Exactly... and exactly. I would love to pick the Rockets, but at the moment, I don't have tremendous faith. I certainly think they have untapped potential, and it will take better offensive execution than what they exihibited in round 1. In addition to what they have already shown us, I think the Rockets need to do the following to win the series: 1) Brooks has to drive AND DISH. He showed great ability in round 1 to get to the basket, and he should be able to blow by Fisher. ESPN is correct that he will have difficulties dealing with the inside play of the Lakers, so he has to start passing when he gets under the basket. Primarily, this means finding Yao with some nifty interior passing off the dribble. 2) Scola and Landry have to play within themselves. The Lakers front line is longer than the Blazers front line. They can't just "try harder" to get it in the basket. They need to move, find openings, drive, and finish SMART. Otherwise, the Lakers are going to average 10 blocks a game. 3) Yao has to get open and the Rockets have to find him. Yao and Rockets aren't going to become a different team in round 2. That means the lob pass will continue to be ineffective no matter how bad the fans or the Rockets "will" it to be. 4) I trust in Battier on defense, but he can't abandon the multi-faceted offensive game he found in round 1. The Rockets looked good when they played 5 on 5 offensive basketball. I don't want to hear all these sound bites about "I'm just a hard working..." blah blah blah. Shane! You're a basketball player! Now beat your man! [sound of whip cracking] 5) Hayes, Wafer, Artest, Landry must beat Bynum, Odom, Ariza, Gasol. In know, that is a lot of medium height guys against a lot of tall guys. Whatever it takes.
I agree with all of your points except that #1 is absolutely unrealistic. Aaron Brooks is just not the type of player that passes it. It doesn't even matter how many times you lecture him to pass the ball to anybody, he just doesn't do it. It's more realistic to see a guy like Lowry do it, because he's proved that he's much more of a pure PG than Aaron Brooks is. I agree with all of your points and they were great points too. We need to defend the pick n roll too, that's a huge factor. Lakers like to expose Yao in the pick n roll with Kobe, so he can get open mid-range jumpers.
I thought the criticism of Brooks in round 1 was harsh. A guy that can always beat his man is someone that Rudy T would have LOVED. I certainly see why Adelman likes him. In fact, I thought Brooks set the tone of the entire series with his play in games 1 and 2. Also, I don't think having a scoring mentality at PG is a bad thing. I compare Brooks (the scoring point) to Alston (the passing point) in this way - every time Alston released the ball from the 3 point line, I marked that down as a turnover. Every time Alston tried to make a layup over the defense, I marked that down as a turnover. Every time Alston made an assist, I subtracted one turnover. As a result... Alston turned it over a lot (despite the box score). There aren't going to be as many opportunities in this series for Aaron's floaters over the interior defense. While passing isn't his strong suit, I don't think "court vision" is a particularly difficult skill when you are 2' from your man. He just has to look for it.
Well, I still prefer Kyle Lowry starting over Aaron Brooks for many reasons including the fact that Kyle Lowry is more of a pure PG and he is a guy who can set up his team and direct the offense. I am more comfortable with Artest having the ball in his hands than Aaron Brooks, because Ron is much more willing to pass it to Yao down low than Aaron Brooks is. I honestly just hope Lowry gets more minutes than Aaron does. Aaron has been only playing good in Games 1 and 2 and had an above average game in Game 6. Rest were pretty bad.
agree 100%. folks round here talk about brooks like he's some 15 yr vet that has never had any passing ability so they just assume he's completely incapable of doing so... i find that assumption absolutely ludicrous. the guy is 24 years old, and with some proper coaching should have no problem finding an open man after taking it to the hole. he may never become jason kidd, but this notion that he's just completely incapable of becoming a better passer simply b/c he hasn't shown it to great ability after only 2 years in the league (and just half a freaking season as a starter) is r****ded.
Good analysis, but I think he's overrating the Lakers' defense considerably, and probably underrating their offense. In the past couple of years, it's seemed like the Lakers just aren't good enough defensively in the paint to contain Yao. I expect Yao to have markedly better games offensively than he did against Portland. Scola should do well, too. If the Rockets stick with their offense, I expect good, efficient, patient offensive production. The real question for me is whether the Rockets' defense, as good as it is, can shut down enough of the Lakers' offensive weapons.
Yeah, I agree with you. The Lakers defense has been overrated by many this season. Their perimeter defense is not really that great, and you can pick apart their interior defense. Against us though, they are going to front Yao.. and use Odom and some of the other long guys like Ariza to try to steal it from Yao.
ON AVERAGE Artest passes more, but on a fairly regular basis he also decides that he is going to pull a superstar move and as McGrady likes to say "impose his will" on a game. Unfortuately, I don't think Artest has a good sense of what he is capable of. Artest may be heavily responsible for us winning game 6, but he also bricked us into the game 5 loss. I don't think you can say that Brooks lost any games for us Brooks has also been a more effective scorer than Artest in the playoffs, so I would rather see Brooks with the ball.
I think the perimeter defense will only be a problem if the officials let it be a problem. I hate to start the whining early, but Derek Fisher fouls A LOT on defense. When he "steps up" on D, it basically consists of uncalled hand and hip checking.
Great analysis. Yao was a beast in the last series, though his numbers look merely good. He MUST DOMINATE against the Laker frontline, and if they are forced to send help, the Rockets have all the tools to make them pay. All 4 games in the regular season came down to one thing - execution in the 4th quarter. Keys to Our Winning the Series: 1. Execute good Rockets' offense late. 2. Play excellent positional and physical defense every possession. 3. Make Kobe defend. This tires him and gets him in foul trouble. 4. Ignore the bad calls, and take out any frustrations on the Lakers. Every bad whistle should just mean Yao's about getting the ball in the low post or Wafer's dunking on someone's head.
Brooks shouldn't be our third scoring option; that should be Scola who shot 55.38461538 for the series on 36/64 shooting. This is the way the series ended. Yao 36 64 56.25 $15 Million Scola 42 97 43.29896907 $3.1 Million Artest 36 65 55.38461538 $7.4 Million Brooks 34 76 44.73684211 $1.0 Million Artest we all know bricked us to our demise Game 2 and almost followed suit Game 4 at 8/20 and 5/20 shooting. However he is our 2nd option and that is to be expected that he will take a lot of shots when Yao is being fronted. Brooks, who is the second to last scoring option out of our starters, on the other hand bricked us to death in Game 5 with a persistent 6/20 effort. In terms of games lost because of bad performance, he is tied with Artest at 1-1. It is not that we are overly hard on Brooks, but as a PG he is suppose to facilitate the offense. Instead, what we have is a inefficient 4th option taking the 2nd most amount of shots.
