ClutchFans Game Thread: Rockets vs. Pistons 11/02/2004

Nice point.
Yao needs to let out his emotion. Yell to ref, or elbow some fakers. If he is going to get called chicken foul no matter what, hit hard. Just let people know abuse on a nice guy is not right! Nice guy? No more!!!

 

We MUST trade either Howard or Taylor, none of them can play defence!

 

Amen. I was yelling at the TV tonight. Yao has two options - he can complain to the refs or he can start swinging those elbows.

It is ILLEGAL to push a player off the block! Force the refs to foul you out or hurt somebody.

ARGH.

 

Dissapointing ugly game to watch tonight. Rockets still look raw in terms of teamwork, but it's to be expected being the first game of the season and all against the defending champions. I'll give them to the all-star break to get themselves together before I start letting out any concerns.

That said I was dissapointed in Yao's play tonight. I thought him coming into the start of the season would mean he wouldn't be as slowfooted as he was in previous seasons and that maybe he'd have a bit better rebounding ability. Yet I still saw him fumbling the ball in rebound opportunities I thought he could have gotten but slipped out of his hands.

I also was dissapointed in a couple of close attempts where he would double pump a layup where he should have dunked it strong. I so badly want to see him throw some elbows, get angry, and play with fire.

 

Tmac is settling on the jumper way too much. How many times did he take it to the hole the entire game? like 3 or so, and on one he missed a layup. Mo succeeded in not playing D and still managing to not box out. Please, Mo, at least do one or the other. If you wanna give Rasheed an easy jumper from 8 feet, at least box him out instead of standing there like an idiot.

The team has to go through Yao more. We never really put any pressure on their D with Yao. He missed some jumpers, then just decided to set picks the rest of the night. He cannot just give up after missing like 5 shots. Pound it down their throat! Force them to double team if nothing else.

 

we only had 8 ast. for the whole game, that is gotta be changed.

 

That's funny cause I felt that Yao was doing a great job of actually grabbing the ball tonight. It looked to me like he had quicker reflexes than normal when rebounding.

 

anybody here disappointed at our PG play? I'm even more upset at our PG's then yao's performance tonight. Yao got good looks and was called on a lot of phantom calls. He's fine and on any other night with any other officiating crew, the calls prolly wouldve been different.

but back to the PG's. To me, Ward and Lue are terrible. This team was supposed to cut down the turnovers when Stevie and Cat left, but its still there. I've never seen a game where our PF instead of our PG would bring up the ball so much. And even after Mo Taylor would bring the ball, Ward would go right up to him (still covered). That causes Turnovers. Ward looks clueless out there and picks up his dribble too much. And as for Lue, i've always disliked him ever since he played for the lakers and he said he shut down AI. We need Sura back!

I say trade Mo Taylor for a Starting PG (i know a little pipedreaming but o well)

 

Man, this was the first game of the year for our brand new team against the defending champs.....I'm gonna have to cyber b****-slap every one of you thats complaining. Cause thats what you are, b****es. Disagree? Then stop b****ing.

We had open shots, but were off. Especially Yao. But he played aggresive, particularly on the boards. He got 10 rebounds despite playing 32 mins due to foul trouble. He was never gasping for air, which is a freshing sight.

Tmac is still adjusting. He blew past his defender countless times but missed some easy layups. Also, Detroit is one of the best interior defenders so thats expected. Also Prince has like a 7 foot wing span.

Ward had some uncharacteristic turnovers, but make 4/5 shots. 13 points from our starting point is more than enough. Next time when he gets 7 assits and 6 points, people will be b****ing about him not scoring.

Boki, well, you guys know what happened there.

The only person i was kind of disappointed with was Howard. But then again he never settled in and ended up with only 20 minutes. I'm sure he is still adjusting ot his role for this team.

Which is the case for every player on the team.

We are all grown men here, hopefully. Lets have some patience, faith, and logic when we are making comments about our team. Did we play well? No, we didn't play our best. But under the circumstances we did fine, and saying we are doomed and we need to trade this or trade that is just weakminded.

Start acting like men. Like true fans. Instead of 13 yearold school girls with your panties in a bunch. b****es.

 

The disturbing trend is that Yao's fundamentals are worsening. He can no longer hit the jumper. His hook shot is nowhere to be seen. His free throws are no longer automatic. This cannot be ignored. If Yao does not dedicate himself in practice more, he will lose whatever edge that made him a very good player. He cannot survive in the NBA via athleticism and brute force. Yao's command of fundamentals is a strong characteristic of his game ever since he came into the league. That command is no longer there.

 

This was not an encouraging performance at all. The only reason the Rockets stayed in this game was Detroit's inability to make wide open jumpshots.

The offense was pathetic. Downright awful. The players need to watch this gamefilm and look at how many passes the pistons made per possession compared to the Rockets. They actually passed the ball around, and found open shots. The rockets rarely ever made more than one pass all night. I'm sorry, but if this is Van Gundy style offense we are in a lot of trouble. We had chances to fast break, but even with T-Mac, he was walking it up all night. But that is very minor compared to that crap we called a half court offense tonight.

The same people who criticized Rudy for running the ISO offense with Mobley and Francis should have a field day with the lack of ball movement tonight. And what the heck was with mo taylor, and jim jackson taking the first 5 or so shots of the game. You are role players, feed the ball to Yao/T-Mac, then get it back off a double team and put it up. Until the Rockets insist on not making games much more difficult on themselves than they have to, they will not reach the next level.

And lastly, they have to find a PG. Ward is too slow and Lue is not a good enough all around shooter.

 

i think all in all this was a decent first game.... the team did look somewhat lost at times...not very cohesive as a group.. T-mac will not be this bad.. give him some time.. we all have seen what he can do.. Ming is definitely bothered by that elbow thing..its his first minor-major injury. I say give him a week off….

and we do have a PG problem but this was expected... Ward is old and could not keep up with the quicker Detroit guards(they had a number of open threes)... And Lue well HE IS LUE...so nothing expected from him...just hope Bob Sura comes back in time before we(can't believe i wrote that...b/c i hate the guy..hes just as bad as all our PG's....hes TO king)...i'll leave the trading speculations to the rest of you guys.

anywayz good night.

 

I kind of agreed with Kenny and Charles, the team could use a little dose of running, if even to get some early offense.

I am not too discouraged though, we played the world champions with a lot of new players, and our star center was clearly not himself.

I think it will take a while, we will hover around .500 and take off in January.

DD

 

Oh man.... my previous post was directed at exactly this kind was talk.

Yao is losing his fundamentals? You decided that after this one game. He never had a bad shooting game last year? This cannot be ignored?

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You know what that is? Me ignoring worthless assumptions after one freakin' game.

*gives a hearty warm texas cyber b****-slap to Charvo*

 

lol! well said.

 

I think it was a great first effort by the Rockets, considering that the Pistons raised their banner and got the rings, the Rockets performed considerably well in light of that. Yao is hurt, Mac has first-game jitters, and Ward sucks. When Sura comes back this team is gonna take off. Maybe they can acquire a point guard.

As far as my prediction for the final score, I came really close. I predicted 87 points for the winner, but I thought Houston will win, and 78 for the losing team (Rockets scored 79.)

 

although the result is expected, the performances of the team made me worry.

 

Yea Yao has a bad game but what i don't understand is....how come they never post Yao up at all?? I mean NEVER or hardly ever use him in the post at all during the 1st half and into the 2nd half. And it's stupid that they go to Mo Taylor instead and Mo is being guard by Rasheed....go figure! That is the dumbest strategy i ever seen. You DON'T let Mo go after Sheed...no way in hell Mo can score over Sheed ..it's just a waste of posession and it's disaapointing to see them doing it time after time while Yao is on the floor watching...wtf is that all about JVG??? What happpend to the Yao posting up everytime down the floor strategy?? Yea maybe Yao didn't shoot well but you don't stop going to him just because he missed a post up shot and you can see those shots are almost going in anyway...so i mean you don't go away from Yao that's all i am saying.

 

Geesh, he had an off-game! What, are you so wrapped up in your NBA Live that you don't understand player slumps or off-nights? You say he has to dedicate himself more in practice, yet he hasn't practiced in almost a week due to his injured elbow. That alone could be the real reason his shooting was off tonight.

 

The plan tonight was for Yao to draw the defenses away from the paint with his jumpers. That plan went awry when Yao bricked his 1st 2 jumpers. Rasheed and Ben Wallace combined are absolutely the best tandem when it comes to paint defense. If TMac has to get into the paint and find a shot against both those guys, he is dead. Ben Wallace might hit TMac enough to injure his back. It's better to lose this game and not suffer injury from a Ben Wallace hack job than to win and suffer damage from the Wallaces. It all get effed up when Yao bricked everything from outside.