ClutchFans Game Thread: Rockets @ Mavericks 11/5/2007

again, if we had JVG here, tmac would still be running the pick and roll all day. you're happy with that?

bonzi will never play under JVG. francis will never sign with us. JVG might not want another international player after his antics w/ vspan.

and please don't bring up larry brown.

 

and another note: since nobody on this team is comfortable on this offense yet, we are riding tmac through this rough stretch.

as yao gets more comfortable playing a certain % at the low and high post, the others get better w/ their roles, tmac will resort to be a playmaker more during the game or play off the ball more.

but again guys, relax. let's see how we'll do tmr. sucks we played hard tonight and go straight to play the spurs.

 

i hope so, it would be a shame to waste yao's talent. shoot, adelman could run iso for bonzi for all i care; but when yao is in the game, take advantage of the mismatch!

 

We lost to a good team. The game was close until the end, when the wheels came off. The Rocks didn't play well in several facets of the game and still could have won. I depressed, but it is one game. Big hairy freakin' deal.

So we're not going to go 82-0.

 

Until Francis is givin 20+ minutes a game... you can almost certainly pencil in games like this as a L...

James wont give up his shot and Rafer just doesn't do enough for this team. Adelman needs to do what this team needs to do and that's get it's best potential out there working together as early as possible so by the end of the season we are unstoppable. If you want the same old stuff from last season, leave Rafer in.

 

eh, no shame in losing to a great team on their homecourt. i actually think we'd been better off if harris was playing for them.

the key to this game was the amount of times luther head got abused on defense. dallas kept posting him up and adelman kept leaving him in there. huge mistake.

we'll learn from this, continue to tune up the offense and spank the mavericks later on in the year. it would have been a nice win but it's only one game.

 

tmac did get Yao involved by constantly asking Yao to set P&R for him

 

can anyone explain this picture? why is there such a difference between Deke's and RA's expressions?

 

Out of all the guys coming off the bench, from what I can see, Bonzi is playing the crappiest. Shooting 30% FG, nothing behind the arc, 8 TOs and 5.7 PPG. Not exactly lighting it up, especially when we have been hearing about how much better shape he's in this year and how much he likes playing for Rick.

Could Bonzi's minutes go to Steve? Hmmmmmmmm........

 

It was a very fun game in person... even with the result.

The Rockets seemed to be very in it... had many chances to really pull ahead, but seemed to at the same time be stale and stagnant. At times I thought they missed some attack moments... as if they were trying too hard to set up the play instead of just going into the open lane and taking it to the basket.

I witnessed a few great moments that I haven't witnessed first hand before though... While he needed more inside work over all, IMO, I did love the long range jumper or two from about 20' from Yao. I think if he gets that game tuned up, along with the inside, he will be a complete beast to deal with.

We needed about 1.25 players more to heat up when it counted. Bonzi bounced... Scola bombed... Battier even whiffed. But that will change. I could stand to have a little SF3 experimentation, but he needs to show that he wants it... Where was Deke?

A few too many shots from outside were settled on by T-Mac and MJ late... When we were up by one (I believe 87 to 86??) the long range "settle jumper" killed the momentum. Really missed some opportunities to keep a lead earlier too.

The best non-play moment was during one of the time outs, or quarter changes, they had a "name that tune" game between these four girls from the crowd...

Every song was easy... like "Jump" and "We Are Family" - then they started playing Kool & the Gang's "Celebration" and all four girls were stumped until the words came in... to which I hollered out (toward my Dallas fan wife), "Yea, you don't get used to that song until you've won a title."

Some of the Mavs fans around us actually said, "Ouch" and "good one."

Of course they screamed extra loud at me near the end when the Rockets went flat... especially when Battier missed everything and it lead to a fast break the other way (I was in the Battier jersey).

I enjoyed it... my son was bummed that the Rockets lost, but I just reassured him that we have 78 more regular season games, and that this one game is just bigger to a Mavs fan that has never seen their team win it all... that Mavs fans think this is a big deal, but it's just one early season game... After explaining (again) that the Rockets have been world champs twice, and the Mavs have never, he stuck out his chest, straightened his Rockets hat and walked side by side with me with pride.

"Train them right" I always say.

 

RA has something up his ass... Deke is cheering 'WE WANT STEVE' and RA is thinkin 'nah I'm a stubborn b*tch... I'd rather see us lose this one then put SF3 in the game!'

 

Here are my wisdoms...

1.) We stuck with them (even though they were missing some players) till the end. Poor execution combined with great execution and good shooting by the Mavs killed us at the end. Not a real big deal considering that we are still getting adjusted to the offense and all.

2.) Bonzi has yet to provide as big of a spark off the bench as I first envisioned when he joined the team. His 3 point shooting has been woeful and he hasn't really changed the game with his post-ups. I expect/hope that to change as the season goes on.

3.) Legler made a good point on NBA fastbreak that our 3rd best player isn't as good as the other elite teams' 3rd best players. I think that can be remedied if Bonzi ever lives up to his billing, if James has #'s that are even remotely close to his Toronto #'s, or if Francis gets in the lineup and plays well.

4.) We had a poor shooting night.

 

Yao refuses the answer a question about his lack of touches. I personally would have like to see him say what he really want to say (GIVE ME THE F*CKING BALL), but it's the right thing to do to not say anything. His answer, though, is telling. He said what he said b/c he know what he wants to say (I want more touches) would cause rifts in the team.

http://sports.sohu.com/20071106/n253086868.shtml

When asked about his quantity of shots today, particularly in the 4th quarter, Yao didn't want to say much. When asked the question, he answered with a question, "Do you want to cause trouble for our team?"

 

More stuff:

http://canadianpress.google.com/article/ALeqM5iZwZX8oyIY_daZ-HF7mUtAgZZxrw

Adelman hopes to put the lessons learned to good use right away. The Spurs play in Houston on Tuesday night.

"It's tough but that's our challenge," he said. "We have to learn how to beat a good team and get more people involved."

I wonder who that's a jab at?

 

The ugly shot that Dirk put and in is a result of SCola leaving him wide open and i don't know why. What is he thinking??

 

can u just stop dissing tmac? i know you think he's a ballhog. i know you want yao to average a gazillion points. i know you want yao to be the best in the history o the NBA.

For now, this is what the Rockets offense has become: Get Tracy McGrady shots, lots of shots, and hope he stays hot long enough to carry them.

This is not the idea. For now, the notion of making it easier on him has been shelved, with the Rockets offense too often bogging down and needing him to search shots.

Some of that will change quickly. Figure Yao Ming to start getting more and more touches. He must attack double teams before they trap him, and he will. The Rockets will find him more.

But as McGrady went for 35 on 12 of 31 shoots (but 10 of 11 on the line) to remain the NBA's top scorer, it is clear that the Rockets offense is still not there, rarely moving bodies and the ball quickly and easily enough for there to be enough good shots to go around.

"We have to get a better flow offensively for sure," Rockets coach Rick Adelman said. "I don't think we've had a good flow offensively, other than Tracy having that monster game (in Utah). We're just kind of finding our way offensively. We've been fairly consistent defensively, but offensively, we have a long way to go. We haven't found a balance to our team, yet. That's going to take time."

or maybe we're just riding tmac through this patch b/c the rest of the team does not have the offense figured out, hoping tmac can carry them.

when the rest catches up, we'll have more balance and tmac ppg will go down.

 

Yep, Yao for Kobe straight up. We can play with Deke for 40 min each night.

 

I know you're happy right now that McGrady is putting up huge numbers. But we could not win a winnable game tonight. By the end of the game they didn't even bother trying to go to Yao, in fact they didn't even bother telling him to post up. He just stood around. Meanwhile, McGrady gets the ball again and again, misfiring repeatedly, and it's not like Yao's shot was off.

Yao is definitely not happy with his lack of touches, or he wouldn't resort to "do you want to cause trouble for our team?" as a response to a question about his touches. Even McGrady supposedly wants to establish Yao in the low post, but it didn't get done, even though Yao was shooting well; in fact Yao didn't even shoot a jumper, he shot 5 foot jump hooks all night. Adelman wants McGrady to spread the ball around and get people involved more.

Who is to blame? I don't know, but I do know McGrady shot 12/31 tonight and stopped passing to Yao. Again invoking Clyde Frazier.... Yao will go home hungry tonight, because he wasn't fed enough.

 

oh my god man, who did i say was to blame? TMAC.

is your main goal on here is to find out all the TOFs and try to beat it to death.

we were in this game. what are u talking about? we had a great chance to win. our D actually failed us more than our offense if u didn't notice that also. they shot 47%. that's not good if u want to win on the road.

 

On a somewhat unrelated subject, I didn't like Adelman's substitution pattern. The 5-6 minute spurts thing IMO makes it hard for Yao to get into a rhythm. What particularly annoyed me was when Yao was taken out right after the massive dunk.