Highly likely. It seems the Rockets have always played down to the level of their competition. Even back before the 2 championships. Minnesota used to give us fits(and they literally had nobody).
The regulars without Landry would have lost this game. Landry is a rookie. There is no excuse for the way the Rockets play down to their competition. When it is a bad team they go into their sputtering little fire routine. That is a sign of the lack of a true competitive spirit. Now, LANDRY. He wasn't just good, he was GREAT. I saw something special tonight. This kid has done this CONSISTENTLY when he has been give minutes. He should continue to get major minutes until he is ready to start. He obviously needs to work out the rookie kinks, but this kid is starter material (especially on our team where almost any other player in the league is starter material) Landry has mad offensive skills. I am truly impressed with him. AND he has a midrange game. Brooks should have been given more time. He looked very, very good out there. Conclusion: (and I actually believe this) Our rookies are better than the starting supporting cast. By the end of the season this will be glaringly apparent.
Great game CL!! The Yao-Tmac incompatibility syndrome still goes on. Maybe they should convert Tmac into a PG like what Pippen did at the end of his career. Regardless I still think Tmac major issue is his D. Pacers were having a firework day from the long range. The refs seem like to dogpile on Yao. When Yao has a so-so day, these refs almost automatically try to compound the issue by giving all the benefits to the defenders.
It's not the data. It's something missing there? Energy? Chemistry? Just don't feel right. I don't know what it is. But the offense didn't go fluently. Neither did D until final moment. I thought we were gonna blow them out. Maybe I am asking too much.
McGrady shot selection seemed a little better in this game. He did miss a couple of wide open shots, but atleast the shots themselves were not poor. Thank God Carl Landry is on this team. He completely saved them tonight. He is quickly becoming one of the better and consistent players on this team, but he is a rookie. For a team looking to contend in the playoffs, that is NOT a good sign. On a side note, I'm really tired of Rafer as the starting PG on this team. If this team has aspirations of anything more than a first round exit, they MUST do something to address this problem.
The rookies kicked the assed of the so-called "superstars" today in terms of play. I say give the starting lineup one more chance. If they go out tomorrow and drag their asses around the court like retirees on strollers they need to sit down and let the bench play. At least the rookies put out consistent effort.
Both Yao and T-mac struggled tonight...and yet we still won. Do you realize how awesome that is when both your stars have less then stellar games and other guys can pick it up to bring the win home??? That's huge. We had 5 players in double figures and scored 106 pts. You can't complain about offense there. Defensively, we didn't play great, but it wasn't bad either. They just made a heap of 3's that killed us.
If Indiana shoots 35% from 3 point range we DO blow them out. Scola got 2 early fouls and had to sit out the first half. He came back in and played pretty well the 2nd half though. His fouls were a bit iffy and he may have been a bit gunshy.
Right on. We should be happy that we can pull out these type of games when our starts struggle. We've been complaining for so long for this, and now that we have it, people are still complaining.
I don't care if T-Mac/Yao come out and just have an off night. What's unforgivable is that they showed no hustle. Their play was flat and lifeless. It's just pure arrogance to think that you can come out and cruise for three quarters and then pull off a win based on pure talent. How many times has that come back to bite them in the ass? This is one case where maybe Van Gundy would be preferable to Alston. A little ass kicking is probably in order after the crappy play in this game. What's even more worrisome is whether or not there are chemistry problems on the team. I'm not the only one wondering if Rafer can play with T-Mac.
Look, when the opposition hits 12 threes on 50% shooting getting out of there with a victory is more than satisfactory.
4th quater when the game is on the line McGrady Jump Shot: Missed 6:52 McGrady Jump Shot: Missed 5:16 McGrady 3pt Shot: Missed 3:15
Landry was awesome but I still think Scola is better overall...... I will say that Chuck Hayes needs to buy stock in Walgreens because he is going to be one tweezer buying mo-fo....because he is going to need to pull all those splinters out of his ass for the next couple of years. Scola and Landry are the real deal. Agreed, but our defensive intensity was just not there, most of those 3s were uncontested... Our 2s and 3s were horrible on D tonight....especially Tmac and Bonzi... DD
Yao and McGrady are not robots. They will have their bad games. Remember it takes 5! <object width="425" height="355"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/gRhSUiCVUV0&rel=1"></param><param name="wmode" value="transparent"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/gRhSUiCVUV0&rel=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" wmode="transparent" width="425" height="355"></embed></object>
