Lopez Opening Fire on Les for Wanting a Better Coach

fair enough. but your comments about adjustments and the offensive strategy are dependent upon the players...right?

the rockets have 2 guys that can score effectively, right? Only 1 of those 2 can actually create for himself, right? Automatically that restricts what one can do on offense.


same goes for defense. You have 1 guy who is extremely limited in his movements and is slow, that restrict what you can do.

as for your zone theory...you can see utah is having no problems with the zone. well coached teams beat zones.

 

Why would you compare a rebuilding period to JVG's period? Rebuilding teams don't make the playoffs; that is expected. Especially teams that rebuild from scratch after their stars all retire.

 

i don't think there's a better defensive-minded coach out there than JVG, and frankly i wouldn't mind having him for another year. he was Van Grumpy in his early Rocket years, but lightened up after the criticism he faced - so it's possible he could adapt a little in terms of the rotation.

i don't think that JVG should be responsible for Mac's stubborn line-drive heat-checks, Yao missing point-blank shots during the entire series that he normally sinks, and Luther & Juwan (especially Luther) missing open shots that they normally hit. Battier redeemed himself later, and i think we all knew what we were getting with Rafer.

HOWEVER, JVG IS responsible for who gets minutes and who doesn't. i still think that V-Span is our best defensive-minded PG, and i think he shoulda gotten some minutes once we all realized Rafer wasn't gonna hit for ****.

Snyder - who i felt woulda been the missing piece in terms of athleticism. the common knock on kirk was his IQ/decision-making, but it seemed like anytime he was in the game he made a difference. (maybe durvasa or someone else can find Snyder's +/- numbers.)

Novak - defense was the obvious knock - but when you can hit shots like that, i think at some point the coach has to let you in and try to depend on the team/help defense to help out the weak links. JVG never tried zone, and i'm sure that woulda helped Novak get some minutes.

Bonzi - coulda been the x-factor, but who really knows what happened. i don't feel comfortable commenting on it, b/c i'd be basing it on hearsay and not some cold, hard facts, but i do know that other coaches would at least let an overweight player play himself into shape, which JVG didn't do.

all that being said, i still think JVG is an educated, learned man, and he's probably better in fundamentals than anyone else out there. i'm just scared that maybe he can't motivate this team anymore.

 

What exactly did Rudy rebuild? Yao is the only player left from his tenure. It's not like Rudy left a ton of up and coming talent that he developed. Or like Nachbar was starting for Rudy and then Jeff benched him. I am pretty sure if you went back to those years and followed the chat here, most of the posters expected more than what the Rockets achieved.

It's just funny how Rudy is not responsible for the roster and results of 6 years of losing, but JVG is responsible when he took over Rudy's roster and salary cap mess including the Eddie Griffin draft debacle one year prior.

 

All this JVG-hating is total overreaction.

For the entire latter half of the season, there were three teams I was scared of us playing in the playoffs: Suns, Mavs, Jazz. The Mavs got taken care of for us. The Suns may get taken out by the Spurs. As far as I'm concerned, if we had squeezed out a tough win in game 7 over the Jazz, we may have made it all the way.

Can you really blame everything on the coach? Is it REALLY his fault that we don't have a point guard who can hit a wide-open jumper? Give me a break.

Fans need to stop equating pretty basketball with winning basketball. Jeff Van Gundy is the best coach the Rockets are going to see on their bench for a long time to come.

 

good post.

Also, people need to stop equating run and gun with 'pretty' basketball. believe it or not, pretty basketball can also include defense, hustle, execution.

 

What do you call it when Drexler, Barkley, and Hakeem all retire (or traded for peanuts), and Pippen forces his way out? Is that not a rebuilding effort at that point? Or were you expecting a big playoff run?

Yao being the only one left is relevant how exactly? Rudy left enough "up and coming talent" to use to bring McGrady to the team.

Where do you get "6 years of losing"? The team had a losing record in 2 years. Way to exaggerate. Yes, poor JVG got stuck with Yao Ming and the talent to trade for McGrady. He walked into a playoff-ready team and you want to compare that with rebuilding around rookies?

 

JVG is somewhat responsible for Tracy's sorry shot selection and his taking the easy way out because Tracy had a blank check to shoot whenever he wanted to. Two years ago, this was a good thing. Against the Jazz, it killed us.

On the other hand, I thought JVG was pretty good at motivating the team. The defense in game 7 against the Jazz made me wonder a bit but we still had a 5 point lead very late before choking.

 

i respectfully disagree.

if you'll remember, a year or two ago, JVG criticized T-Mac for not buying into the whole "run it through Yao" deal, and T-Mac was off for like the first 15-20 games until JVG decided to stop criticizing Mac. if you'll notice throughout EVERY interview (i did, b/c i was looking/listening for it), every time JVG got asked about T-Mac's (poor) shot selection - his reply wouldn't EVER be attacking TMac, but would say, in a general sense, that "we need to attack more." he and Mac both know how Tracy should've been attacking on every trip down the floor, but as he pointed out in the Chronicle article, he (JVG) said that he realized that he needs to let Tracy take his heat-check shots occasionally, just b/c, and that he needs to let Tracy have his freedom.
he knows that Tracy doesn't do well in the face of criticism, so his hands are tied.

 

To me chuck hayes taking the game winning charge in game two was pretty enough. Its going to be a nice reality check if jvg is not back next year.

 

Very good point, but JVG should have privately made it plain to Tracy instead of using silly cryptic code during interviews. When Tracy (almost arrogantly) said after game 2 "I'm going to keep on shooting" and "coach hasn't told me to stop", that really ticked me off and I lost some respect for both of them. Of course I didn't expect Tracy to cease all jumpers but you get the point. Near the end of game 6, I found myself saying out loud "don't do it Tracy" right before he took those two jumpers in row.

I agree that publicly criticizing Tracy is a very bad idea if you want him to play well. But JVG's hands (or tongue) shouldn't be tied when it comes to behind the scenes discussions. This is where relationships are made and broken, which is something many here on the forum don't seem to understand.

 

I really respect and enjoy your posts, but I respectfully disagree on JVG motivating the team. I do not know what was said in the locker room at half time in more than one game in the Utah Jazz series- our players came out dead flat. No fire at all. I realize players of this caliber should be self starters an self motivators, but - IMHO the coach owns responsibilty to help his team win and to get them directed coming out at the half.

Utah appeared to want to win more than we did. I realize this is on the players- I just question what JVG did in that locker room to fire them up or discourage them???

 

I really like this post- spot on. I did not like the attitude- paraphrasing- I'll keep shooting because coach has not told me to stop- bull! There was some communication breakdown between the two.

 

Motivation you say is your concern. It should be because the Rockets looked like they'd rather be golfing in the 1st half of a game seven and with about four minutes left in the game T-mac looked like he was thinking of where he was going to be vacationing.

After the four years of failure people still want to give JVG a pass. Let's put it to the test if JVG was Les would he be back? Hell no! He'd be shown the door faster than our x-factor Bonzi was!

 

Didn't the Rockets come back to win all 3 games they did win after being down at half?

What the Jazz had on them was atheleticism and quickness, not motivation... even in game 7, when Yao struggled to rebound, he was fighting hard... just was not quick enough... not as quick as Boozer, and not as quick as he was before the injury.

 

You and AggieDentist may be on to something about JVG motivating the team. Like I said earlier, game 7 really made me wonder. They shredded our D like it wasn't even there. There were more breakdowns than I could count. If the Jazz hadn't choked (OK, tightened up) early in the 4th quarter, they would have won the game going away. Deron Williams was very jittery there for a while. But once the Rockets caught up and had a chance to get separation, they joked away the lead too and let the Jazz back in.

On players being self-starters and motivators: They are just like average people, most of whom are NOT self-starters and motivators. The money they make and the level of competition they're in don't change personality types. It's up to the coach to get a group of players to put out strong efforts night in, night out over 82 games, and during the heightened pressure of the playoffs. Saying it's ALL up to the players is a cop out. During the season, each time JVG said "energy was lacking", he was indicting himself. Overall, he did a great job of getting this team to play up to it's abilities, until the playoffs. I don't care what anyone says, there was absolutely no excuse for the Rockets to be trailing at halftime of all 7 games. There must have been some preparation or motivation problems. Maybe something happened to the team when we lost that late game at home to the Jazz.

 

JVG has demonstrated 4 things that worry me in his three playoff series with Houston. 1) His in-game adjustments haven't been very good especially for a guy that is known as an Xs and Os guy. He has been out-coached in successive playoff series by Jackson, Johnson and now Sloan. 2) His defensive philosophy has proven to be a bit too inflexible and the results show. No double team for Boozer when AK47's cover had no job to do until game 6. An over emphasis on paint defense even when that's not some teams are even trying to do (please see PHX and GS). Running Yao way out on picks for a hard double and then sending him crashing to the paint to guard the roller tiring Yao out and giving the opposition the SAME look every time. 3) Our offesne is too half-court oriented and dependent on isos and doubles. We have very little movement without the ball and cutting to the basket for easy scores. 4) Intangibles. JVG's constamnt criticism and negativity has to take its toll on the players psyche and may be one of the factors as to why we fold in the clutch. My concern with JVG is he might just be a great regular season coach and a very average playoff coach. Is there risk in switching JVG- yes there is. Is the upside reward outweigh the downside risk - I am starting to believe it might.

 

For the series the Jazz outscored the Rockets by 1 point in all the third quarters combined.

 

Out coached or out talented? We were expected to lose the Dallas and Lakers series. The Utah series is the only series we were favored to win, and that is only due to Utah choking down the stretch and losing home court. Most people who watched Utah over the course of the year thought it would be a long series either way and low and behold we lost in 7. Not what we want, not unavoidable, but more of an execution and talent problem than coaching imo.

Perhaps AK was continueing to struggle BECAUSE of the scheme they were using? Same with Okur? If I remember correctly Yao did cover Okur in the regular season and we lost those games too. So switching Yao to Boozer was the adjustment. Overall guarding the paint and forcing jump shots is statistically a good philosophy. It's just that the PLAYERS have to rebound those misses. Failure to do that at the end of game 7 cost us as much as anything.

I agree to an extent, but don't see this changing a ton as long as Yao is a focus of the offense. It was pretty much the same with Rudy T as the coach. Yao isn't exactly quick so you want him on the blocks. That limits your cuts to the ones similar to what Luther Head does on the baseline, or the cuts that result in Chuck Hayes layups. Too much movement thru the paint and you just make it harder for Yao to operate considering his turn over problems in traffic. Compound that with the fact that we only have one rotation player who can create his own shot consistently.

We would all like to think that swapping JVG for another coach will work out like Larry Brown taking over for Carlisle, or Phil Jackson taking over for Del Harris.. but our roster situation makes us just as likely to look like the Kings after firing Adelman and then missing the playoffs the next year all together.

I'm certainly not saying give JVG a 10 year extension, but improving the roster is going to have more to do with how the Rockets perform next year than who the coach is.


Comparing rosters and playoff performances in the last series:

Fisher << TMac
Williams >> Alston
Boozer > Yao
Okur > Hayes
AK47 < Battier
Giricek >> Head
Harpring >> Howard
Millsap > Mutumbo
Collins > Lucas

Both teams played roughly the same amount of players in the rotation, but their rotation players were just better.

 

Good analysis, but let's take it further....coaches like JVG only work as long as the players totally buy into what they are saying, but eventually his type of coaching wears thin on players, especially if it doesn't give the expected results.

Two times now the Rockets have lost in the playoffs and now Yao Ming is questioning his rotations, JVG may not have lost the team yet, but he is on the verge of losing it all together, players will eventually get tired of his negativity schtick and he will be forced out.

He is a smart man, he knows this, and it is why he leaves JUST before that happens, I expect him to bail out as he knows that he is VERY VERY close to wearing out his welcome.

DD