If you had even half a brain you'd know that the suns have gotten burned anytime Amare guarded Yao. Amare is a freakin joke on D. I always thought that you didn't know crap about Basketball, you just watch the boxscores and talk your pathetic crap whenever they win...thanks for confirming that. Why don't you go crawl back into your little hole twerp.
Yao can't be a defensive presence at all if he isn't on the court. Phil Jackson made a point to say that fouling out is a bad rule. He says the NBA should adopt the rule the defunct CBA had in which any fouls after the 6th is a free throw plus possession of the ball. When Yao wasn't in the game, it was matador defense with Stephon immediately going to the basket right past Steve. I think Stephon used to hate the All-Star snubs, but he schools Steve so much nowadays that I don't think he cares about going to the All-Star game anymore. He's got more commercial time than Steve, and he seems to be putting up better numbers than Steve every single time they match up. I can't remember the last time Steve outplayed Stephon.
Yao was in foul trouble and on the bench for most of the game..and Steve was playing point guard. That pretty much sums it up.
Cato was good enough...Yao had foul trouble but was good when he was on the court... but... what about Franchise?? Especially, his defensive and technical foul in the 4th quater was really stupid. He couldn't get Marbury at all and he also did lots of stupid shooting. I don't understand why he's trying 3 pointer while there's no one who can get the rebound... Jim Jackson is loosing his confidence and, Mobley had a bad shooting day.... I was mad about refs but, still players have to take most responsibility for the lost...
Rockets started off strong in the first with a 12-5 lead coming 6 minutes into the 1st quarter. Yao picks up two fouls within I believe four minutes. Both ticky tac and fouls that normally wouldn't even be called at an NBA level. Nevertheless Yao checks out, Suns go on a 15-0 run only to have the Rockets go on an 8-0 run following afterwards. Both teams then exchanged points ending the first quarter. Second quarter comes in, Cato fills in Yao's role beautifully atleast statistically, defensively, is grabbing boards, blocking shots, and scoring pretty good. MoT hit a few perimeter buckets for also made some costly plays where he dribbled himself into his defender too much expecting to get a foul out of it. The same typical unforced turnovers happen in both quarters with 24 second dribbling the clock out violations, bad passes where a pass would get thrown out of bounds, all in all ugly play. Rox and Suns exchange buckets though and keep the game tied at 44-44 ending the second quarter. Yao picks up his 3rd foul early on in the second quarter having only played something like 5 minutes in the whole first half. Marbury goes off for 20 points in the first half meanwhile Francis struggles to do anything at all, taking forced shots, bad passes, and piss poor defense. Third quarter comes up. Yao gets his 4th foul 2 minutes into the 3rd quarter and doesn't check in until the 4th quarter. Rockets exhange points with the Suns, same costly unforced turnovers. Fourth quarter comes up. Again more costly turnovers and again poor leadership and PG leadership from Francis. Our defense absolutely was terrible. Joe Johnson has a highlight dunk and foul. Marion gets something like 10 points in the 4th off bad passing, and quick shots in the paint. He also gets a drive in dunk that was pretty much uncontested, except for Yao who came into the picture late. Crucial part of the game. Rockets down by 6, Suns have the ball. Rox playing good D with around 2 minutes left, and it looked like the Rox would get a 24 sec violation against the Suns. Marbury loses his dribble 27 feet out around the perimeter near the Rockets coaches area of the baseline. Francis D's him, has his body right against Marburys. Seconds close out, Mary lowers his shoulder and head into Francis body, creates a little space by pushing Francis to the side and takes a half hearted shot. Ref calls a ****ty foul when Marbury had absolutely no shot at making the bucket and was actually D'ed up well. Francis gets pissed, gets a T. Marion makes the tech free throw. Marbury makes the three FTs afterwards totalling to a 10 point lead with around 2 minutes left basically killing any shot the Rockets had at making a comeback. But before that, the Rockets D was terrible, and the same ****ing turnovers were costing them the lead and the game. Rockets looked like they were going to lose before the controversial play anyway, but any momentum they might of been able to build off that potential 24 second violation that was a 4 point swing in favor of the Suns was killed. Rox lose and play like ****. The end.
man, this place is dead. haven't seen it like this in a while. that's what happens when you have a team that shows as little desire and consistently performs as poorly as the rockets have. this is just sad.
Good summary. As much as you criticisized Francis, it still doesn't touch the surface of how badly he played. I can't believe CD thought this fool deserved a MAX contract. God he sucks.
this place is dead because of the extreme, and i mean extreme bashing of players on this board. The Suns were a playoff team last year, and are now 10-17, and you go to the main Suns board and the level of bashing is three times lower than here, where the team is 15-11.
that's because they had a bad coach, not a bad team. The rockets have a bad team, not a bad coach. Big difference.
Well truthfully, as a leader Francis deserves most of the criticism. Marbury had already burned him for 20 points in the first half, and had atleast 8 assists by the games end. It wouldn't of been so bad were Francis to of played smart basketball in response, and atleast cutting down the turnovers. There was a lot that went wrong tonight I agree, but Francis was the main cause for it. From a coaching aspect I was most displeased with JVG's decision to dump the ball into MoT on consecutive possessions in the 4th when Yao had fouled out 2 of the 3 Suns centers. It was obvious he was getting calls on the offensive end and that nobody could stop him. And when they did double team him, he was making the good kick out passes around the perimeter that would lead to the open man. The decision to dump the ball into MoT in the 4th was a bad one on the coaches part. And it was obvious JVG didn't know what to do when he momentarily subbed MoT in for Cato in the middle of the 4th, confused in deciding whether the Rockets needed defensive stops which they never got, or sticking with the offensive oriented MoT who wasn't being productive. So from a coaching aspect the Rockets stunk it up. Shooting wise, Mobley and JJ shot terrible, and Pike uncharacteristically shot poor as well, although he did shoot better then JJ and Mobley. Mobley, JJ, and Francis made me sick with all the traveling calls they were called for. Francis could of been called for a couple of more in the 1st but lucked out once with a poorly ran fastbreak that somehow equated into FT attempts for the Rox. Yao didn't get a chance to be an impact in the game but when he was in he was getting the Suns centers called for fouls as much as the fouls were being called on him. I think if he wasn't in foul trouble all game long, the Rockets would of been able to establish their defense with the two towering 7+ footers clogging up the paint. It definitely would of made the Suns think twice about driving into the lane in the 4th where they were having lay up drills. So yes there were other issues that equated to this loss I agree, but Francis was still the main cause for it all given the fact that he's the guy who controls the tempo of the game, was unable to atleast lessen the damage Marbury made on him, and was still the main cause for all the unforced turnovers tonight. He does deserve the most blame more then any player tonight. Ack just read your post over again, and realized you weren't trying to defend Francis with his poor play tonight. Truthfully I'll be just as quick to praise Francis as quick as I am criticize him, but the fact of the matter is, I find myself criticizing him over his consistent poor play then his occasional good game that does deserve praise.
Fans only bash players when they care enough about the team. You should check out some of the Red Sox forums. They constantly trash the players, manager, coaches and owners but those boards are typically high traffic. I have a theory why this place is so quiet these days. Last year, we had a lot of YOFs who are not really basketball fans. They showed up here because of Yao. Now we have only the real basketball fans left. That's why we are seeing so much less traffic. Anyway, back to our regularly scheduled program.
You still don't get it, do you? This place is dead because people are disappointed, frustrated and depressed by same old stupid crap going for years, again and again and again. People are tired of it, it is OK when they play hard and lose, but it is pretty hard to see them ALWAYS play stupid and lose. When most of people don't even bother coming here and bashing, that means you have real trouble.
