Moochie is a liability on defense because Rudy has his pg's looking to help instead of paying attention to their man. In fact if I got a dollar for every time SF, not Moochie, looked like a liability this season I would be rich.
Gater, I could not say it any better. There is also a lack of respect for the defensive capabilities of Hawkins. The man is the most disruptive defensive player on the team just ahead of Posey. How someone has to beg you to play Hawkins regularly is beyond me, Rudy T. What better way to keep Mobes fresh? We are the second youngest team in the league forcing to play like it was a bunch of older players playing. If a team, including 3 former starters, of Cato, Taylor, Rice, Moochie and Hawkins cannot hold there own against reserves then you can forget it. Taylor needs Mobley to be there for him to dominate a reserve? I don't think so! If he does then why even think of starting him. I strongly believe for us to have a chance this year to do anything respectable we have to play more guys rather than less.
Not every team plays two weak shooters at one time, usually it is only bad teams. This is not our rotation. I'm talking about the times Moochie and Cato are on the floor. Those are the times I would not use Hawk, too. There just is not a consistent amount of minutes where Francis, Taylor, Rice and Yao are playing together except in the 4th Q, when you want your best players on the court. By in large, we are talking about rest time in the 2nd quarter, and for a 6-8 minute window around the end of 3 into the 4th. Francis, Mobley and Yao all have to rested at that time window. Rudy likes to bring combos in...like Maurice with Cato. Or Moochie with one of them. Makes sense to me. We seem to compensate for lack of depth by allowing Francis or Mobley to just spot-up in the corner to let Moochie/Mo run the offense. I'm just answering the pasox2 question. Rudy seems very reluctant to field two poor shooters at the same time. Hold on a second, what does playing Hawkins have to do with taking advantage of mismatches. You are making a non sequitor argument, which is another sympton of somone ignoring a classic argument, which is, bad shooters in combination give defenses huge advantages. Yes. The game is simple. Many more non-playoff teams lack depth and are forced to play 2 bad shooters together, than there are playoff teams that do this. Another simple observation, great teams can play shoddy players, often because they have significant leads after one quarter. How is this a grandiose statement? How many times have you heard announcers talk about the bench holding a lead so the star could get more rest, but that the coach will pull them if they give up the lead. We are a slow starting team. We can't field poor second quarter units, and we need our best players (of the game) out there in the 4th. We are not deep at guard...<b>it is very simple.</b> Again, answer my question, Do you not agree that many non-playoff teams have little depth and have to play guys too many minutes or field combinations of bad shooters? How is that a contrived, grandiose statement? Rudy seems to be choosing to deal with our lack of playoff-calibre depth at 2 positions by playing Francis and Mobley too many minutes.
Cat is one of two guys on this team that plays well on both sides of the ball. That is why he plays a lot of minutes. It isn't as if he has a change of pace backup that can spell him a little like Griffin does. Steve gets a lot of minutes too, and so will Ming once his conditioning is better. Why those 3, because there is a significant dropoff when they leave the game. When you bring in Rice for Posey you are trading defense to get some offense. When you bring in Taylor for Griffin you are trading ??? (rebounding maybe? start Taylor please) to bring in offense. When you take out Steve for Moochie, you are trading offense for squat. Taking out Mobley and Ming is trading both offense and defense for just defense.
You know. You overstate that I even have an opinion "on how this team should be used." My philosophy is that my opinion on how this team should be used is irrelevant. It seems, some people misread my scouting of the team with my basketball philosophy. My philosophy in talking basketball about a specific team in specific situations is to just scout and report on what is happening. Many, many analyst say this, but here at the BBS, it becomes a bone of contention for a wannabe scouter to say something counter to a fan coach. If you notice in this thread, I said nothing in terms of my coaching philosophy versus just giving a scouting analysis of why Rudy might be overplaying SF and CM. My opinion is that my coaching philosophy is irrelevant, and so is my general manager philosophy. Scouting, however, is a matter of trying to agree on what we see. What your quote above should say, imo, is "Rudy, although I respect your bball knowledge, we have a different philosophy on how this team should be used." Leave me out of it. I am merely trying to figure out this team through scouting what Rudy and the coaches are fielding. And I can answer pasox2's question by doing so.
HP, there is something you use to conduct your scouting analysis. That something I do not agree with. Of the top ten conclusions I can make about this team having gone through this much of the season, the rockets not being a deep team is not one of them. I would more quickly make a conclusion about Rudy T's use of the players. There is not one player on this team I can say I like what Rudy T has done with him. I am not clear who is responsible for the absence of an uptempo game . Why speedsters like SF, Posey, Mobes and co. are schooled to walk up the ball while Dallas and Kings have all kinds of green light. Suns are running, Sonics are running, Warriors are running, Blazers are running, Jazz are running, so what is the hold up?
DearRock, that last post...all it said was...everything is Rudy's fault. OK. That's some mighty fine scouting report.
Moreover, we rebound and block shots well, which should trigger a few fast breaks... It goes back to Francis' weakness at running a fast break.
This reminds me of the most recent TSN magazine. There is an article about divvying up minutes for NBA players, how tough it can be. There are two blurbs just under the title: a quote from Isiah Thomas about, "All NBA players want to play 48 minutes and get every shot." A follow-up quote from Rudy T goes, "That's the way I was (as a player)." So now I can see the closeness of Rudy T and his adopted son Cuttino Mobley: too many minutes, shoot instead of pass... Is Cuttino being showcased, or does Rudy the former-player coach relate to Cuttino in this regard?
I guess no one is going to answer the question with "because Cuttino is GOOD"? I guess I'll be the only one to do so. I also agree that it has a lot to do with the fact that Moochie has sucked this year.
SmeggySmeg, Rudy is listening to you. Since he played Cat for all 53 minutes versus LAC, I see Cat's ankle problems popping up sometime soon again. Now that you've somewhat brought it up, I would speculate that most of SF and Cat stat standings would suffer if extrapolated over a full game and compared to the other NBA players per 48 minute averages. Didn't Hakeem average about 39 per game when he was a one man wrecking crew?
hp - Just answer the question - are the amount of minutes played by Mobley (and Francis) too d*** many or not? If you think it is, then quit wasting time being argumentative to prove a point. If you don't think it is..that's your prerogative and when they both prematurely breakdown we will all readily be able to remember why. If you think the minutes are too high, any of the options presented here are reasonable. I'm watching the Lakers @ TWolves right now and freakin' MARK MADSEN is starting and guarding Garnett. This is a big part of the NBA game...if there is a recognizable problem (ie no available good defender to match the other teams best scoring option), try to find a reasonable solution. Sometimes it's a gamble.
