ClutchFans Game Thread: Rockets @ Wizards 1/8/2008

And his shot had been off lately and Brooks/Alston had been finishing games. Adelman seems to be going by who is hot.

 

the world is beautiful

 

good win , but why can't the coaches tell luther head to stop making bonehead bounce passes, i'm pretty sure they are scratching their heads watching tape of every game and see his bounce passes...anyways good win balance scoring again !!!!

 

mike james is the cancer in our team.

 

I don't know what that means. We've won three in a row and James didn't even play tonight. You just like saying it?

 

BOX SCORES

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Seriously, clutch should banned these annoying YOF. Its not doing these board any good.

 

Key words... in the Eastern Conference.

 

That's right, ban Eddie Jordan!

 

Maybe it is a bad sign to the rivals?

 

Check out the double teaming on Yao.

 

You are factually incorrect. Just like the Rafer bashers focused too much on his poor shooting when judging his game, you and the other Head critics (at least the lame, obsessive ones) are fixated on his poor ball handling and turnovers when assessing his game. He's a solid defender. He plays good help defense and works hard on the perimeter. He also one of the best cutters to the basket on the team. It's not a coincidence that the Rockets started doing better when he got more minutes. He's not perfect. He's undersized and turns the ball over too much, but the bashing he receives around here is just more of that Lord of the Flies style groupthink that the BBS whiners engage in. Just remember- Rick Adelman and Daryl Morey have more knowledge about the NBA in one of their nose hairs than most of the people on this board put together.

 

That's what she said.

 

Remember that Head cost us a game or two with turnovers and bad decisions down the stretch ....

 

sloppy turnovers but still a great win yeah!!!!!!!

3 in a row W/O tmac amazing (NBA where amazing happens)

 

He was the biggest disappointment in my book. More than even Francis.

At least Francis tried to play unselfishly. He just looked rusty and lost on the court most of the time. But he was giving up the ball and trying to make good decisions when he was in the game.

James on the other hand almost invariably put blinders on and forgot about the other players on the court. His cocky attitude could have been an asset to this team if he was able to harness it. Instead, that cockiness ran wild and made him the most selfish player I have seen on this team since the original Steve Francis.

I don't think T-Mac is as selfish as many people try to claim. He was widely recognized for becoming an excellent distributor and making his teammates better over the past couple of years. He created countless easy shots for players like Head, Battier, Alston and even Hayes.

I also think McGrady was used to handling the ball so much because that is how JVG wanted to run the offense. You all remember it. Rafer would bring the ball up and immediately drop it to Yao or hand it off to McGrady on the perimeter. I don't blame McGrady for having difficulty adjusting to the new system after being conditioned by JVG over the course of several seasons to be the primary ballhandler in a halfcourt offense.

At the same time, I do think the rest of the team has clearly played better in McGrady's absence. I also think that this improvement is the direct result of McGrady not dominating the ball as much and slowing down both player and ball movement.

I just don't think the reason McGrady was doing that was because he is selfish or because he was choosing to ignore his coach. Most of those plays were called by Adelman. He was calling a lot of those isolation plays because he didn't think the team was ready to make too many adjustments toward his style of play. He was trying to do things that worked in the past while working on his stuff in parctice and slowly integrating it into game situations.

When McGrady got injured, Adelman knew he couldn't call JVG-type plays for any other perimeter player like he, and Van Gundy, did with McGrady. He had no other alternative other than to expedite the learning curve and encourage these guys to do other things to score.

I don't think Adelman predicted things would go this smoothly without McGrady. Now that he sees the success, he will not revert to calling as many isolation plays for T-Mac out of fear that things will fall apart.

The best part of McGrady missing these games has been, not only the players' increased confidence in themselves, but also the fact that Adelman has gained confidence in the ability of this team to do more things his way - the way he envisioned things from day one. He will continue pushing what has worked recently when McGrady gets back.

And, McGrady will be more than willing to go in that direction. As he has done all season (despite what some want to believe) McGrady will follow Adelman's lead and avoid slowing things down. After all, it was Adelman that was calling those plays.

 

good win

 

I don't see any facts, just opinions.

If you are going to correlate Head's increased minutes to the wins, than you need to correlate the increased minutes of other players, too. Maybe they are compensating for him. Tonight was his best SHOOTING night of the season while he was pitiful in most other areas, including defense which you cite as one of his strengths.

I see no stinkin' facts.

I do see stinkin' turnovers and bad decisions almsot every time Luther plays and no sign of improvement.

 

Knicks won against the Bulls. Curry had a very good game in front of his family, 29/8/4b. Let's how he fares against Yao tomorrow.