think about it. no one slowed the game down more than barkley with his backing in, backing in, backing in for ten seconds, then fade away. they even made a "five second" rule b/c of it. i wouldn't be surprised if they did the same for mobley. every time the ball touches his hands, the whole team stands still b/c they know what's gonna happen: grab ball, look at my defenders' feet, hold my stance for 10 seconds, dribble into the double team, jack up shot. all i see is barkley reincarnated as a guard. and i'm not hating on the guy, but there's no one else mobley reminds me of than CB. it just kills the tempo of the game.
The play that got me was Steve. He dribbled past a Rocket left side extended right into four Nuggets. He lost the ball, and somehow got it back and laid it in. It was 1 on 4 and we lucked out.... We are having problems involving the front court players right now. Problem is though, the front court players are having big problems offensively themselves.
We are giving our front court players plenty of shots. Griffin proved that his offene game is awful, by taking a lot of shots, and Collier got plenty of shots too. The only frontcourt player that needed the ball more was Yao.
Although, its hard to get into an offensive rhythm when your shots come 8 mins apart. I think thats the big argument against Steve and Cuttino. Their teamates almost look suprised when they do get the ball and force up an akwards shot.
They are getting plenty of shots - agreed. Let's keep it up. These are our second and third stringers. I'm willing to give them time. We won. That W will look like it was a perfectly executed win over the Lakers at playoff time. AND we are getting these guys some playing time to improve and correct these mistakes. excellent point... AND the supporting cast to take pressure off is missing: Yao Ming (you might as well include him), MT, TMo, KT, and Rice. It's like having no running game and having to pass all the time. When you do try to run it is awkward and feeble and usually fails. No matter how good the back is...
Steve passed the ball too much. He only took 12 shots, so there he obviously didn't hog the ball. He set up a lot of players for open jays (Mooch like 3 times), and then they'd just miss it.
So what is it. He hogs the ball or he passes the ball? Denver decided to take the lesser of two evils. Let the other Rockets beat them. They didn't look great, but it worked. The shooting problems were entirely due to the thin air in Denver. The ball simply carries farther...
He takes 28 shots and we lose. He takes 12 shots and we win. If Steve, and Mobley for that matter, can find some middle ground on this, well be ok.
The differnce is that when Steve took 28 shots our offense scored more points, against a better team. When he took 12 points, we still didn't score a lot against a horrible team.
Cuttino is a great shooter. Really, his shots are all the same clean swooshes. I saw Steve set up Boki and try to set up EG early. I thought their was alot more ball movement this game.
The concept of the 5 man offense sucks. Griffin and Collier recieved the ball way too much. I would rather have Steve shoot then having Griff and Collier throw up bricks.
Let me clarify then. Steve takes 28 shots, team assists are below 10 and we lose. Steve takes 12 shots, team assists are 17 and we win. In the end, losing by 40 counts the same as losing by 5 and winning by 40 counts the same as winning by 5. Fact is, we won when all of the players were involved in the offense instead of just one or two.
All of the players involved in the offense? Didn't we score like 11 and 13 points two quarters in a row against the Nuggets! Any other team in the league would have beat us last night...
The only thing that kills that logic is the fact that the Rockets only scored 1 more point in the Denver (83) game then in the Pacers game (82). The only difference is that the opposing team only scored 74 points instead of 91.
I thought our defense was much better last night than it was against Indiana. So maybe we are going to win or lose this year based on how we play defensively. I really think, that our offensive game plan the last two games will not win many games this year, Denver notwithstanding. Anyway, I was more trying to prove the point that Steve doesnt have to shoot 28 time for us to win games. We can win with him scoring 16 points as long as he makes those around him better.
We can win if we shoot better, not necessarily just Steve shooting less. Yao Ming, EG, Mooch (pinky) and Cato have to hit some. I expect KT may have a little trouble sinking shots at first with the thumb. Rice would be a big boost right now. Don't forget to put some blame on MT for getting suspended. We could use him right now. No way he goes 1-11 against Indy. That's a partial loss caused by MT being dumb.
The only comparison is that the two players possesed the ball for a long time. However, Barkley was great at passing to the open man, something Mobley hasn't really done in his 4+ seasons. Barkley did his thing, for the sake of creating scoring chances for himself and others, by waiting for the eventual double team to come. Mobley does his 1-on-1 to create a shot for himself only.
