ClutchFans Game Thread: Spurs @ Rockets 11/14/2006

yes, this is why i still favor him as our starting pg.

overall, his is the best pg on our team for now.

 

Rafer did not play badly overall in this game. I think two things contributed to his "bad plays" in the 3rd and 4th.

First is minutes played. He was, if I am not mistaken gaurding Parker for most of the first half. Chasing him around and effectively keeping him from scoring too many points. A guy who averages 20+ points a game.. held to 8.

Second was his streetball mentality. So we established he was a little worn out energy wise in the second half, add on top of that losing the lead and suddenly his streetball mentality takes over. Rafer must score, Rafer must score. I think its a mantra in his head when the team starts to lose composure. He tried to do too much, even though he's the PG, he needs to chill when the Rox are struggling and run the offense. Instead of pulling up for off kilter jumpers and driving into four defensive players.

Hopefully both of these things will be addressed because the guy has talent when he plays under control.

 

Great post, totally agree
Jeff need give Vspan a try, at that moment. Rafer out of gas, he D parker pretty good.

 

Our D, although suspect at times, was not the problem last night. We held one of the best teams in the NBA to 92. And if you took away the bad offense, we would have held them in the 80s. Our problem was offensively. And you can't put that on Rafer either. He hit his 3s and played decent offensively.

Our problem was Yao shot 7 for 20 something because defenders were collapsing around him. Why? Why shouldn't they. If you were playing against us, would you rather Yao get off 25 shots uncontested or collapse off Howard and force Yao to kick it back out or take a 20 contested shots while leaving open Juwan?

See Yao not only shot 7 for 20 something, but because of the play other guys including TMac wind up having to take lower percentage more highly contested shots. It's a huge ripple effect.

 

I was at the game last night (Red Rowdies, no less). The first half was awesome. TMac was making up for Yao's down game. That last-second shot at the half...you could tell when he was bringing it up that he was just going to make it, even before he set for the shot.

Here's why we lost, IMO: Yao was off. Bad off. He just looked tired from jump. Big man needs some rest soon against the next team we're light up front against. That brings me to my next point- we needed Bonzi out there. He would have helped on the boards and with offense off the bench. I don't care what kind of shape he's in. He could have spelled Hayes for 10 minutes in the second half. We also missed Hayes big. The intangables he brings are huge. We just blew it, though. We let off the pressure in the third and the Spurs took the opportunity and ran with it. If we could have kept our composure and killer instinct we would have won handily.

It wasn't us 100% though. The refs give the Spurs -far- too many calls. Frikking Manu and his flops, Bowen and his dirty defense... I don't respect the Spurs at all. Period. It starts at the top with Popovich and goes down to their ballboy. These guys just sleeze their way to 6-8 extra points a game. Some may argue that it's part of the game, but it's NOT pure basketball. It's working the system. I thought the refs were supposed to watch for this crap now. Oh well, the best team does win in a series, I guess that's the only consolation.

There were positives- TMac, obviously, and our defense in the first half was SMOTHERING. JHo even held his own. In that half. We did really well. In the first half. The fans were great, too. Houston fans are finally starting to get it, I think, after 15 years of winning teams (Rockets, Astros).

The Rockets can go either way with this loss. They can nut up and get stronger and learn from it. Or it can start a bad spiral. I've seen it go the bad way with the team, and hopefully they have the maturity (finally) to take positives from it and get better.

 

I'm kind of glad we lost. I just can't accept we blew a big lead.
Anyway had we won, 95% of the members would be having an orgasm and would have to get new keyboards because of all the cream laid out on it.

 

I was watching the game and when the spurs made that come back, it's like watching a rerun, I have seen it before.

Our team still has major weaknesses, particularly at the point. Our guards, when they're pressured, they will crack and melt, numerous turnovers at crucial times.

Another thing this team just does not get it, when the going gets tough your savior is still Yao, not anyone esle.

I don't care what kind of a night Yao is having, you don't let him go long stretches without handling the ball. The above sequences that Kim described,Yao was never involved in the offense ,except for the try put back when others missed.

What's wrong with that picture is what wrong with the Rockets, until we recognize and make every possible effort to get Yao involved, whenever we are playing a tough team like the Spurs(and don't kid yourself, they are still mentally stronger than us, they have the swagger,like they've been there before and believed in their system and trusted their personnels) we will lose again like we lost last night.

I hope this is a good lesson that we've learned.

 

Still early in the season. I like what the Rockets did for 38 minutes of the game. I just hope this is JVG last year here. He has no excuses this year and I hope Les does give him a new contract no matter where JVG leads this team.

 

No surprises here. The Spurs are still a top team in this league. They manhandled us pretty well in the 2nd half. They applied the defensive pressure and the Rockets fell apart. It didn't help that Yao got flustered and literally missed every shot during the Spurs run. But, the whole team basically buckled under the defensive pressure. I was real mad when we were shooting desperation 3s with the game tied when we just needed someone to create and drive to the basket for a lay-up. The way the Rockets were playing with that pressure...they could barely pass the ball. Noone seemed to be able to even dribble with their man on them. You would think we were being overrun by a pack of wild bears. That was pretty infuriating to watch. I hope we did learn something from that. We basically went down with the big guy and noone else who could do a damn thing. It sort of felt like watching the Titanic sink. That sucked hard.

 

The first half was a lot of fun, but yes the second half was kind of a downer.

I just don't understand how Padgett is making it into the rotation. Most importantly, how in the world is he taking minutes away from Kirk Snyder?? Kirk should have been guarding Horry. Oh well. Fun game to watch.

 

It could have been an invaluable win for the new team, well, it turned out to be an invaluable loss.
It would prevent the starter from being cocky, esp. Yao Ming. He needs to realize things wouldn't be as easy as the last week looked. He will continue to be the main offensive force for the team but the teamwork is yet to be established on the up and down of tides. Tmac is still by far the more matured player on court. Yao needs to eastablish himself as the co-leader esp. when his shots are not falling.
Hopefully, the loss would also light up some fire on bench players like Vsapn, Novak. They would be supposed to stop the opponents' bench surges when our 1st unit fatigue. They have the ability. If I were Vspan I would kick the floor and stare at Van Gundy with fire in my eyes when Udrich were killing us.

I have faith in this team. They are just too good to not to be stimulated.

 

we are not going to trade him and he will not be taking the year off. when bonzi gets going we wil DESTROY san antonio.

 

i'm kind of glad we lost this one. let's face it, the rockets can't win all the time and they have to lose some games. if they lost to some scrumb teams, people will say it's just bad luck, or they having an off-day, etc. when losing to a better team, like last night to spurs, they'll come to realize their weakness and do something about it. i'm sure they will.

an observation i'm not sure if others have mentioned. if there is one thing that yao can learn from shaq is that how to putback an offensive rebound. a couple of times last night, yao got the rebound but when he tried layup, no success. he could have been fouled but didn't get the call. in any case, if he could, like shaq does, instead try for a layup right away, hold the ball, gather himself for a second, then uses all his force jump for a dunk or even layup, he may have a better result. he has huge trunk and improved upper body and i believe he can do it if he intends to.

 

Can we trade Juwan for this dude?
this dude was pretty good for the Spurs

 

Where was Bonzi??? I didnt see him on the bench with Hayes and Sura... Is he still in the mode that he can watch games from home to learn? If thats the case he is never going to get any mins. period. I miss Chuck... The team misses Chuck! Please heal quickly!!!!

 

Spurs are good, but its early in the season and I know we'll do well against them in the future...

 

GAWD that was an awful loss,

I know we can beat the Spers. We were up 19 at one point. We don't have the killer instinct, we couldn't hit the open shots when the Spers were rallying.

I know we have the talent to beat any of the top teams. Chuck Hayes would have made a difference in this game. There were so many loose balls and tip rebounds that we didn't get that I know Chuck would have got alot of those.

I wanted this game, the Rockets wanted this game, I could see it on their faces when they building up the 19 point lead. They wanted to make a statement. But no killer instinct! Please hit an open shot! Sheesh I was cursing at the TV so much, the lady next to me was asking what's my problem.

Gawd I needed to vent!

 

that's 2-3 overall vs contenders then.

 

he will retire after this season.........

 

I'm sorry, but some of you do not make the best comments and need to just keep your mouth shut unless you have a good point to make. Thank you!