I hope this is the wakeup call we need. less threes, more inside looks. more P&R's more halfcourt sets. were not the suns. there strengths lie in there shooting.we had to exploite there weaknesses. we tried to beat them at there game. not gonna happen BTW, when our team starts to go south, it seems that tracy and yao go missin in action. a real leader would not allow his team to do down without a whimper. the west is a tough stomping ground. hence we need all the leadership we can get.
Tracy did his best. His shots are just not consistently going down right now and he's having a hard time beating anyone off the dribble (Marion really had no trouble guarding Tracy's penetration). We have to accept the fact that TMac is just not TMac any more. His body just doesn't allow him to do what he used to do. Yao's numbers look decent and he was the big factor in the come back in the 3rd quarter, but again he completely faded in the 4th when it matters the most (0 points, 0 rbs in the 4th quarter). He shows yet again that he is far from being able to carry a team to victories all by himself. Novak showed tonight why he deserves to get some playing time. He is the best pure shooter on this team. JVG needs to play this kid, period. Rafer was actually our best player tonight. And that is sad.
That sums it up, McGrady is still a great player, he'll get his shot back. The Suns are a terrible matchup for the Rockets, a home/away b2b, McGrady a little hurt and Yao was limping last night too. I'll live with this loss, at least we showed that we can play with them, and we already showed that we can blow away the likes of San Antonio and Dallas. This team is gonna get all of the pieces clicking, hopefully get Bonzi on the court, and come playoff time, we will be a force.
MacMan1914 just got some senses knocked into him. Amare is a by-product of Nash. He never once created anything for his team. Not once the entire game!!! Yao was basically creating offense for everyone and himself. And as already said, whenever Amare tries to create something against Yao, he always gets stuffed. It's actually quiet funny that he keeps trying. Yao just stands there and swats it away.
I think Tmac still wanna be the No1 player in this team. This is a good thing, but only depends on your abilities....
This team is one we have to play against 4 times a season. We still have 3 more times to defeat them. Our big come back in 3rd qtr gives me great hope that we actually have a way to stop them so I hope our players learned the lesson and played well next time. Apart from Suns, we have to play against similar teams like GS Warriors, so we would have lots of opportunities to "practise". I would not blame JVG this loss as I can see he at least tried something different. We are like 5 losses to this team in a row and I am confident that the streak will be stopped next game at Toyota Centre. Go ROCKETS!
Give the big guy some break. He is playing heavy minutes every game, this is a back to back, and he is surrounded by 2-3 players everytime he gets the ball. He shouldve stayed out of foul trouble though.
Yeah Yao should have stepped up. In situations like this, when he only gets 11 shots a game, he needs to physically knock out other Rockets players and take the ball from them. Either that or he needs to develop psychic abilities whereby he can wrench the ball from teammates hands with his mind. Seriously, how the f*ck is Yao supposed to do anything when he only gets 11 shots a game? And no, they weren't forcing him the ball at all. See my sig? The Rockets didn't do that tonight.
Here is the pattern that I observed for the past few games: 1: a lot of 3 pts shoots, shoot percentage is OK 2: some low post shoots, percentage high (thanks to Yao) 3: many jump shoots within arc, and many misses Rockets managed a few wins, however, there is no way we could win against Suns without shooting in high 40. Rockets defense definitvely improved over last year, however, our players shoot really bad (to name a few: Rafer, TMac). Bad shooting really hurts the team especially when they attempted 15 or more each. Rockets definitely can make a noise in playoff this year if 1: TMac can play with heart and gets his shooting tough back 2: Rafer shoot less and wise
Agreed, It would be a different story if they were taking good shots but just couldn't make them. We lost because of those quick 3s and long 2s with more than 15 on the shot clock.
I only have numbers back to 1992, but by my unofficial count, the 38 threes they took tonight was the third most threes the Rockets have taken in a game since that date. The last time was 1997 when they took 39 threes against Seattle. http://www.clutchfans.net/game_boxscore.cfm?GameID=457 Then they took 41 in 1995-96 against Phoenix (and made just 10). http://www.clutchfans.net/game_boxscore.cfm?GameID=2590
If he's that hurt to the point where he is going to shoot under 40 percent all year, we need to trade him. We have to win now and we need someone to score and help Yao out.
Yao and I dare say any other center will fade in the 4th quarter when they only get 2 touches the entire time. But I can definitely see how you would come to such a conclusion that it was his fault after smoking a lot of crack. And Novak should NOT get more playing time because despite his whopping 6 points, he probably allowed twice as much on the defensive end by pretending to be Juwan Howard.
i didn;t say yao is the ONLY one should be responsible for Pnr defense, u should make it clear be4 u speak dude~ well, all others, in fact, defense pnr better than yao in this team, no Q about that. the only one should response for this loss is JVG, he didn't have right game plan at all, after lost 4 games in a row. learn from PJ, or move ur ass out of houston, jeff~~
Yao is tired by 4th quarter..that's all... We will be OK once Yao is fully rested and T-mac gets his timing back.
When your three guards had 59 FG tempts, it's hard for YAO to pick up more shots. And when guards shots very low %, YAO will get doubled and hard to get the ball. no one can carry a team like that to get a win vs PHO. Man, you need think about it.
