Thanks for great picures and analysis by Wuhuike(无悔客) Why we always collapse in final quarter? Because Rox offense system rely on T-Mac Yao duo too much. Our two stars make great efforts for our leading in 3rd quarter so they would feel tired in the 4th. Then, most good defense team change their defensive style at the most important point, like the Spurs or Pistons do. If they succeeded to cut the connection between T-Mac and our players in open / prevent Yao from getting the ball at best position, all the offense of Rox team choked. Let’s look at those crucial plays in the game Rockets @ Pistons. They know that Rox team had two major ways in offense. One is “Feed Yao” and run a inside-out system, the other is “T-Mac one on one” which needs T-Mac to perform as a playmaker or finisher. The pistons used zone instead of man on man for prevent Yao from the ball. Yao needs to do a lot of dribbling or steps works to make himself closer to the basket after getting the ball at a bad position.So Pistons players or the referees could have chance to push Yao commit turnovers. (T-Mac and Yao in red circles) They also make T-Mac spent a lot of time in getting rid of those defenders and T-Mac might be exhausted in the process. (T-Mac in red circles) Neither Head nor Alston who was handling the ball could be a playmaker at clutch time. So shut down T-Mac would be the most important. If Tracy got the ball, they just try to cut his connection with Yao and make it hard to pass the ball at the first opportunity to those players in open. Though they let our role plays get open chance when doubling Yao, such “open chance” could not be transferred to score. We may conclude that T-Mac-Yao-duo could not necessarily bring chance for each other or offer open shots for our role players, especially without a advanced system to make the ball fluid faster. If JVG can’t design a new stactics to solve such problem, we may suffer the same lost again and again. Thanks for great picures and analysis by Wuhuike(无悔客)
bonzi is not gonna be a consistent 3rd scorer that is to average 15pt a game. but killbill has the potential
The whole team should have this delima figured out. It's not simply who relying on who. The championship level team (or at least championship contender team) win the 4th quart with team effort. Yao and T-Mac must step up because their clutch performance will make positive impact on our role players. Role players must also manage to do what they are supposed to do so Yao and T-Mac's effort won't be wasted. Of course, a reliable 3rd scoring player like Mike James in 04-05 season will make it easier. Good team discipline on both ends, strong mentallity and better execution will help win the 4th quarters. Everybody knows this is what we are lacking right now. It's time we made a change in rotation and game plan, I hope JVG can make this happen sooner.
what the hell Did noone read the last sentance of the first post? he said JVG needs to come up with different strategies and have more fluid ball movement? Is it me, or noone whos posted read the post and just contributed their own agenda of putting vspan or using bonzi
i think bonzi is a more realistic third scorer than vspan is, simply because he's been in this league longer and clearly knows how to score whereas vspan still needs to get adjusted to most everything in the NBA. he's still learning how to cut down his turnovers, i dont think being a third scorer is anywhere on his agenda just yet
yeah and then an alternative suggestion was mentioned; it was that we need a reliable third scorer, hence the bonzi and vspan talk.
Some pics to show how they fouls Yao but no calls notice the defender's leg....That's why Yao fall down....
Seriously I don't think Bonzi would make that much of a difference at this point in time. More fluid ball movement that works with this type of offence that he outlined and a little variation would give the Rockets a hell of alot more chance to score in the 4th q then adding Bonzi in. The Bonzi argument is highly flawed there is no gurantee that he will slot in as a third scorer. How does he work with Yao on the court? How does he work with Mcgrady as point forward? How does he work with Rafer as PG but really playing on the perimeter and waiting for a shot. All i'm saying is that the article calls for fairly simple changes by JVG that would make a drastic difference. Why do people have to call for major changes before they are satisfied.
during the first 3qs of virtually every game the ball movement has been crisp and precise and the rockets would always find the open man. however, when the d gets tougher and the intensity is brought up, that fluid ball movement just disappears. one could make an argument it isnt the ball movement thats the problem, its the team attitude. having a third scorer, (and bonzi is a proven scorer), would ease tmac and yao's burden of having to carry the team. bringing bonzi in would not really a major change, it would be a much needed addition. he could be a scorer off the bench, much like jerry stackhouse in dallas. this guy will attract a lot of attention, hey, he might even contribute to that crisp ball movement you were referring to because of the attention he demands. also, we cant really talk about bonzi not being integrated into the team as he already is a houston rocket. so unless you're thinking of trading him or something, sooner or later, he is going to be on the floor, likely as a third scorer
Juwan Howard and Scott Padgett - on most circumstances, these two can be left open and have their defenders helping on T-mac and Yao.
so really what your saying is, if our team attitude was better, we would have owned that 4th q and a third scorer would have made the only difference of beating them by a wider margin. Really i think you hit it spot on, the team attitude in each 4th q was pathetic. A third scorer could alleviate the problem, but really if the attitude was better we would have won. I think that if Detroit worked out the plays and was disrupting the flow of the passes then we need a different set of plays to run as well. These are fairly simple adjustments. IF you put them on par with injecting Bonzi into the lineup in terms of difficulty I would have trouble thinking that they are the same in difficulty
Rumor has it Rip Hamilton did testicular and prostate exams on Tmac in the 4Q but of course, no call by the refs most of the time. Apparently the no touch rule on the perimeter was temporarily suspended.
This is how all teams will play the Rockets in the 4th......we need to have another penetrating player to make them pay. That, or someone that can hit a lot of wide open jumpers..... Which incidently we have both sitting tight on the bench in V-SPan and Novak. DD
This is why big men are so hard to ref. Yao gets fouled, yet at the same time his elbow is in somebody's face (just due to his size). The refs balance it out in their mind and makes the "no call".
Thanks for the photo breakdown. I've noticed the doubling on both Yao and TMac at the same time. Unfortunately our outside shooting has been streaky and we aren't making teams pay. At the absence of that we don't have someone not named TMac or Yao that can breakdown the defense by penetration either. I'm with DD on this. Novak might help with the 1st (consistent outside shooting) and VSpan (and Bonzi - my add) might help with the 2nd.
Yes they doubled both of our stars but they also set a great defensive positions which could avoid offering easy baskets to our role players.
