Kobe 4th vs TMac 4th

very true. and no one is denying that.

what we're saying is even if you put the best player on this rockets team, we would not win this round.

do you know why?

how can any player put up 22, 10, 9 through three quarters and his team would be LOSING?

if one player does that much and your team loses, you can replace michael jordan with that statline and you still lose. on a great team, that would be enough for a blowout.

 

Sure your right about them being a big part of your regular season. But a 7 game series playoff NBA is a totally different story. Playoffs are playoffs and rookies are rookies. Discredit it all you want. What about no Rafer Alston and no Yao Ming? Im pretty sure that holds alot more steam then Scola and Landry.

I noticed in your flaming you neatly managed to ignore Brewer.
His analysis is correct. In fact he should have mentioned the massive disparity our bench has in comparison to the UTAH bench. *cough* no Bonzi Wells or Mike James either. Gees sure would have looked good now if they were playing.

Nope its not a double team. I agree with that statement. Its overused the term double team. But the truth of the matter is if your the playmaker and there are people standing in your lane you have to do more work. Get pass the second man or get enough space to pass through that second man. Thats Tracy Mcgrady summed up for you. Every pass and drive he does is extra work. Does Hayes demand a double team on the roll? or even when he starts driving? No. He doesn't need to create and therefore work harder for the pass or drive or shot. In fact all he does is catch and then shoot.

 

Why don't some of yall just start cheering for the Lakers since you love Kobe so much? T-Mac is not Kobe.

 

I like Kobe. I like watching him play. He's good. He's good at what he does. Probably the best at what he does. But some people have this notion that because he has fire and a will to win he's so much better than T-Mac.

Yeah he's better. No doubt. But...

Kobe has 3 rings and 0 finals MVPs. No MVPs (which I hope changes soon). No first round victories in the last 3 seaons without Shaq. That means without talent, he's no better than T-Mac.

T-Mac has talent around him too. It's either sitting on the bench in a suit or not enough of it to matter against a better team.

 

Last year, no one would've blamed the lakers if they had traded bynum for kidd. No one looks like an idiot.

My point was that Kobe wanted to win last year. Trading bynum for kidd last year would've made the lakers a stronger team.

Of course, given bynum's development this year, the lakers were wise not to trade him.

No need to start throwing insults. That just means you cant make a rational argument.

If it makes you feel better, I think very highly of battier and scola.

Shaq and Duncan have both won multiple times. Dwight Howard is still young and will eventually win.

Then he should practice them more.

When did kobe get tired? I've never seen kobe get tired in a playoff game.

He was integral to those championships. They wouldn't have happened without him. Sure, Shaq was their primary option, but Kobe was an important piece too

Kobe won't have success without a quality big man. Shaq wont have success without a quality guard. When shaq left, he went to a team with a quality guard. No quality big men went to LA.

Thats why when wade missed so much time, shaq didnt play well and was conveniently injured for long stretches. And thats why the lakers finished at the top of the west

Only hakeem has won a championship with nothing but role players. No matter what you think, basketball is a business. If Kobe and Shaq stayed together, theres no guarantee the would've continued winning. It was more probably that they would've thrown the team into turmoil which is bad for business.

So the best course of action was to separate them. Btw, when you say "end of story", are you trying to seem smart? arrogant? For future reference, you should only say "end of story" when you know you're right.

 

Scola is not your average rookie. He is an experience european player. Actually, he was considered the best european player not in the NBA before joining the rockets.

Did you also notice that I admitted to erroneously omitting him?

His analysis is incomplete.

Btw, he was comparing this year to last year. Last year, we didnt have Mike James and Bonzi sat on the bench. For all intents and purposes, they're playing the same role for us right now as they did last year.

 

Yeah, Tmac did put up great numbers for 3 periods. Too bad that a game lasts 4 quarters.

 

And too bad that a game is played 5 on 5. Not 2 on 5 or 3 on 5.

 

I dont see anyone else on the rockets earning around 20 million a year. If you expect other players to be able to carry the team for an entire quarter, then they should get paid more and tmac should get paid less.

Keep in mind that I dont expect the rockets to win the series. I dont even expect them to win 2 games. I just dont want to see them quit.

 

Since the op watched the game, did he see that when kobe and pau took a rest, the lead went from 1 to 10. Just like last game when kobe was 2-11 in the first half, the team was still winning because pau was on pace for 36-16-8. I'm all for criticizing, but at least be fair.

 

tmac just fire up 60 shots tomorrow forget about reb and assists. Just be a ballhug and shot when you have the ball screw everything else just shoot the ball

 

You want to use that default argument? Not everyone on the Lakers is making Kobe money. Why are they all showing up to play? You are being very subjective when you "don't want to see them quit". I think you and I both know very well that we are most likely going to lose this series and I bet every player in that locker room knows that. They are out there fighting. Every one of them, from what I can see. Doesn't matter how good they are, that's a moot point, everyone is fighting.

Booby Gibson doesn't make LeBron money. Why did he drop 31 in the playoffs last year? Money has nothing to do with it. I said this in a different thread earlier on a slightly different subject but the point holds.

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You can't throw $20 million at someone who's used to that kind of money and fame and all that and hold them to the same standard. T-Mac is used to the money. It's not a bad thing, it's great for him, but that's just how it is. T-Mac is still human, a large contract when you're used to it is not that special. It won't stop T-Mac from lashing out against critics if he wants to, even though this was done in sarcasm.

Kobe, for example, makes a lot of money as well. By the same logic, why should Kobe get to demand for a trade from a team that's paying him so much? Who cares if he was losing? He's already won his championships. Why can't he just play hard, leave the game, go to his mansion via the Aston Martin that he jumped over, or the multiple other cars like it he probably has or can afford? Why did he only take 3 shots in that series vs. the Suns in game 7? To prove a point? Yeah but he quit on his team, something that someone on this team is being accused of.

A Ferrari or a mansion or even millions of dollars isn't going to stop guys like T-Mac and Kobe and multiple other NBA players from doing human things when there's no threat of it being taken away. Kobe didn't like his workplace and he wanted a new one. He makes soooo much money he should just man up. If my job payed me $20 million HELL YEAH I would do pretty much anything and stay for as long as I can, but we're not in the same boat, NBA superstars and I. T-Mac doesn't like being blamed when he's trying (or he thinks he's trying) and he wanted to let the critics know. Different, yes. But the premise is the same.

Why do lots (not all, of course) of NBA players smoke weed and go to night clubs and get into fights and do all this stuff? Why the hell did Michael Vick get into dog fighting? Wasn't he rich enough to find something else to do? etc. etc. etc. Because they are human, the money doesn't really change anything if you are used to it unless there's a threat it will be taken away.

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T-Mac's salary is not going to be proportional to how hard he works compared to his teammates. It just won't. He might make five times more than someone making 4 million but that doesn't mean he's even able to work five times harder...the average CEO makes ~400x more than the lowest paid worker in the same company. Does he or she work 400 times harder? Or even 400 times longer?

 

Wekko- If u don't think they're not doubling tracy, then either u have never played hoops or ur tv is broken. Let me help u out.

The rox have jackson,battier,tracy,scola and hayes on the court. The jazz are basically playing a 1-2-2 zone trap. What happens is once tracy has the ball initiating the offense, they use their best defender (ak-47) and the big to blitz the pnr. By blitzing the pnr bacause the pick guy isn't a threat 30ft from the basket. While this is happenning, the other 3 defenders are just outside the paint. Since the rox don't have anyone that can attack the hoop or big men that can roll and finish over the top, it turns back into that zone I mentioned. Now tracy has the ball 30ft from the hoop, shot clock under 10sec. What do u do?

I think adelman needs to adjust and start the offense tracy at the ft line or top of the key in a 1-4 high set or low set. He has to get away from bringing hayes defender in the picture.

 

Spot on.

Let's talk about this objectively and strategically rather than hating shall we?

In fact, at this point, down 0-2 with no homecourt advantage, I'd just say, screw the motion offense. Use it in spurts to change things up a little, but Adelman should go back and watch some Orlando tapes of Tmac. Run that 1-4 high iso set that Doc Rivers ran. Give the ball to Tmac, and get out of his way, or run him through multiple picks. Free the lane up for him to drive and finish. Bring in Novak if they still wanna collapse the paint and leave guys open. Crash the o-boards.

 

sometimes 1 on 5!

 

I mean I think kobe is the best player in the nba, but he got the chance to play with a all time great in his prime. The formula was easy also, let shaq dominate for 3 qts and take over in the 4th. As good as la was during those yrs, they got swept by the jazz and spurs. After the breakup, the lakers received 3 players from a playoff roster. That same yr they were in the lotto. The next 2 yrs the kobe led lakers were a 8th seed with a 3-1 lead and lost with him taking 7 shots in game 7. Last yr they were a 7th seed and lost in 5 to the same team. They were playing well then bynum goes down and they're 0-2. Kupchack steals gasol and they're 27-3 with gasol and 5-6 without him. Kupchak came on sirius and said he had to make a deal because he didn't think they would make the playoffs if they stayed pat.

I typed that because people want to talk about how much better kobe is vs tracy. I agree he's a much better scorer, but I don't think his impact on the team is better. Bynum who was playing well goes down and they replace him with gasol The lakers are 5-8 without gasol/bynum. if u just double that, 10-16, that's 38% winning clip. What's the rox record without yao? Try 68%.
I'm not trying to discredit a guy to prove a point, but think about that. Oh yeah, the lakers won 2 more games than the rox minus 27 games of yao.

 

Terrible comparison in this case. Different teams, opponents, and so forth. If T-Mac gets double teamed, who do the Rockets have to make the Jazz pay? And the Lakers? Point.

 

It wouldn't matter if Kobe had garbage around him he still has a stronger game than Tracy bottom line. When it comes to winning games as a team then that different but if you look at their individual games Tracy plays cowardly inconsistent and good at certain times but Kobe is completely consistent and shows up in a hard playing aggressive spirit the whole game. Now if the Lakers play the Jazz next series we will see this book it. We see what Tracy did with Yao lets look at what Kobe does with Gasol against the Jazz if it happens.

 

you guys are going to miss Mcgrady when he demands a trade

you don't realise you have lost something amazing until you lost it..

 

Wow! Amazing!

Our game 7 at utah was truly remarkable last year.

94% of the teams in the playoffs that led 2-0, won the series. Guess who managed to be in the remaining 6%??

7-8 teams in the history of the playoffs managed to come back from 1-3 to win the series. Mcgrady managed to lose it, TWICE!

Yesterday those of us that watched the lakers game, saw how a superstar performs on the 4th quarter, and actually the entire game.

Our superstar cant last more than 15 mins on the court because "he is tired".

Trade mr "Mommy I am tired, I cant play a whole game with the same intensity" mcloser.