You know, once gundny is gone, people will then start to understand how good of a coach this guy really is. after he left the knicks they never recoverd. he is a defensive marvell. he can make the Warriors into the best defensive team in the entier league.
Good point. It wasnt' that JVG all of a sudden decide to use the bench. He tried with the bench, too, in other games at least for a few minutes, but the bench had a tendency to lose leads (even more so than tired starters). The bench EARNED the trust of the coach last night. JVG's part in the bench minutes was merely playing guys who gave the best chance to win. Notice that not everyone on the bench played well and earned his trust, either... For example Dikembe got his ass pulled QUICK after allowing that offensive rebound from the FT resulting in the Ginobili trey. (reminds me of the CLE game, when he missed boxing out and elbowed McGrady in the scramble). Dikembe was hurting the team, so he got pulled. The bottom line has always been pretty simple: Players get minutes when their performance warrants minutes. Also, the thing I liked about this game was that the Rockets had a good lead even when they started the game shooting 1-12 or something from the 3pt line. With this team, sometimes good 3 pt shooting bail them out... winning inspite of bad 3pt shooting is huge.
The bench rotation of JLIII, Bonzi, and Juwan looked very good last night. Sure hope Bonzi keeps playing better. We really need JLIII when Rafer goes up against quicker point guards that extend their defense out past half court on him. And Juwan plays best when he is playing the 5 with Yao and Deke not in the game. We may not be as intimidating defensively without Deke, but we are quicker all around without Deke. And the mesh of Bonzi going to the post up and Juwan staying out high seems to be working fairly well at this point, especially as Bonzi continues to improve his conditioning and IF Juwan continue to hit his jump shot. In the postgame interview, Bill and Matt were talking to him about his shot mechanics and he admitted that he was intentionally putting more arc on his shot. That is a definite improvement. Hopefully it continues and doesn't blow cold like last year. (But I'm not getting too hopeful yet.) Take JLIII's numbers and extrapolate out to 25 to 30 minutes and they look pretty good.
Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. Shane Battier played a good game, and like all the Rockets, deserves credit for the win. However, before you give him "credit" for this good game, do you also give him "blame" for our previous losses? Apologies, but I still believe we made a huge mistake trading away Rudy Gay. Swift for Battier would have been very good. But, remember, we didn't even get a late round #1 from Memphis in exchange. I still take Pepto whenever I think about this draft day fiasco.
um, my point wasn't that lucas had done anything to warrant playing time. it was that he hadn't been given enough time to warrant not playing him. so please, tell me what your reason would be for not playing him earlier? is it because rafer alston was handling the point so well in games where he logged 40+ minutes? is it because rafer was nailing those open 3s at a blistering %, and clearly didn't need any help at the point since head is a perfectly capable ballhandler? if these aren't the reasons, then please, enlighten me. or maybe, like you say, jvg saw something in practice that convinced him lucas wasn't ready. do you really believe that? do you think basketball is that complicated behind the scenes? do you really believe lucas, who did not play in the blazers game at all, just had one hell of a practice in the day off before the spurs game, that jvg was like 'omg this kid's got it! its finally clicked!' you've got to be kidding me. like i said, i think after the stretch of games we've played without tmac, jvg FINALLY realized playing rafer from opening tip to the final buzzer was not working out, and decided to give lucas a shot. and it paid off. but hey, if you think its more plausible that lucas somehow became 'ready' in practice between the blazers game and the spurs game, and that jvg waited till exactly the right moment to play him because if lucas had played any earlier the rockets would have lost (oh wait, they lost anyways), then that's your prerogative, isn't it?
Your trying to turn the tables on me was predictable since you know you cannot provide the analysis requested, but it wasn't wise. What do you think practice is for? Do you think maybe the coaching team is assessing players and their progress? In addition to the fact that few of us have a fraction of the knowledge of our coaches, we are privy to only a small fraction of all that's taking place to put a team on the floor. My argument is let the coaches do their jobs... yours is to throw young players on the court ... game time... whether they're ready or not so us fans can make our own determination? That's just brilliant. Do you really think that's how it's done in this league? And your focus on offense is predicatble. Whether you like it or not, this team will be a defense-first squad. If a player isn't team defense ready, he'll only see garbage time. Heh... well using your argument, all players are ready to play in the pros when they're born. No? Okay... then one day they're somewhat ready and before they were less ready... well isn't that what happened? So someone plays well in a game and you argue they should have played sooner... specious. You didn't get it before so let's try again... was he ready 5 games ago? 10? 10 years? It means a lot for some players to play when ready... when they will have some success. And you think playing in the NBA is simple? Why don't all teams just run the same offense? the same defense? And players just execute these offenses and defenses instantly. Wow... takes me back to my previous question... with your expert knowledge of NBA basketball... please explain how JLIII was prepared so many games ago for minutes. Oh wait... you think the game is simple... guess that answers the question, doesn't it? Lastly, you're trying to tell me that above all other factors in this game, giving Lucas 13 minutes is what 'worked out' for this victory? You didn't notice that the entire team was clicking from the start, long before Alston would have had the opportunity to tire (assuming that's your argument... that he tires)? So it didn't botther you that we took minutes away from our starting PG who had 9 assists in 35 minutes for a back-up who produced 0 assists in 13 mins? Our team was shooting 51% and a PG can't get an assist in 13 minutes? That doesn't maybe indicate he has some more room to grow? Now your argument is that Alston tires with those minutes, right? What happens to players' 3-point shots when they're tired? What's Alston's performance from long distance in 4th qtrs? I.e., what evidence do you have that his effectiveness drops off? And you are aware that Van Gundy 'tried' Lucas against the Lakers... 17 minutes. He shot well... but we lost anyway. How about that.
