Not really, he still is not my personality type... But what does that have to do with winning basketball? I have to give JVG plenty of credit for inserting guys who are smart, and run better and shoot better, He is letting TMac, Sura, Barry, Wesley play to their strengths. He stuck with Howard as his starter. He keeps pushing Yao to assert the post and he has the team rebounding much better. He has always been a very good game coach and the fact that he has adapted to the team chemistry and gone away from the plodding half court slow down is a credit to him. He may have a stinking personality, but his teams have always been mentally tough and ready for the playoffs. If we make the playoffs we will do some damage. Props to JVG
JVg needs go to smilling clinic to learn smile. Even briallant win at Dallars, His face looks plastic mask. How coudl you love him?
LOL! Boy, is the BBS predictable or what! The Rockets lose a game, the doom-and-gloomers run around flooding the BBS with negative posts. The Rockets win, and the lovefest begins. I say we should call Dr. Phil, and tell him the mood-swings have become waaaaaaaaaay too obvious to ignore JK guys, it is all in good fun, I love JVG, T-MAc, Yao, and even the Pistons fans , I am in that good a mood --Tiger
I don't think it was ever about letting 'your boys' play. It was about them making wide open shots. I don't love JVG, but I certainly don't hate him and I think very highly of his coaching abilities. I argue against the whole fire gundy crowd because I have different thoughts, and i'm right and they're wrong One thing you have to love, per ESPN:
Prediction: We'll be in the playoffs playing this style of basketball with JVG standing on the sideline, and people will STILL be saying we're not playing JVG's style of basketball.
If he shows a hint of satisfaction, the team may lay down on him, thinking that they have improved enough........that's his mindset anyway.
I have yet to understand this.. Why dont people understand that JVG likes to run??? You can see he is ALWAYS yelling at our players to PUSH IT and RUN BACK on D.. I think he wants to run if not, setup the half court...
I remember Van Gundy joking about the misery his wife was going through because he was going to be at home for a couple of day, he was tongue in cheek saying he is a miserable person to be around. That's how he strikes me too, But if you can get past that I see he has an insane drive to win. Very competitive person. He is hard on himself and everyone else around him. He is critical to a fault, but not because he doesn't care. I really don't care if we were the run and gun showtime Rockets, or the grind it out ugly ball Rockets as long as we win and we do it with good solid basketball execution. What I like about the team right now is that we are much smarter on the court, we run in transition when the opportunities are right, we are making good decisions in the half court and we are exploiting mismatches and single coverage. Obviously we have to shoot well to win and we will have some nights nothing goes in or we are well defended. But we are playing up to our potential and maybe overacheiving just a little bit. I will give some credit to Van Gundy for this. But I don't expect us to win it all. We are fighting for our life for a playoff spot. The best part is we have a team chemistry and identity and playing much more consistantly.
You are 100% correct. In their biggest point outburst of the season (vs DAL), the Rockets took....77 shots. Just about what they took a month ago when they scored 87 ppg. There are two subtle differences which get ignored. First, Juwan Howard has been money from the elbow over his career. A month ago, he was horrid, now his getting back to himself. His FG% is up and it's been contagious given the Rox have been getting wide open looks all season. Secondly, for some unexplanable reason in transition Jim Jackson would plant himself at the arc instead of forcing the action when the numbers favored the Rockets. David Wesley doesn't do this. He'll attack the basket in transition. Another thing that the "inflexible" Van Gundy has done since the 2nd half of the Lakers' game is not start the game or half pounding the ball into the low block with a Yao ISO. Yao has been starting games and halves on the weakside or in PnR. By not having all this initial pressure, Yao eases into the game mentally. The current Rockets especially when Sura came back from injury have always been a decent transition team. A month ago, the Rox got about 8-10 fastbreak ppg. In the past month, they have upped it by about 6. It doesn't seem like alot, but getting a few easy baskets have had a major positive impact. "Love" is a little strong, but (excluding his sour personality) I generally like what JVG does as a coach.
I suspect JVG really does enjoy looking miserable. If he ever wins a championship, he's gonna need an extreme makeover, if only for the victory parade. Suggestion: Coach, you'd look a lot better if you'd just shave your head, or at least cover it with a doo-rag a la Kip in Napolean Dynamite. Peace out.
Some people aren't happy unless they are miserable Bill Parcells falls into the same category. It's just who they are. Give the guy credit for molding relative five strangers into playing the most intelligent brand of bball .....well, since the SF era started. D R
I'm not ripping my "JVG Hate Club" card up yet, but I just froze it in a large block of ice that would take several days to thaw out. I know that JVG had been asking them to run during games, but the actual performance of the team was leading me to believe that there was another major problem with the team that he wasn't able to fix. I liked the Barry trade trade, but HATED the Wesley trade... maybe I was dead wrong. Anyway, I like what I see lately, and must also attribute it to JVG. -Better rebounding, especially offensive put-backs by Yao. -Yao holding onto ball better and not bringing it below his shoulders (I consider this a HUGE development since it turns Yao from a softy into a much harder nosed player) -Team shooting is improving, T-mac's shooting is insane -Nice passing... pinpoint passing through traffic, interior passing, inside-out -General effort has improved Basically... we don't look like losers right now. Win or lose, we are definitely playing smarter basketball right now... like Dallas Rocket said, the smartest in probably 6-8 years.
GATER, excellant analysis! I like the pick and rolls they are using now. Much more effective. Howard and Wesley hitting jumpers has been huge. Seems like all of those shots we missed early in the season we are making now. They are the SAME open shots we got before. We just are hitting them. And winning. More than anything, this Dallas game has sealed it. Howard is the starting PF on this team. He should be getting STARTERS minutes at over 30mpg. Taylor should get no more than 20 mpg. We always say Taylor and Howard are similar players. In some degrees they are. But more than ever the gap is widening. Howard is showing a lof of effort on the floor. Taylor is stuck in mud.
Yep, this is totally the time to give JVG his props. Earlier in the season people wanted him to adapt to his player and run a more uptempo style of offense. Well guess what, you got it and on top of that we can still get a timely stop when we need it. Much props need to be handed out to him and coaching staff. This week could be a huge turning point in the season with the game tonite and Saturday against the Spurs! Lets go Roxs and lets Gundy!
