i don't want to dig it up but someone posted here on bbs also. dr. andrews said tracy should take ONE week off and resume playing in limited minutes. tracy extended it to 3 weeks off, apparently on his own b/c he wants to come back pain-free.
i'm sure he did rehab it. but he's a slow healer. i mean, his body is extremely fragile. as long as tracy comes back healthy, the rockets organization will be happy.
not easy to say,but I think it's normal for people to have words on him for his always absence CAUSE we take him as our leader
Sure, sure. A valid point. I have my eye on the playoffs. That's all that matters to me at this point. Our leader has proved that he shows up for the playoffs. We just need the other guys to do the same. Maybe Yao goes down for a couple weeks. Maybe Artest needs some time off that ankle. Maybe Battier needs a little longer to get in shape. Maybe Alston misses 2 weeks with an ankle sprain. None of these things matter, as long as they play in the playoffs. People will say they do matter, because it helps in the seeding, which is true...but the fact is, we're not the most durable team. I think we should take what we can get.
dragging yao into this discussion is as ridiculous as it can be. yao got the doctor permission to play in Olympics although he was not 100% back to his playing condition. The doctor didn't see any dangerous for yao to play. yao rehabbed his foot through playing. Tmac also got the doctor green light to play. it's same he is not 100% either. he needs to rehab to get his strength back. his pain is caused by weakness around his knee and not caused by his injury. the doctor saw no danger to play and believe his playing will help him to rehab. it's so obvious to me that getting back his strength back has two approaches. 1) hard way is playing. rehab through playing is painful but fast. it's my opinion. you get back strength fast. it is the reason why so many players took playing to get their shape or condition back through playing. 2) gradual way is rehab. it gradually builds up your strength so it should be slow. it has less pain for sure but it won't be painless. so he picked a less painful way to do the rehab. please stop using yao's injury to rationalize tmac action.
T-Mac is going to to have to pass the ball if he wants to fit into the offense. With the type of motion offense the Rockets have been running in these last few games you can't have the ball get to one player and stop. It just doesn't work like that. When he gets back if he reverts to his old ways the Rockets are going to go back to a stagnant, boring offense. And they're going to lose games.
I know what you're saying, but I don't think that's necessarily true. Maybe in the regular season, but another poster brought up an interesting point: in the playoffs, teams up their defense and the pressure is greater, the role players end up choking. We were running the Adelman offense beautifully post-Yao last season, but we got to the playoffs and everyone except T-Mac choked again. Was that because Rafer was injured? Is he that important to the team? Or did the role players fail to step up again? Adelman's offense at it's best, had 5 players who were all well above average, but not superstars. We had 2 superstars, 1 above average, and 2 below average. One superstar was injured, the 1 above average didn't play like it, and one of our below average players was missing 3 of the games. I don't think you want to base an offense on role players when you have a 2 time scoring champion (who happens to have the 3rd highest PPG in the playoffs) and the best scoring center in the league (yes he is better than Dwight) on your team. Especially if those role players decide not to show up in the playoffs... You go with what you know. You know T-Mac is bringing 28/29/30 ppg or whatever it is. You know Yao can average 24, probably more than that. Play to those strengths. OK here's my point - why base an offense to the advantage of Von Wafer, Luther Head, Shane Battier, Aaron Brooks, when you know it's going to fail in the playoffs again? Why not base it to the superstars, who you know are money come playoff time. If the role players step up, T-Mac will be more than glad to defer and walk out of the first round a victor. If they don't show up, T-Mac's going to have to go for 30 every night and we're probably going to lose. So do you not agree it has yet to be seen whether Adelman's offense will work these playoffs? I'm wondering what people will think if we lose in the 1st or 2nd round this season, but T-Mac and Yao play well, but everyone else sucks... EDIT: 2 more points on why this season could be different than last season: 1. Ron Artest doesn't play Adelman offense. He's a ballstopper too. But he can score. I guarantee you that's going to be more helpful than ball movement to an ice cold Luther Head in the playoffs. 2. Yao Ming doesn't play Adelman offense. He's a ballstopper too. But he can score. I guarantee you that's going to be more helpful than ball movement to an ice cold Shane Battier in the playoffs. If they're both playing, they can score. Artest brings that new scoring edge. I can guarantee you we're not going to see very much "adelman ball" if the role players suck. We're going to see Yao, Tracy, and Ron dominate it because we know they can.
I think you make a couple of unfair assumptions. #1 assumption being that the team doctors know what is best for Tmac. Doctor's probably just diagnose based on whether or not it is healed enough so that playing on it won't hurt it worse, rather than diagnosing based on will he be able to perform well. #2 assumption that I believe you unfairly made was to assume that its faster to play through it to rehab it rather than resting it and rehabbing it off the court. And I can see why you would make the assumption, because the doctors said so. But they could've said that was the best course for Tmac because it was the course where Tmac played.. it doesn't neccessarily mean its the fastest way to rehab it. Think about it this way with this hypothetical. Say he played through the injury, and it was 70% for about 2 months and then it would become 100% after. On the other hand if he rested it for 3 weeks he would be 0% (in the sense that he's not playing at all) for the 3 weeks and then 100% after. With this hypothetical, I could see TEAM doctors saying "its better to play your way through the injury" while actually the knee technically gets 100% faster if he rehabs off the court. Now, I'm not saying this is definitely the case, but thats the thing: WE DON'T KNOW! Here's a few things we do know: 1. Tmac was bringing the team down with his inconsistent play. 2. Morey and Adelman aren't pissed at Tmac (therefore we can assume that they support what he is doing at some level) 3. This is arguably the best time of the season for Tmac to rest for 3 weeks in a row.
The whole point with moving the ball around is to keep the defense off balance. It leads to scoring opportunities for the role players because it leads to open shots, either from the perimeter or for layups under the basket. Open shots are better than contested shots, no matter who's shooting them. Trying to get away from that in the playoffs means sacrificing the identity the team built up in the regular season to go back to JvG ball. That doesn't make a lot of sense to me. JvG ball never took the Rockets past the first round. Why spend the entire season practicing your offense and then abandon it in the post-season for something you presumably haven't tried for months? Last season the team got the offense running pretty well during the regular and then regressed badly for the series against Utah. I don't think I need to remind anybody how that series turned out.
Which is exactly my point!!! Answer me this: WHY did it regress badly!? Was it because of Rafer's not playing? Was it because the role players went cold? There has to be a reason. You don't just play Adelman ball through the season and then stop in the playoffs. Something about the playoffs affects the role players into sucking... I dont' think Adelman offense and ball movement is what we need now that we've added Artest, another ballstopper...BUT HE CAN SCORE! If Artest goes cold in the playoffs, even God can't get us out of the first round.
The Rockets had a spotty record of running the offense last season. They'd run it for a couple of games, then stop, then run it for a couple of games, then stop. Supposedly the offense takes a year or two to pick up so maybe that was the reason. As for Artest, he's a work in progress. He's working on fitting into the offense and I think he's a willing pupil--he's more than willing to admit to the media when he has problems reading the defense, working within the offense, etc. If you look at this last game against GS he did a much better job of moving the ball. There's just no question--ball movement has increased dramatically in the last four or five games and the offense looks much, much better as a result. The Rox scoring average in the last few games has taken off as well.
OK fair enough. I will reserve judgement on the Adelman offense until these playoffs. Assuming Tracy fits into it, of course. I think you have to agree that if the role players go cold again, the Adelman offense is useless, especially when you have 3 able scorers such as McGrady, Yao, and Artest. I still think we should play to their strengths but i'm waiting on the postseason. Hope i'm proven wrong and everything works out.
comments like this shows if you really watch tracy. did you see him last year? he had zero problems running the offense. our offensive efficiency was tremendous even when yao went down. have u seen him on the 3 game road trip prior to shutting it down? his passing even as a stand still shooter was as crisp as ever. the problem was he couldn't move without the ball much. he will do that once he's healthy. again, tracy will have ZERO problems fitting in. he's a natural basketball talent that will fit into any system. the other players just gotta play their game. tracy will do what's best for the team. tracy never limits this team; he ONLY makes them better. the record WITH him attests to that fact. if the role players continue to play like they have, tracy will fit in just fine and will take our team to another level.
The Adelman offense is all about getting easy, open looks at the basket. If a player's cold that should help, not hurt. So far as T-Mac goes the problem is this: you need to have everybody on the team on the same page running the same game plan. You can't have one guy out there who just does whatever he feels like. So far it looks like everybody else on the team is doing a pretty good job of picking up and adapting to the new offense. If T-Mac is the lone holdout do you torpedo the team for one player?
i think you need to watch more basketball. in the playoffs, the first 3 quarters, you may probably still be able to run your sets. but not in the 4th. that's when big times players step up. that's when we gave it to dream and let him just control the offense. if he wanted to shoot when he was single-covered, he did that. if he wanted to pass, he did that. but the decision-making was primarily in his hands. that's when the ball is ENTIRELY in kobe's hands (not balanced b/t fisher or whoever the lakers had) and he made the decisions down the stretch. or it was in paul pierce's hands (not rondo). or it was in lebron's hands (not delonte west). it will be in tracy's or yao's hands. that's why they're called "go-to" guys. that's why you pay them the big bucks. that's why they get the blame. the reason the series turned out that way last year b/c RAFER WAS OUT (and you saw when he did play, we were 2-1 and should have won game 6 if he stayed) AND yao was out. (notice those 2 are integral parts of our offense). that's why you say defense wins championships. it doesn't matter what offensive identity you ahve, great defense will find ways to shut it down. celts did that to the cavs. celtics did that to the great lakers' O. and that's where your big time offensive player steps up. if teams can run their offensive sets with ease throughout a game, there's no need for superstars PS - the reason JVG didn't take us out of the first round was that he didn't want to develop talent. his offense is good enough (he did go to the finals once didn't he?). he was just too stubborn with rookies/new guys and didn't give them a long leash.
fitting in? tracy was never healthy enough to be the main guy yet. he knows his role. and he knows this "adelman" offense. what's the problem? artest was never a "move the ball or move himself" type of guy. he still isos in the posts, takes 4-5 seconds to make a play or drible dribble dribble without a decent pass. people may blame tracy. but i believe ron artest is the main problem throughout this year. if he plays better, we'll play better. PS - our offensive efficiency 10 games after yao went down went through the roof too you know.
But I don't think T-Mac is the lone holdout. T-Mac meshed with the offense last year, I don't see why he won't do it again this year. He was limping around before, but when he gets back, i'm sure he'll fit right back into the offense. It's not like he's worried about his stats or he's trying to "get his" at the expense of the team. He is long beyond that point. And if a player is cold, that's going to hurt because they'll be such a liability. If Luther Head and Rafer Alston and Aaron Brooks and Shane Battier don't make their outside shots, our perimiter game is entirely defunct and all the pressure gets placed back on Yao and McGrady and Artest. Yao spends all his time in the low post, he will get mauled if no one makes their shots. All i'm saying is, realize we're molding our offense to the benefit of the role players. Which is fine, assuming they use it to their benefit. In the regular season, we can be a great team. It has yet to be seen if they will make their shots and step their game up in the playoffs.
Wow this is a great post. And it's true. No matter what offense you have, in the crunch time, it's all about your star players. There's no backdoor cuts and back screens with :10 left on the clock in the 4th quarter of game 7. You play to your best players. Yao or Tracy will have the ball. Not Rafer. Not Head. They might need to make a big shot in a catch and shoot style, but they don't need to make the play. Yao or T-Mac will do that. Also, maybe that's why Adelman's balanced offense couldn't beat the Lakers (who had 2 stars). That and a lucky ass Fisher shot.
i don't think you guys get playoff basketball. great defense ALWAYS beat great offense. did the giants not shut down the great patriots offense? didn't the lakers shut down the lakers' offensive machine last year? you're not going to be able to run your offense as smoothly as again 2 teams (clips/warriors) with a combined record of 7-29. that's why those teams are dead-last. b/c they dont play defense. that's why i always thought JVG had the right offensive philosophy. his style of basketball is perfect for the playoffs. there's a reason we did so well WITH MUCH less talent than what adelman is given. if JVG had this team (without needing to develop players, something he's easily not on par with adelman), we'd probably be 18-2 right now or something. if we want to win, we need this as our identity: defense and rebounding. teams rarely have an offensive identity except: YOUR BEST PLAYER(S). check the history of the NBA.
No I absolutely agree. That's why I want to know why Adelman's offense failed, and why my previous posts included "play to their strengths". "their" being T-Mac and Yao. I'm willing to give the Adelman offense a chance, but the role guys need to step up. If they did during the JVG administration, i'm sure we would be out of the first round. Proving your point.
