nicely writen nyeager. i was reading seriously untill this comes up ... "Back to Patrick Ewing. I've never seen a coach so blatently staring at the other team's cheerleaders. It was downright embarassing. Had it only happened once twice or three times, I might've forgotten about it. Indeed, there was much tonight that was worth forgetting. But the guy had a shorter attention span than the 12-year old on sweat-mopping duty." and it crack me up. lol. good for you for standing up for our rockets fans.
nyeager, I have been around here a long time...and that is possibly the best first post I have EVER seen here. A real shame it had to come after such a horrendous loss. for the record guys...I did take the night off...but like the true homer(sucker?) I am...I will spend this morning editing the video anyway. cheer up guys...one of two things will happen...either this will be a wakeup call to never allow this kind of thing again....or heads will roll and trades will be made...either way...its gotta get better....it can hardly be worse. oh yea...and for the record..Im still on the bandwagon. and unlike the team last night...I say never give up...never surrender. am I an idiot or what?
It takes a man of character (and a strong stomach) to go over and edit the video of a debacle like that R2K. I am hoping for the the same thing as well. This needs to serve as the final wake up call to the team. If this doesn't do it, nothing will. I am still on the bandwagon as well. (What can I say, I love galaxy Quest ). I believe we'll still make that run and start (& finish) the second half strong.
I am with you R2K, but I will not download the hightlights or lowlights for this game. I am too lazy to jump on and off the bandwagon. If more people get off, I might as well grab a better seat. This was an embarrassing game, everyone shares their blame, from Yao, TMac, to JVG, and every player. What worries me now is JVG's comments long time ago about players from losing teams got used to losing etc. Hopefully, we are not give in totally. After game 7 in Dallas, we said that it would never happen again. But last night, it pains so much to see guys like House and Bell with all kinds of gestures to show you off. There is an old Chinese saying, "Realizing shame is close to bravery." Hopefully, the players, especially TMac and Yao are ashamed of the game, and proud of themseleves, and do something to change their own fates. I am a firm JVG defender, but I got to put more blame on JVG for this game. Suns don't have any secret weapons, and they have been playing that kind of ball for a year. We can't outrun them and outshoot them. From minute one, we didn't see anything specific to play into our strength and expose their weakness. Actually, I was afraid that I woke up this morning to see headline of JVG got fired. I don't want that to happen, if PJ is still at home, maybe, but now, no good coach available, I just don't want Rockets to give up the season already. Now, a more realistic question will be, do the players still believe in JVG? People all start to blame others before they blame themselves, although they usually say the right thing. If the players no long buy JVG's system, maybe it's time for a change. Last, I had a bad feeling when I saw TMac's interview. Please, no more interviews.
Far from an idiot, my friend. Never give up! Never surrender!! (just find a very large bus to step in front of, if we don't have a long winning streak after the break. I'll be the splat on the road in front of you!)
All last night I was thinking of starting a new thread on JVG, but then I figured Nahhh.. I'll just stick my own 2 cents in at the end of 600 posts where nobody will notice. This one tonight was on JVG. I hate to say it, because he is a good coach overall, but, while this probably would have ended up as a loss no matter what tonight, the way the team performed was more because of ill preparedness than lack of ability. Collins even said it on the broadcast early on: "JVG's defense is based on DEFENDING THE PAINT. But when playing a team like the Suns, you have to be able to adapt.' Defending the paint is a waste of time when playing a team like Phoenix. They don't care about the paint, offensively. They only care about jacking up outside shots, and dribble-penetration and dish to the open man (who will ALWAYS be open against JVG's defense, because JVG is so single-mindedly determined to defend the paint). Now the Suns have some good shooters, but geez, it's not like they weren't getting wide-open looks all night long. NBA talent SHOULD hit those shots. I seem to remember, back in the day, when George Karl was the only coach who was allowed to play zone defense in the NBA, that most NBA players had to play some form of man-to-man defense. This meant that every offensive player on the court was really supposed to have a defensive player assigned to him, and if he was a good defensive player, he would spend the entire night inside the jersey of the opposing player. And guess what? You would NEVER have seen all those ridiculous wide open 3's, over and over again, with a team playing primarily man-to-man defense. The question is, does JVG not realize this? Did it never occur to him? Or does he just not have any faith in his players to be able to do anything BUT jam the inside and play 'cross-your-fingers' perimeter defense?? See, this is not a little problem, and it is just going to get bigger, and quickly. The reason a loss like this is so bad, and the reason it can be such a catalyst for a coach suddenly having to find a new zip code, is not merely because of how bad and embarrassing the loss itself is. It has to do with the players. The players know better than anyone that JVG did not have a plan for the SUns that had a chance in hell of actually working. And when players have to go into battle following a coach who let them down like that, they will very quickly start tuning him out. The coach will 'lose the players'. And when that happens, it begins an ugly death spiral the likes of which we have not seen in Houston for a LONG time. And it would be such a shame, to have that happen with the likes of TMac and Yao on the team. Before that can be allowed to happen, a change has to be made. The coach would have to go. All is not lost yet, at least I hope not. It remains to be seen whether JVG is starting to 'lose' the team. But if it happens, the immediate future of this team cannot be risked. So the question then becomes, who would be a possibility to replace JVG? Would Les be audacious enough to replace Jeff with Stan? Who else is out there who would be anything other than a tired retread?
Intriguing post, and I enjoyed the read. Right now, I can't think of a reason to disagree with you, except for the Stan thing. No way in hell that could happen, bro. And "bro" is the reason.
R2K, a thought occured to me (it happens sometimes... not often). What if you made a "highlight" video of everything the Rocks were doing wrong last night? Then, maybe we could talk about what they did wrong, what they could have done differently, and how much of it may have been JVG's fault (or not).
Rockets are going nowhere this season. This game just drives that point home. A rested Rockets team comes to play Phoenix...who played in Denver the night before...and this is what we get? We got our asses handed to us. There could have been mannequins out there instead of Rocket players and they would have done a better job. I'm disgusted and rightly so. I guess we just chalk this game up like all the others we got our asses handed to us in, throw the hands in the air, and just moan about how we didn't come to play that night. But, somehow we're supposed to keep up the hope that we can make an impact, make the playoffs, and even advance in the playoffs. We haven't beaten one of the top teams in the league once this season. Also, we haven't won a game in our division. I can't remember either ever happening at this point in the season. Injuries aside...this team suffers from bi-polar disorder. For once this season, I would like to see us play a solid game against one of the better teams in the league and not just these other poser teams who are going nowhere.
That was the worst loss this season by more than points. It was disgusting. We gave up from jump. We are going to make the playoffs, but it will be one and done if we don't find that killer instinct on the way there.
LMAO! Great stuff man, please chime in more often, I haven't laughed this hard all day. Ewing is such a playa
Although demoralizing and frustrating, it's still only one loss and should be treated accordingly......
Actually I am thinking the same too when I read R2K message. Instead of the scores our players made in that game, perhaps it would be more worthwhile to check those offensive plays that we failed to finish. Of course including those mistakes we made in those defenses. Nonetheless, thanks for the effort!
Bingo. You could see this coming the first 2 minutes of the game. Van Gundy calls timeout, you know he's setting up a play, and they go out and it's the ole dump down to Yao with the triple team, throw it out across court to Rafer, steal, layup the other way. Van Gundy is notorious for drawing up plays out of timeouts that give us a layup or a very good, wide open look at the bucket. You can't expect to just defend the Suns and shut them down. You've got to be able to score to put the pressure on them. Practically every shot that TMac and Yao took last night was contested. By a team that supposedly plays no defense. I say that's garbage. Playing defense is all about getting the other team to play the way that you want to. Van Gundy had no answers. I agree with you, I don't see a better coach out there right now. But Van Gundy needs to make some adjustments to his coaching style. This is his 3rd year, and we have almost turned the whole roster over twice now, and we are still hearing about "we don't have anybody that wants to play basketball, we don't have anybody with any heart, blah, blah, blah, blah" Why don't we? He keeps bringing his players. I know one thing we don't have right now and that is a coach that can motivate this club enough. And the reason he can't motivate enough is because he is not willing to adjust his style enough against certain teams. We're going right back down the same road we were going down before JVG and TMac sat down and had their little talk last year. If teams are smart, they will take last night's game and turn every game against us into a track meet, go small, and spread the floor, play the passing lanes, and quickly force the ball out of Yao's hands. It's really basically the old Don Nelson gameplan, which when run effectively, blows us right out the gym. Now, there are going to be times when you run into a buzzsaw. The Clippers ran into one on Tuesday night. And last night might have been a buzzsaw because the Suns were making everything in sight. Still, we didn't even have a chance after midway through the 2nd quarter. When we went to the locker room down 30+, there was no chance for a comeback, not with the JVG style of ball. We cannot come back from that big of a deficit. But buzzsaw or not, Van Gundy has trouble coaching against this style of game. He consistently has trouble getting the W against certain teams and he consistently has trouble in strategizing our team to play to it's strengths against those types of teams. In a game like last night, Yao should have either 30 points or about 15 assists. Because they don't have an answer for Yao. If you cannot shut down the opponent, you'd better have an answer on the offensive end. We've got the talent over there, a 7'6" big man with skills and a 6'9" wingman who is a scoring machine. It's inexcusable to not be able to get the ball to them and they score. It's inexcusable to start the game off shooting contested outside jumper after contested outside jumper, when our big man is 8" taller than the biggest guy on their team. It's inexcusable that when he is triple teamed, we don't have guys diving to the rim for the layups and shooting 70% from the field.
^ ^ ^ Great post.... Here's another option which I'm sure JVG is too stubborn to use. Why not turn Yao into a jumpshooter when goin up aginst a high tempo team like the Sun? Do the opposite and keep Yao out of the paint or at least minimize his post game. The kid is a near 50% shooter and is usually money from 12-15ft while still getting double teamed from outside.Get his ass free and when he gets doubled pass the ball to the cutter goin to the basket(paint should be wide open since Yao draws oponent to the outside). Can you imagine how much how much spacing we would get by doing this...it would turn into a layup fest in our favor and I garanteed the Yao/T-Mac pick-and-roll would be more successfull also. Oh yea, I forgot that JVG totally abandond Yao's mid-range game. I only see him shoot jumpers once or twice a game if that, and that was b/c of broken plays or from desperation shots. Thats too bad b/c we could use Yao's good shooting from the outside yesterday. Like what most fans had agreed already, Yao would be more of a complete player if you utilize all of his skills to your advantages depending on opponents strenghts and weakneses. Why waste a good thing?
Totally right. One of Yao's strength is his mid-range game. You could run the high low with Yao at the FT line taking that FT shot, which he hits at about a 80% clip, and Stro down low throwing down the garbage. Simple, but a lot more effective than what Van Gundy had them doing. Besides that, Yao can get back down the court better when he is up high. See, that's the kind of flexibility that Van Gundy needs to inject into his coaching. We don't want Yao up top every night, every play. But, you've got to use all the tools that are available in the tool bag. It reminds me of an electrician I knew at our office. He had a bagfull of tools but didn't like getting them out of the bag. He kept pliers in his pocket and a measuring tape on his belt. He would try to use those pliers as a hammer, he'd use them to twist the heads off screws that he was trying to unscrew, he'd use them as a holesaw, he'd cut tin with them. He'd use his tape measure to pull wire instead of getting string, he'd use it as a square and level, etc. etc. etc. It was hillarious watching him work. And you should have seen his tools and a lot of his finished work. Brand new, shiny screwdrivers, files, saws, drills, etc, sitting in his bag and on his truck, and the finished product from his misuse of the two tools he kept on him was sometimes less than professional. Not to mention, his pliers and tape looked they had been through 2 World Wars. Now, he could do things with that pliers and tape that most men could not. He could do miracles with them. And he used that to justify continuing to do the same thing. So what. Overall, his work was somewhere between mediocre and shoddy. All because he didn't want to break out the tool box.
Yao Ming at 15 feet is a lot different than Rafer at the 3 point line with the defenders playing the passing lane and cutting down the angle. I'm all for getting the ball down low last night. But, having Yao at the FT line and Stro down low would have been effective too. We had no answer for the low triple team on Yao. We should have. There were 2 guys open somewheres.
