JVG is D'Antoni's biatch. The Rockets got trashed for years by the Suns and I was so sick of it. The Rockets even got labeled as having "match up problems" against the Suns by its former coach. When the Rockets get Rick Adelman as coach, I already know Adelman will turn this **** around. And the result comes fast. Adelman always gets the better out of D'Antoni. Adelman and D'Antoni are good friend and were teammate and roommate before. When Adelman got fired by the Kings, D'Antoni tried to campaign for Adelman and openly told the reporters that Adelman offense is so good he stole some offense sets from Rick and put it in the Suns. In that same season (05/06), the Suns deliberately lost games at the end of season in order to avoid the Kings in the playoff because the Suns were having problems against Rick's Kings (with Mike Bibby, Brad Miller, Artest & Bonzi) in the regular season. Adelman and his assistants seem to know D'Antoni's offense too well and know how to stop them. Now, in the second game aginst the Suns this season, the Rockets finally kicked the Suns ass. So, can I say: D'antoni, you are actually Adelman's biatch. Yesterday's win is a great win. A great efforts and performance from all the players. But make no mistakes, the coaching staffs deserve a lot of credits. A big change in both offense and defense from the past. That's the 1st time in the last 10 meetings with Sus that the Rockets are able to control the tempo. Yao was moving around to get easy shots and was not restricted to bang in the low post. And amazingly, Yao played 40 minutes. And the Rockets beated the Suns even when Mcgrady was not hot. So, a huge, huge win and confidence booster form the players. I really dont see the Rockets in this season will bother so much by small lineup as before. Rick, you're the man! btw, anyone knows the record of the Rockets against the Suns in last 3 regular season?
i dont know if this question is rhetorical, but 2-1. we won the last meeting last year. dropped the first one this year.
five star for the title, on another note we played the Suns pretty good in the 04-05 season with all the good gaurd play/three point shooters Sura/Barry/Wesley/James/Mac group
great post, my man...I hope you are right and this game was indicative of how we'll play from now on and not just an aberration.
D'Antoni' is like adleman's little brother,He has always measured his self early on against adelman,Their history together as roomates and teammates playing with the kings and his obvious admiration with adelman's early style of play when rick had jason williams doing what D'Antoni' is doing with nash but nash only being better at white chocolate.
That's the best thing u can say? Are you formerly know as Van Gundier? Anyway, new coach, new system, quick adjustment. To beat a team that u formerly see as a match up nightmare in the second meeting early in the season is very impressive to me. Maybe not for a Gundier.
Under JVG, with both T-mac and Yao in the lineup, we had a 3-6 record against the Suns in the past 3 seasons, including a 2-3 record in Phoenix. However, we had lost 4 games straight (with T-Mac and Yao) before winning in Houston at the end of last season. We won both our road games in Phoenix in the 04/05 season, but had lost the next 3 (with T-Mac and Yao). So, winning in Phoenix isn't exactly ground breaking, but it's been a couple years.
Bit of an exageration to say the least. We won which is great, but it certainly wasn't domination. It's not like we blew them out. In fact the first meeting was much closer to a blow out for them. We have had match up problems vs Pheonix. We also have alot of players who were not on the roster last year that contributed big last night, so saying the coach change was the difference is a stretch at best. The coach did a great job, the team did a great job. Let's leave it at that, and see what happens from here on out. To answer your question though our regular season record vs the Suns the last 3 years were: 2-2 1-3 1-3
Hmmm.... http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/HOU20031114.html New coach, new system, no? First game of the season, too. And this this the 2nd game the next season: http://www.basketball-reference.com/boxscores/PHO20050311.html In any case, the Van Gundy Rockets started off 1-1 against the Suns in 03/04 (Frank Johnson was head coach and D'Antoni assistant early in the season, and that's the year before Nash... but they did have Stoudemire, Marion, and a younger Marbury), and 1-1 against Nash's Suns. The 04/05 Rockets were 2-2 against the Suns, too. The "matchup nightmare" thing really got started in 05/06 (bad injury year) and continuted in 06/07 until the last game. If history is any guide, the fact that Adelman started his reign 1-1 against the Suns don't mean that the Suns have ceased to become a difficult team for the Rockets to play. I hope they go on to beat the Suns more, and I hope the addition of guys like Francis, Scola, etc makes it easier to beat the Suns, but a close win does not mean it's time time to declare "Mission Accomplished."
As someone pointed out earlier, we did pretty well even under JVG three seasons ago when we had a pretty good backcourt (like we have again now... in fact, probably even better). Not to mention that in many of the games we have lost against the Suns, one or both of our big two have been out. The Suns are just the Rockets' b**** when we are fully healthy and have a talented and deep backcourt. The coach had a lot less to do with it. So boo to this thread. ... Not that I really have anything against Adelman, but that's just a poor analysis.
I think one win isnt quite enough to say we have mastered the Suns. If you are only going to go off one game, is it safe to say that Adelman is Marc Iavaroni's b**** since we beat Memphis 4-0 last year, but this year they beat us in the first game.
A good occasion for a donkey to speak up. matchup problems is gone? Yao is still playing. It's the way the coach utilize a player.
