You have to look back at our loss against Denver, to notice the ball movement and when the Rockets were getting RA's motion offense. Denver isn't a weak team, and their defense is pretty good with Camby as the anchor. However, in the game against Denver, the Rockets were moving the ball well and we got alot of easy layups with cutters and slashers heading towards the rim. Our offense actually looked good because of the ease we were making our points. The problem with last night is, our team offense sucked until TMac took over. Key word here is "team offense" as a whole because TMac provided individual offense. Mcgrady picked it up in the 4th quarter and everybody else stood around and watched him. Our motion offense went down the drain and we were totally reliant upon TMac. Sorry, that's not motion offense, and that's not what we brought Adelman in for. My point is, if we are going to play 2 vs 5 basketball (Yao and TMac vs everybody else), we are better off rehiring JVG because that's what our offense was last year.
The only problem with your theory is that When T-Mac was not there, and Yao was doubled down the stretch, there was zero offense. Not just bad offense, zero offense. I personally think its a good idea when the defense collapses down on Yao to allow T-Mac to create stuff at the end of the shot clock.
last night would have been a lost without tmac and the supersonic game before this would have been a lost man what games do you all watch? tmac has to take over when he sat down last night the offense stalled so what the **** do you want him to do? let me guess you want him to keep running the motion and for everyone else to keep missing shots
Here are Yao's words directly: "I think against Seattle (on Monday), when he got on the court, teammates slowed down a little bit, like 'OK, you're on the court, we can count on you,' " Rockets center Yao Ming said. "Maybe it's just my feeling. That's not because he wanted this. We're used to giving him the ball and slowing down to watch him. That would be a problem. We need everybody. He can find the open man, if we keep moving." source: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/bk/bkn/5480853.html So in Yao's opinion, our offense regressed last night because the other players stopped moving, and ended up standing around and watching TMac go solo. Don't you guys get it? Because Yao gets it. And I think he has better insight into the failures last night than the rest of us watching from the sidelines.
I knew T-Mac has this magic aura that makes players not named McGrady move like they are stuck in sand.
Yao spoke of monday night. Not last night. But it could have been more of the same. As Buc said, it's not his fault everyone wants to stand around. McGrady has shown time and time and time again he's a VERY willing AND able passer.
when we post yao up like we did to start last night's game, everybody stood around too. the offense was stagnant b/c it was all yao. it works both ways if we just depend on our stars, either yao or tmac. it's not just tmac.
If two teams played one more time, it would be still urgly. If $20M can save the game, why he did not do it earlier and waited until last minute? No hope for play-offs if Rocket relies on one man to save game.
qft Tmac is a closer, and a VERY good closer at that.... His defense is atrocious though; unless the game in on the line then its pretty much excellent. We win against NOK and PHI with Tmac handling the rock in the 4th. Rafer/brooks/head/steve/mikejames is fine for the first 40 min, but the last 8 min is Yao/Tmac time.
The problem is that the ball can't hit McGrady and then stop while he sets up. It's got to keep swinging around the perimeter. Take a look at a real Princeton offense. They never stop passing the ball and almost nobody dribbles. Adelman's not going to install a real Princeton offense in Houston but I've got to imagine that some of the goals are the same--lots of passes and everybody on the floor gets to touch the ball at least once per possession.
I hear ya man, but not all Princeton offenses have a Yao. He's such a large man he literally takes up nearly a whole side of a court on his own and the space that he needs to work. Add that he's usually doubled before the pass. Someone has to dribble and draw the D from Yao or the perimeter shooters. The only person we have trustworthy to do that and make the right play is Tracy with Rafer a distant second. Personally, I don't care if everyone touches the ball. Take what the D gives you is the name of the game. These are extremely talented athletes. If they are geared to take Yao out of the game, you go to your next guy. If they single cover Yao, abuse them with simple dumps to the post. Why waste time passin the ball around like a hot potato? The passing occurs once 1.) Yao receives the ball and the double/triple team or 2.) someone (tracy) drives and draws the defense, and begins the first pass to a shot, or the "hockey assist." It seems if this team is going to be a passing team in the sense you mention, Yao has to come out to the FT to free up the paint for cutters and such. I'm not against that, we've see it happen on PnR with TMac and Yao.
Rockets run a hybrid Triangle/Princeton with some low post for Yao and some PnR/ISO for T-Mac. The key is balance. Late in the 4th, when teams are clamping down defensively, you lean on the PnR/ISO for T-Mac. Early on when the D is more honest, you run your triangle plays, post plays, princeton plays, etc.
Yeah, since Adelman is going to implement a hybrid system it's kind of hard to figure out what exactly is going to be carried over and what's going to be dropped. And any system is going to have to take into account the two superstars and play off of their strengths. My big concern is that balanced scoring has been a major problem in the past, in the sense that nobody else other than T-Mac and Yao did any. I think the best way to approach that problem is to try to get the other guys lots of touches. Hitting them once in a while and expecting them to make the open jumper just hasn't worked--they've gone cold by the time they get the ball and the Rockets offense has stagnated as the guys on the perimeter miss open shot after open shot. I just can't bring myself to believe that this team is going to get anywhere in the playoffs, or against high caliber opposition, unless the so-called "role players" step up and do some scoring.
Frankly I'm overjoyed any time a game starts and anybody but Yao and T-Mac makes the first few baskets, especially if that somebody is Battier. He just looks a lot better on the offensive end when he commits himself to scoring early.
I'm with you there. We know what we are going to get from #1 and #11 pretty much every night. My confidence in anyone past those two is very low. Wish I could say otherwise or that there is some immediate hope, but all we have is a lot of unproven potentials. Maybe Landy or Scola can be that other scoring *consistently.*
I think if you look at all of the other options we have, be they Bonzi, Brooks, Head, Scola, Battier, Rafer, Landry. You figure at least one or two will have a solid game. You dont know which one will do it, but you know you will get double figures from 2 or 3 of those guys on a nightly basis. Sure, consistency helps, but I think the 7 chances to get 2 guys in double figures thing could be a lot worse. Last year it was pretty much Rafer, Battier, Luther, and Howard.
