. Moochi is playing a lot of minutes because SF is not running the offense properly, not even a damn fastbreak. Thank god for JVG because I know he must be chewing SF's for such a lousy performance. Yao is dog tired. Conditioning is real poor. He cannot keep his hand up and he cannot hit his shots. He is tired. Simple as that.

They better look to get our players back, all of them.

 

Our offense is still inmature, that's OK. Totight most players sucked in shooting except JJ, we accept it.

However, Yao was attacked by Nash twice in the 4th quarter. That's not JVG style ballgame. ONce Yao lost his balance just like what Mabury did to him last year.

When your 7'6 center was fooled by the opponent PG , didn't our guards feel imbarrassed?

 

guys, remember that every team lose one in a while...

 

Well..I'm going to step in and say this, Steve Francis just got through finishing a tough lay-up and fell to the floor. So Steve Nash took advantage and took it to Yao.

 

This is not totally Yao's fault. If your centre was attacked by the other team's PG, there is little he could follow the moves of the little guy. A centre is not supposed to check a PG.

It's like blaming the elephane to let a mouse running around the house when the cat is not doing its job.

 

Yes, Yao looked tired. But blame the coach&guards for not controlling the rhythm. Very few big men can sustained such a shooting and run game.

 

i didnt expect a win, but we did play pretty good for most of the first half. However, credit dallas for making all their shots, especially dirk, nash, and walker. when you have a at least three guys making their shots on that team, you dont have that much of a chance. although we made some nice shots, yao didnt play as aggressive as he could have, cuttino was forcing a few shots and we couldnt break down the defense enough. Overall, not a horrible game, we just got beat by the better team, lets just hope they use this as motivation to kick ass next game.

 

SF was completely outplayed by Steve Nash.
He couldnt penetrate and run fast break.
He missed a wide open 3-point shot in the first half. Oh yeah, he did made a freaking fadeway jumper. I am sure Sportscenter will replay this shot over and over.

 

Test.

 

I hope Yao can be quicker, stronger, and can jump higher. If he cannot, this is about the game he can play.

 

When is Yao going to break out? Hopefully this will be like
last year where he shows some flashes, then goes on a tear.

It is strange though how Bradley stops this guy almost every time out!

Oh yeah...I've always bashed on Cuttino. Although he has been playing well, he can not do a good low-post entry pass to save his life.

Also, I've had him on some of my fantasy basketball teams for a few years. He typically has a hot streak in the beginning and then his inconsistencies or injuries lands him on my bench.

Whatever...just one game guys. We'll see how they do against PHX. Like I said. Dallas has our number.

 

I watched the game. It's a bad lost. I can see lots of problems.

Our guards need to learn how to control the tempo of game.

We get 7'5 weapon with limited stimina and we have to fully utilize he. Our guards let the game play too fast, and let 7'5 weapon run back and forth without ball. His stimina should be better used in offense and defense, not running back and forth.

Rockets need a real guard to plan every play.

 

I just wanted to say that the rockets dont know how to make a good post entry pass to yao, especially when guarded by shawn badly. They kept on passing it above him, instead of a chest pass, which gave shawn a chance to tip it away. Second yao is being a girl. This is the NBA.

 

No team will allow Yao to set up deep and rack up 30. You can forget about that. He'll get his 15-20 and some rebs but that's it. No team is stupid enough to play him 1 on 1 the entire game and let him dominate the paint.

If Yao gets his 15-20, we can still beat the weaker teams. No problem. But against the really good teams, that's just not good enough.

What does that mean?

There's only one way to beat the Western Conference elite:
Mobley and Francis have to be play an almost perfect offensive game.

Francis and Cat are piss poor passers. They can't run the break worth a sh**.

They are good at taking guys off the dribble and shooting the medium range jumpshot.

If they both score +20 and shoot around 50% , we can beat the really good teams. If not, we'll lose.

The probability that our 2 guards can do that on a consistent basis against top Western Conference teams is almost 0.

 

If you look at the stat, we simply lost in too much TO and too little shots made!

 

Agreed. How can you force a fast break when the fast break is not there at all? The price will be bad shot, and the fast break of the opponet team.

Talk about fast break, how many did we blow tonight? Three, four??

 

Kareem could.
Olajuwon could.
Shaq can.
Robinson could.

You want to be compared to greatness, you have to be able to compete with greatness on their level.

The tempo of the game sucked in the second half and that WAS the fault of the guards. However, if the argument is Yao didn't play well because he cannot sustain the fever-pitch of the NBA game, he better get on the stair master because this was MILD compared to what it could be.

In the 80's, this would have been considered a snail's pace. Anyone remember Olajuwon running down Kevin Johnson to block his shot when he had a breakaway layup?

Welcome to the NBA.