Van Gundy can sometimes be too loyal. He appreciates what Luther Head is doing, that he plays hard every night despite being undersized, and he doesn't want to curtail his minutes to give Snyder and Bonzi more court time. And we simply aren't going to win many games with McGrady playing less than 35-36 minutes a night. In the back of his mind, he might also think that we play better when we're undersized, because that makes us compete harder with an underdog attitude. There might be something to that, the way we have been playing since Yao went out. Personally, I think Head should be used more at backup PG and we should incorporate Snyder or Wells into the regular rotation. But you almost need T-Mac on the floor if you're playing Head at PG, because he's such a poor ball-handler and decision maker.
DaDakota is the man. JVG is great, but not a championship caliber coach! can you all really imagine this dude winning a championship? plus, tmac is injured, nothing will help. even with his injury he is excellent, clearly better than dirk. BUT he is playing WAYYY to much... He is largely effective in the fourth, JVG needs to limit his minutes in the earlier quarters, and get Bonzi playing solid minutes to contribute for those lost tmac minutes. Tmac should play 30 minutes a game. 8 - first 6 - second 6 - third 10 - fourth plus when yao gets back, IMO yao plays better when tmac is on the bench. not saying split em... but yao can up his dominance when tmac is out.
chill? the problem with some on this board is that they are settling for less, when they should be going for the gold... it's like saying, we beat the spurs to the second round of playoffs, but lost to the mavs after... GO FOR GOLD VAN GUNDY Ain't UR GOLD (but he could change into it...)
i aplauded when i read ur post... yes i looked like a r****d capping at the monitor by myself... but whatever, it was worth it. /respek knuckles man!!!!
this actually is a great thread... i was starting to wonder if there was any postive people on this site... I mean yeah i was down when we lost to dallas and REALLLY down when we lost to the suns but... i started to think and realized that Those are the two top teams in the NBA ... and we were up 13 and 15 points on em!!! ok i know that we lost but still we didnt have Yao and Bonzi agianst the mavs and we didnt have T-mac and Yao agianst the suns.. i mean what more could u ask from our role players they played thier hearts out!!! and for people that doubted T-macs back.. it was just a precaution because it stiffened nothin to worry about - he also said that if it was to stiffen in the playoffs he would play through it.. Come on people were 10 games over .500 and Tmac will be back tommorow! LETS GO ROCKETS
Awesome thread. Kudos to whoever started it. Just to clarify, I was laughing my ass off when I wrote that first post. The colorful language was born of the absurdity of the GARM, not the pissed offedness that drives most of my D&D posting. And I don't think DaDakota's an idiot (well, not any more than I generally think I'm one). I just think it's silly to get worked up over how bad The Rockets are when they're kicking so much ass. I wasn't able to watch the Phoenix game and I'm not able to watch many of the games at all -- I'm not in Houston, I don't have League Pass and my internet connection's too slow to take advantage of R2K's generosity. I catch the nationally broadcast games and sometimes I go to a bar to catch others on LP, but I don't see enough. But, from the box score alone, when I see a team with a complicated system built around Yao and McGrady still kicking ass without one or the other, I think man that's good coaching. And when I see the same team kicking ass with neither -- when I see Rafer Alston of all people take up the slack while playing not only against the Suns but, I assume, directly against last year's (and likely this year's) MVP -- I think that's a good system and that's good coaching. And when I hear that these guys get along better than any Rockets team in memory and when I hear each and every one of Van Gundy's players praise him as teaching them more about the game than anyone else, that does nothing to lessen my opinion of him. The last few years, as the team's had so much turnover, it's taken the new guys about half the year at least to get the system down such that they weren't playing in their heads, afraid to make a mistake. Two years ago we saw what kind of dividends the system could pay once the players were able to get it in their bones. This year we have the benefit of having had several players with more than a year's experience with the system and the result is that nobody's playing scared and we're better equipped than ever before to roll with the punches of chronic injury and plain bad luck. This system isn't reliant on who's available to go. All these players understand the offensive and defensive sets and their playing time reflects their relative acumen at each. So when I come here after checking the box score on a tough loss to a team that is just flat better than us even when we're at full strength, I'm expecting to find a lot of love for the Rockets, for Rafer and -- yes, most of all -- for JVG and his system. And instead I find a bunch of armchair coaches whining that we lost because of Van Gundy. And all I can think is, what??? Are you guys freaking serious? Really? Like, what the **** else do you want? And DaDa, I love Rudy just about as much as anybody that's ever posted here, but come on dude. There ain't no way this team would be in better shape under Rudy's "player's coach" mentality than under JVG's lockdown defense, low turnover one. As long as I can remember, The Rockets have committed silly turnovers and lost to teams they clearly should have beat due to lack of effort or stupid play. This team plays smarter than any Rockets team I've ever seen, including the championship ones. And, apart from Hakeem and all his glorious gifts, Rudy's Rockets as a team were nothing special defensively. Sure we had flashes and special defensive players in Elie, Maxwell, etc. But team defense? Not even close. JVG has transformed this team. The idea that some of you guys want to hang him for it makes me pee myself laughing. That's all.
Batman Jones, I agreed with everything else you say. I totall disagreed that the Suns / Mavs are flat out better than us even when we're at full strength. NO TEAM in the NBA is better than the Rockets when we got both TMac and Yao healthy, Nobody is better.
Regular season doesn't matter as much. I think the last two games proved that we belong. Sure we didn't win, but hopefully we will have both TMAC and Yao back come playoff time. We are going to give them hell. Hopefully we don't slip too much due to injuries.
While Batman doesn't think DD is an idiot, I most certainly do. He throws his opinions out like yesterday's trash and no matter how absurd or blatantly idiotic they get, he pats himself on the back for them. People with obviously greater intellects tear him down daily, and he just ignores the points, says they're wrong, and claims the moral victory. It's sickening
a tad touchy are we? while i agree that DaDakota's posts can be a bit tedious, especially when one is feeling down after a rockets loss, i don't think he's all that bad. at the very least, he adds a querky quality to the bbs. he does have his share valid points, and while they may be lost in his sea of exaggerations, they're still food for thought. so, more power to you DD, keep on posting, sir! clutchfans wouldnt be the same without you
If you dont watch the rockets, you wouldnt understand why people think that JVG sucks. Dont call us idiots if you dont even watch rockets games. We feel angry because teh losses dont look like we just dont have enough talent or missed the big shots, its that we get just get outcoached. The dallas game is an easy example. We built a 13 point lead and then blew it in like 1 minute.
If everyone agreed in these boards, then most of us would never even come in here. It is strange that everyone seems to have either a positive or negative opinion of JVG. After 3 years I am still not sure if I like him or not. I know I will like him when he wins a championship. And I say they should fire him unless he at least makes it to 7 games in the Western conference semi finals.
Hmmm I watched the game...I watched how we built a 13 point lead in which we weren't even suppose to have in the first place. You guys should just be thankful that we weren't blown out. What exactly do you want more from JVG? He's been working his ass off for this team and some of you guys just can't appreciate that. He's a very good coach without a doubt.
How do you lose games without looking like you got outcoached. Can you give some examples? The Suns, Mavs, Spurs have all blown big leads in short periods of time. In fact, that will happen to pretty much any good team now and then. I guess that means all coaches suck.
