I don't know about this whole JVG vs. TMac thing. I am not in any way for JVG and his inept offense, and really don't mind if he is fired, but... When has the supposed T-Mac offense won us a game? The Spurs games... that wasn't the T-Mac offense in the last minute. Anybody will run that offense in the last minute. You have to put up three pointers like that in the last minute to win. The other game with the supposed T-Mac offense was the Dallas game and well.... we lost. I agree that JVG needs to adapt but I am not comfortable with the T-Mac offense that involves a lot of shots by T-Mac that are usually a very low percentage shot. I think people are forgetting that T-Mac shot 12-29 last night which is not a good percentage and before his heroics he was at 8/25. (a lot of this is due to the JVG offense which puts players in situations that lead to poor percentage shots). But the again, this whole year I have witnessed sub par shooting from T-Mac. As I have league pass and my brother (a huge Magic fan) lives down the street from me, I saw the T-Mac offense and how it works last year many many times. Yes it is exciting and fun. And yes, last year's Orlando team sucked, but the T-mac offense tends to freeze out a lot of players as the ball is usually in his hands. This was one of my worries from last year. That T-mac when he got here and things wern't going as expected would begin to want to go back his old ways. And although last year that was fine and dandy since there really wasn't another way with the group that he had, this year he has a better cast, or at the very least, he a has a pretty good second option with Yao. There's more to changing the offense than JVG adapting... T-Mac needs to adapt too.
Excellent post. While I'm glad to see any offense and get a few Ws, I hope T-Mac is able to adjust when we get better personnel. It's fine to see T-Mac put the team on his back in the final minute, but that should be the exception, not the rule, to a structured, cohesive offense.
Last year's Magic starting lineup: DeClerque Howard Gooden T-mac Lue The bench is non-existent, they won 19 games. This year's Rocket starting lineup: Yao Howard JJ/Bowen T-mac Lue/Ward in the beginning, now Sura The bench? (MoT, Deke) Do you see the similarity here between the 2 teams except for the center position? Please illustrate if Rox plays the same style as the Magic played last year, is 30-win season reasonable? JVG is a good coach. He plays a style that gives Rox the best chance to win.
Yao>>>>>>>DeClerq Howard=Howard JJ/Bowen>>>Gooden TMac=TMac Sura/Barrett>>Lue I'm not sure what your point is, but this team, no matter what style of play, is capable of atleast a 47-50 win season. JVG style of play doesn't give us the best chance to win. It gave the Knicks, who didn't have the likes of TMac, the best chance to win in the late 90s. As TMac said in his interview, JVG needs players to fit into his system, but he really needs to fit his system to his players.
look - first off - the team HAS TO REBOUND on the defensive end in order to run a break. so until our PFs start rebounding better than our guards there is little that JVG or Tmac can do about breaking second, JVG is not completely anti-break... remember Laterell Spreewell, Allen Houston, and Grand-MAMA played for this guy and those guys love to run it down and take the quick shot. I think if Yao Ming or Howard Mopagspoonbo (the PF by committee) could clean the defensive glass and get it down the court, the coach would let them run.
I don't think do. Rudy was too anchored in Rockets history(both as a player and a coach) to be challenged by Francis. But that's an other story. In our case, JVG with ultimatly "lose" to TMac, just because he doesn't have as much credit as our superstar player. We have incredible offensive firepower in Yao/TMac. Being a GM, I wouldn't want to wast it...or at least not too long! I'd say another 7/8 games loosing streak and it's done for Van Gundy. ALA
JJ this season: 13.9 PPG, 0.417 shooting, 4.9 RPG Gooden: 12.6 PPG, 0.486 shooting, 10.1 RPG I take Gooden and he is much younger.
Thats Gooden stats this season at PF, he was playing SF with Orlando averaging 11 & 6. Not bad numbers, but there is something about the kid that coaches hate, selfishness? I'm not sure. But I really wanted Orlando to throw Gooden in the deal, a TMac/Gooden package would have been a lot better than the crap we got, but I guess Orlando knew that.
The reason that TMac shot 8/25 and 12/29 is because every last one of his shots was outside the paint combined with the fact that we had players like Ryan Bowen starting the game and causing even more defensive pressure on Yao and TMac because of their offensive ineptitude. Yao and TMac performed outstanding in the Spurs game when you take into account the constant double team. Both of them got a little selfish and forced some shots. IT WAS OUR ONLY CHANCE TO WIN! Even Van Grumpy himself has said that his 2 superstars are too unselfish, that they need to get more shots up. Well, guess what, in the Spurs game, both of them finally figured out that if they didn't do it, it wasn't going to get done. You got Bowen, Sura, and our 4 running around. Do we really want them taking jump shots? I don't. I'd rather see TMac putting up 29 shots and Yao putting up about 20-25 shots and Bowen putting up 1 or 2. Let those players pick up garbage only. You want this team to improve their shooting? Let them run the break and finish the break, and put in somebody that can shoot it such as Boki and open up the offense. Yao and TMac did everything they could possibly do to help us win that game the other night. But with the non-complimentary players that Van Gundy is running out there and with the slow down snail ball being played, our shooting percentages and specifically TMac's and Yao's shooting percentages are going to go down because they are having to take shots against constant double teams, or throw the ball to Bowen for a much lower percentage shot, or throw up desparation shots because the shot clock has wound down. This junk about McGrady shooting so much freezes the other players out is garbage. We beat the Spurs and played very competitively against the Mavs. If TMac hadn't went off for 48, we would have lost that game by 20+. Instead we were one shot, one call away from winning that game. That's what the TMac offense has done for us to help us win games man.
I agree with all the posts talking about how becuase of Bowen and other players that he puts in there that are not scoring threats causing T-Mac and Yao to be doubled a lot easier. At least if you put someone like Boki or padgett in to start instead of bowen and they make their shots they are going to have to respect them and come out and guard them. Right now every team can play off Bown and let him have the open shot that he is not going to make most of the time and just give them more opportunities to double up our best players and making it hard for them to score.
