That my friends was golden proof that this Rockets team is in NO way shape or form a true...get down to it...contender this year. If Tmac is off...that automatically means Rafer, Shane, and Chuck are going to be off. Chuck, Shane have zero ability to make offense for themselves, and Rafer is almost as limited to nothingness on the offensive side. No bench, well the bench isnt going to produce when its only Head, and Juwon. Did ANYONE else notice how tired the Rockets were out there? How bad could we of used a dirtbag like Bonzi to of played all year and been a part of this team? Im not going to blame Bonzi, or JVG. Im going to blame this organization for not realizing that there is JUST not enough talent on this team offensively. Is it at ALL possible to find a play for TMac that doesnt include him circling the key, getting run about 15 feet outside by the help defense? No wonder that he shoots J's all night long, its the only offensive set this team can conceive of to start the set. This isnt a one game lost ramble, as much as its an indictment of the decisions this team makes to choose intangibles over skill. Chemistry over improvement. I hope next year...whatever big free agent splash we possibly make, he doesnt sit on the bench and rot to the tune of becoming another wasted opportunity for this team. Not that Bonzi (in good standing playing all year) would of won us this game, but it would of been a much better thing to watch then Juwon, Shane, Rafer, or Chuch stand around waiting for TMac to create their offense for them.
Yes but T-Mac's off-ness is not a product of himself, it is a product of having to run the offense for a bunch of crap other than Yao all game while getting doubled aggressively on every screen, doubled on almost every iso, and having to play in an arena maybe twice as loud as his own. Yao has the exact same problem. It's not really his fault he has to expend so much energy. The Jazz have so much more talent than us outside of McGrady and Yao it's pretty sad.
And again... Its one loss guys, its not a big deal. Who saw the Mavs and Spurs get EMBARASSED AT HOME. This was a Road game for a fairly young Rockets team (at least playoff expirence wise). Just chill, next game we will be back into form.
No it wasnt EMBARRASSEMENT from the Spurs and Mavs. It was two tightly played games from good teams that played well enough to beat two great teams. Not that mess of an offesive game plan that Rockets put together every night. There have been few times in my entire..throw the remote, curse the gods, my team just lost a playoff game life, that I have felt sheer embarrassment. Game 7 2 years ago, was one of them. This team had NO heart out there. Not from TMac, not from Yao, not from JVG. It was a tough tough pill to swallow.
Calm down my man. It's been 3 games so far and the Rockets have yet to bring their A game. We won the first two, and were in contension to win tonight. I'm not worried, but I am too saddened by this game. Tough to watch. Boxscore says Yao has 8 turnovers. I'm begining to think that Utah has caught on to how to defend Yao. Surround him with quickness, and turn him into a catch and shoot player. I don't think we're physical enough. I think we need to throw big Jake in there or Vspan and just let them foul Utah's players like hell. Very physical out there tonight. I get mad to see them go up for a layup, get fouled, AND make it. It's ok to go up for a layup but if we're going to foul them, get a flagrant or try to. Messages need to be sent. Being bullies out there isn't a nice way to win, but we can't stand around and be witnesses to it happening to us while we see another L in the loss column. These games are crucial. We're showing the soft side of our team.
I don't agree. The score was not indicitive of how bad Dallas and SA looked. It looked like they were both gonna get swept, if they kept playing like they played Game 1. The Rockets are in fine shape, everyone is judging their heart... Are you kidding? Guys come on this is ridiculous, they want to win as much as we want them to if not more. Not everyone yells when they are happy, not everyone has their emotions on their sleeves.
I know I could've gotten me 2pts by accident with a lil effort and the same open looks they had. I'm embarrassed, yet very hopeful and encouraged by the fact that we still played excellent D, and it took a collective effort by our bench to completely throw away the game and give us no shot at winning. If we could shoot at least 40% I'm very confident that we'll blow them out.
I didn't watch the whole game, but when I saw it with like 3:00 minutes left in 4th quarter and all Houston had 65 67 pts. and only 4 players in double figure scoring it was about the worst thing you could expect. Impotent.......is a gross understatement for that travesty of playoff game with both teams shooting under 40%, this is like Eastern Conference basketball from 90s or are both teams really that good defensively
As horrible as I believe Rafer is, he was even worse tonight. Did it not seem like Rafer was unable to make a simple entry pass? Deron Williams seemed to drive on him at will. Rafer's poor play is hard to accept but even harder is the fact that the Rox don't have any better alternatives considering the Rox have the 2 worst backup PGs in the league. Nearly all of the Rockets so called shooters are 1 dimensional spot up shooters. This includes Rafer, Shane, Luther, JHo, and to a certain extent Yao. Besides TMAC (and this is usually at a low fg%), we seem to have no one who can really shoot a standard jumpshot 12-17' in range off the dribble, curl, or screen. The Jazz have figured this out and have basically closed down the 3 pt line and the interior leaving the mid-range wide open. It is frustrating to see our Rockets play with such pathetic offense. The Rox rebounded poorly on the offensive end because it seems just about everyone except Hayes just stood around watching the shot then subsequent offensive rebound by the Jazz. Looked like a lot of complacency tonight by the Rox. Hopefully JVG hits the books tonight and tomorrow to figure out what can be done on the offense. Might be nice to see Kirk Snyder gets some time, his ability to drive and play better defense on Harpring than Head might be helpful.
This thread is the definition of bandwagon. They win..everyone jumps on. They lose...TIME TO EVACUATE!!!!!
No one is stupid enough to call this Rockets squad a true "contender". May be they would be if GSW can miraculously knock out the Mavs; or Denver manages to beat the Spurs, or if the Lakers upset the Suns. Otherwise, we and the Jazz are in the same boat: two good but not great teams. There are only three 'elite' teams in the West, and those are the Mavs, Spurs, and Suns. That being said, we should still manage to get beyond the first round. That's the goal for now. But until we manage to build more quality depth, we will never go anywhere. Yao and McGrady are two all-star players but they simply don't have the stamina to carry an entire team of inept offensive talent on their backs for an entire playoff run. It's not their fault either, the team needs to build a better core around them and management has yet to do that. Oh, and of course, that elusive 'third option' would really, really help those two guys out in the playoffs.
I saw this coming a mile away. In fact I was quite sure it was going to happen at the beginning of the season. Players like Head, Battier, Alston et al are going to stink in the playoffs because they cannot create for themselves. We don't have a true PG who can create good shots for others and our ONLY playmaker is Tmac (maybe Yao a little too). This team just isn't good enough. 2004-2005 Rockets would have swept the Jazz. At least that team had players who could create like James and Sura and a deadeye 3pt shooter/shotmaker in Barry.
had we made a deadine trade for mike james. mchale is stupid...he shouldve pull the trigger that benefits both of our organization
Let's face it, when you have role players who can't score on their own and your coach only knows to use them as a bunch of dummies on offense, defense will clamps down on the stars and your stars will struggle and the role playing dummies will fall as the result of such struggles. The way is to upgrade our role players and/or play as a team on offense. To upgrade our role players takes some skills and luck. Even if money isn't a problem, after the way our past free agents Anderson, Swift and Bonzi being dumped and humiliated by JVG, I wonder how other big name free agents will look at Houston as a destination in the summer. As for playing as a team, well, let me keep my fingers crossed...
Proof is when we're in the post season. On the papers, this is only one loss. The sky is falling. There's no doubt it's hard to win if TMac doesn't bring his game. We sacrificed whatever depth we had to bring him here. Very rarely did the 00 Lakers win a playoff game with Shaq or Kobe stinking. For you to bring this up now, reeks of despair and alcohol fumes. Opposing teams have been tired when playing at SLC. It depends on how well they adjust in future games. That's an obvious no brainer, but it just didn't work out. You can't blame the org but not blame either Bonzi or Jeff. The organization addressed your concern by landing Bonzi. It sounds like it. This sounds like all the past post loss threads in the regular season. There are legitimate points from those threads, but hindsight is always 20/20. Jeff probably obsesses over PT than most of us. He chose to bench Bonzi and Bill so his core and grow under his system. It does work, but whether it's good enough for us to move far into the playoffs, no one, not even your golden proofs, knows yet. Don't you think if we had a chance to grab a legit starting point, we would? If this isn't a one game rant, are you embarrassed over our circumstances or our system?
