Just watch the Houston Rockets play without Tracy Mcgrady in the lineup. I have never seen a more clueless group at the end of an NBA basketball game in my life.
Lock it up. You haven't even seen these Rockets play without TMac other than tonight, and they looked pretty damn good without him tonight.
lol. classic. I feel bad for Yao man, even though he was missing those FTs late (MAYBE the second night of a back to back playing very hard had SOMETHING to do with it) he played very well towards the end. The guy has no help out there. Or very minimal help. What a waste of pure talent...
I didn't think our crunch time play was bad. We had tons of quality open looks and free throws, we just missed them.
For those of you who don't think he is the most important piece of this puzzle, you are about to find out the hard way, depending on how long he is out.
I have never seen a team as dependent on the mere presence of a player on the court to keep their act straight (forget winning/losing, just keeping some order on the court and 'executing'). And this observation has nothing to do with this particular game, it is perhaps less so now but it's still too much for our own good. Prediction: as long as the Rockets remain so dependent on McGrady in their offensive schemes/execution, they will never amount to much.
They played better without T-mac in the second half both defensively and offensively they just didn't have enough to finish the game.
Bonzi did his thing. Insert him into the starting lineup and this team isn't too bad. I'm also hopeful that James will starting hitting shots soon. He is a hell of a lot better than he has show lately.
No one said he wasn't the most important piece of the puzzle, we just said it's not a complete trainwreck without him. What games was I watching? What season were you watching last year? First TMac went out and Yao shouldered the load to keep us going, then Yao got hurt and everyone said our season was doomed, but TMac shouldered the load. With this current schedule this was a bad time for an injury like this, but to say we are a trainwreck without TMac is absurd.
They played with more energy in the second half they actually played more like a Team. They won't win a championship without him but they sure is heck can still compete.
Thank You. And for the record, I'm not intending to bash any of the Rockets players, I am just calling it how I see it from a basketball perspective. They are all role players, and without their leader, they are lost, it isn't their fault.
Next three are Spurs, Suns, then Mavs. ugh. The Mavs game is next Wednesday. Hopefully T-Mac will be back by then.
bonzi has to step up huge for us now. yao is going to get beat down by opposing defenses with no t-mac to draw attention.
wow. you guys make it sound like the rockets DIDNT come all the way back from a 12 or 14 point deficit in the 1st half after tmac went out, and were in a very good position to win this game if the rockets could just hit FREE THROWS or OPEN JUMPSHOTS. tmac's presence wouldn't have made yao or bonzi's free throws any more accurate, or rafer/james's shooting any less crappy. this game was very winnable, beginning with a 12 point deficit, without tmac. just lock the guards up in the gym and make sure they don't stop shooting until they hit 100 threes in a row, like battier does with free throws.
They didn't finish the game because they were in such a huge deficit to come back from. The game was a tail of two halfs and they played better in the second half than teh first.
But thats because they decided to play with some urgency after he got injured.....we should be undefeated if the other guys (not including Yao) would have played with this kind of intensity.
