I was going to title the post "street ball does not require coaching" but since the rockets ended up winning, I will wait to title that another time. It is time for Rudy to make decisions that will help the team rather then to try and make every one happy. James Posey is exactly the type of player the Rockets need to help them win. He should be the one playing 35 min a game. Mobley scored a lot but once again took too many dumb shots and had his share of bad turnovers. Even in the first half, I didn't like the way the rockets were playing because street ball will only work for so long. If they don't change their mentality of going inside out or even attempting to run some kind of a play, they will never get far in this league. I am sick and tired of watching them run iso's time in and time out. As far as Rice, the rockets have been consistently killed by the other small forwards in the league. Rice is pretty much useless for the rockets at this point of this career. I don't think hitting going 2-10 and playing awful defense should warrant a starting role. Posey should be starting and Boki should be getting playing time behind him. They only way that will happen is if Rice has sore ankles or misses some games due to injury. I would give Rudy T's coaching this year a D at best. He does not seem to have any control of his team. The rockets play street ball 90% of the time, that is not gonna cut it.
i credit this win to James Posey... he stopped Mash, the only guy for NO that was killing us. He also hussles around the court and made some key baskets for us late in the game. I think we found our junk yard dog, our garbage man... every great team needs one.
Umm No. Rice is great to start the game with Posey coming in the second half, kinda like Kenny/Sam back in the day. Don't wish for injuries on this team, they were contagious last year. Posey is the man. Posse Up!
I give rudy a B. He has taken a team with an injured 2-guard most of the year, a rookie center, a 2nd year PF, and an important PF and SF coming off serious injuries that kept them out all of last year, with a rookie back-up SG having to play important minutes, and has fashioned playoff team. Rice is an experienced veteran with championship experience, but when your next experienced guy is Cuttino Mobley and his 4 playoff games worth of experience then you have a young team. Rudy is doing a great job trying to develop a rookie center with no training camp and NBA conditioning and chemistry on the fly.
I thougt JPOSE did a NICE job tonite! He brought some energy & intensity, esp on D!! I love his clutch trey down the stretch!! I hope he starts 4 da ROXS!!!!!! Also, get BOKI some playing mins....pretty POSEY....I mean" please " Rudy!!!
Talk about your band wagon fans. Where were you guys on this thread? Yeah, Im the "I told you so" type. http://bbs.clutchcity.net/php3/showthread.php?s=&threadid=48693
Before you call somebody "bandwagon fans", haven't been home for the holidays, I usually post on Christmas (I've been here for several years, yes even during last year's debacle), so I didn't get to see that thread. Who here said "I told you so", all I saw was a few people happy to see Posey contribute. I guess this makes them bandwagon fans. Well I'm off to get some sleep.
And for the record I defended the James Posey deal from day one, dig up the original Kenny Thomas trade thread and you'll see. Geez if it's this bad after a win thank god I wasn't around for that New York Knicks disaster!
SLA, you're a pathetic wagon jumper. I stick with my points. Rudy still has a big coaching problem and he had no answer in the 3rd quater. And CAT is still a ballhog. Sadly, I think the win tonight will encourage him to be a bigger ballhog than ever. I hope he can prove me wrong. But his D was awesome and he improved in his passing.
JPo was a stud tonite. Rice is not much of anything when his shot is not falling. Grade JPo's 'D' an 'A' and grade Rudy with a 'W'.
I really enjoyed Posey's play tonight as well. (BTW, I was excited to get him.) Lately, I've found myself practically hating Rice. During shoot around, he wasn't really hitting that much, though better than his game shooting. On the other hand, Nachbar was draining shots from EVERYWHERE. I was amazed to see him make so many shots. (Only the second game I've attended this year.) So anyway, once Mashburn began lighting Rice up and Rice answered with bricks, I was pretty angry. I was hoping for him to get in foul trouble or something. Eventually, Posey came in and I clapped like the team won the championship. He always played good D, keeping a hand in his man's face and never letting them by. Then, he suprised me with a 3, basically making me wonder exactly why Rice has a purpose on the team. I admit he has leadership, but I don't know how important that is when he's giving up 20 ppg and scoring 8 ppg at 30%. (being generous.) Don't really know what to give Rudy. Maybe a B or something. The team is playing team ball, sort of. I can't really say if his game plans are good sometimes since they aren't always executed, like the last game. Only thing that I don't like is his loyalty to Rice, resulting in litttle or no time for Boki. BTW, as far as I can remember the Rockets are undefeated when I'm in attendence, which is about 6 or more games. WOOOO!
So you think that Rudy with the 2nd youngest team in the league can just snap his fingers and they will play like seasoned veterans. That is impossible. You can try to provide any argument you want. But you will not change my mind, Rudy is doing about you would have to expect. Rudy has been around the game for a long long time and he knows the fundementals about b ball. And Im sure he is teaching it to the team. So give him a break, by the end of next year Griffin will be a old man at 21, and our other starter in the paint will be in his 2nd year, and Francis will be in complete understanding of the NBA and how to use a great center. Come on guys you are expecting way to much out of completley unexperienced players. Just have fun watching them get better. By the happy new year.
No one is asking the Rockets to play like 'seasoned veterans', but we strongly believe that Rudy T could make some coaching changes that would make it easier on the Rockets. For example, not playing Glen Rice as much, when he can't make an open shot, and also lets his man go by him every time. It's no secret to opposing teams that they should always try to exploit Rice defensively. When Posey is in the game, we have no 'weak links' on defense to speak of, which improves the overall team defense. I did not watch the entire game tonight, but I would assume that most of Mashburn's 24 points were scored when Glen Rice was defending him. Playing Rice has been a huge mistake by Rudy T so far; his veteran 'leadership' simply does not make up for his offensive and defensive liabilities. He is going with guys like Mo Taylor who have some upside, but not enough to warrant playing them so many minutes. For example, why only play Kelvin Cato 21 minutes tonight, and so few minutes in December? Cato shot 3-3 and had 9 rebounds in 21 minutes. If he played a 35 minute game, like he did last season, he would have gotten us about 14-15 rebounds. I am glad to see that Mo Taylor only played 13 minutes tonight, he needs to be limited to that until he brings some effort. 2-7 shooting and 2 rebounds in 13 minutes does not impress me, especially when you consider what a defensive liability he is. Eddie Griffin shooting 4-10 (3-5 3PT) with 5 rebounds, 3 assists, and 3 blocks in 32 minutes does impress me quite a bit. I believe that Rudy T has made the mistake of playing Mo Taylor and Glen Rice too much, and not utilizing Posey and Cato enough. Nachbar also deserves some minutes, since he is a 1st round pick and has the ability to shoot the NBA 3 pointer.
I realize that this team is "young" But the back court has been intact for a good 3 years now and they did win 45 games two years ago with less talent. It is the style of play that concerns me about the rockets. In the past they had to rely on "street ball" to have a chance at winning. There really was no other option, now I feel that they don't have to do that any more. They REALLY NEED to make an effort to post up Yao and the rest of the post players(develop Griffin). At the very least they should run some kind of plays to find the open man. I have watched the suns(who have a similar team as the rockets) play and to me it seems like they pass the ball around a lot more until they find the open man. Having a top 5 point guard and probably the second best center in the league should allow you to win about 60% of your games. Losing to bad teams means that they are not being prepard well enough to compete every night or the game plan is just not working. That is my concern about Rudy T's coaching this year. I like him a lot and I don't think that he should be fired or any thing like that, I just question some of his decisions. Boki for one really needs to get some PT.
