Pre-Game Shoot Around: Tmac seemed to be working on the arc of his shot - it really looked like he over-emphasized it on a few shots during this time. His game time arc looked a lot better than the flat shots he has been putting up lately. Kill Bill looked dis jointed tonight and kept hesitating on looks he should have put up. Pretty tough on the one blocked shot by Gay who is a lot longer than Bill - def a mismatch. Gay is a work in progress but it is obvious he is going to be decent if not great in the future. I guess that will depend on how hard he wants to work. The Grizz were pretty aggresive tonight - just could not hit their shots. Swift was Swift - or not! Padgett got a couple of his fouls from being beat and having to foul his man. Still a good rebounder but his shot was off tonight. Nice to see Novak actually get on the floor tonight. I went crazy yelling when I saw him stripping off his warmups. Tracy seems to have trouble with the consistency of his dribbling - he seems to be losing the ball some times because he loses control of the ball - and not because his defender has stripped him. I would like to see him get this under control. If we could have hit FT's in the 1st half we would have won going away. Our passing and small tastes of motion offense seem to be improving a little at a time - with hayes back I expect our starters consistency to improve, TO's to go down, and cannot wait to see how we move and move the ball this spring.
I heard something while standing in line for food during the 2nd quarter. And I thought...this is the reason for all those damn annoying threads. Guy #1 behind me: "Man, Juwan is in the game." Guy #2 behind me: "Yeah, he sucks." Guy #1: "Man, we should trade him for Udonis Haslem." Guy #2: "Yeah" It was all I could do to not turn around and give em a good smack. Oh, and they were most certainly serious.
My observations. 1. Chuck is playing his way to a MLE contract. 2. If Padgett isn't hitting the 3, then he is one step above Juwan at very bad. Juwan is still one step lower at totally useless. 3. Juwan should be getting zero minutes unless both Yao and Chuck are in foul trouble and Deke can't go. 4. McGrady is the inverse Magic Johnson, a scorer who creates off his scoring. Magic was a creator who scored off his creation. 5. Keepers, 111, Battier, Hayes, Head, Rafer, VSpan. Guys with no value-Juwan. Tradable contracts Bonzi, Sura, Novak, JLIII. 6. There has to be a trade go down before the deadline. Otherwise, we are going to go to war next year with this same bunch. Can these guys win it all? I think they are close but we still need one more primary piece that can give us 20 when we need it. Bonzi and somebody will probably have to go. 7. There a lot of guys that we like to see play and that are a credit to this city and organization. CD and JVG have put together a team of players that we can root for to win. 8. No matter what your gripes are about JVG, he has our defense in midseason form already and I would suspect by the end of the year we are locking teams up totally. Can't wait to play Phoenix with Hayes and Battier and see what happens.
To be fair with Juwan Howard, he was playing with injury....... It's MUCH BETTER than that fatty good-for-nothing Bonzi Wells, who only knows how to hanky-pankying/partying around, and wasting a slot on Rockets' roster. At least Juwan Howard trained hard, and fought for his minutes.
The crowd seemed to really like Spanoulis. I wondered what was wrong with Padgett's timing....He seemed timid or hurt-something off center... Rudy Gay fouled out and the crowd loved it- he did not look lazy to me with 11 points and 8 rebounds - he was all over the place with high energy. This is no criticsm of the trade - I like and support Battier-I do think Gay is a fine player though.... For not really having an effective big man - Swift and Tsakalitis-Memphis did a good job in the middle defending YAo. I thought Yao would go off for 40 against this team. JVG seemed to rest Yao more tonite - I really like that. 9 wins and 4 losses is awesome- best start in years. This team has not played it's best basketball yet.
We have to find that consistent 3rd scorer especially when we substitute and I know this is where we thought Bonzi would fit in for us. It's hard for JVG to rest both his stars as he did briefly last night in the second quarter and as a result...we sucked that quarter. Padgett is playing horrible and I was glad to see Novak get a shot (no pun intended) on last night. Wish he could have played in the second half because it's NO WAY that he could have played worse than Padgett. Memo to Scott, if you can't play D and you can play O...you shouldn't play...period! Damn, that was ugly to watch (JHo and Scottie P). Skip was a step quicker and attacked more with the dribble penetration and I really have longed to see him develop that little tear drop runner that Tony Parker relies on. Skip tried it a few times on the baseline and it was nice to add into his bag of tricks. Luther was solid again...the kid has ice water in his veins and I love to see him on the arc left wide open...at 48% he's money in the bank on 3's. Finally, glad to see Tmac take over in the 4th with his aggressiveness attacking the rim...that slam on the drive past Gay was "welcome to the leage rookie" and he kept everyone attacking Memphis during the final moments with deft passes for easy buckets. Got to love his stat line (19, 13 & 5). This team can get on a nice streak right now esp with Dallas getting hot. Take care of business with Minnesota and then quickie to Phx and back home for two more.
IMO, Gay will be a very mediocre player. He will have to spend a lot of time in the gym in the offseason reshaping his career, as far as his skill set goes and his body. He needs about 20 pounds of muscle added to his upper body and he needs to learn how to shoot the ball. He plays helter skelter, not really as a part of a team but just looking for the ball to do something with it. Talented, yes. But not even a good ballplayer that would get significant time on any contending team right now. He's got a long way to go. Stro-dude is horrible. I am now convinced that he will NEVER reach his potential, if he ever had it. He can jump out of the gym, but he can't process in his brain fast enough to take one dribble and get by a defender to dunk the ball, not unless he had 10 seconds in the post to think about it before the ball gets there. Anything that happens to him on the court that is not expected or anticipated, he cannot respond to. He has no brain flow, and actually gets brain lock when put in any circumstance where he has to "think on his feet". He cannot make active decisions on the court. The guy is just mentally slow. Fabulous quick body, combined with a brain that moves at the speed of a snail in a game that is played in hyperspeed. Has anybody ever heard him being interviewed? Just curious, becase I have never heard a radio or television interview with him anything beyond "Congratulations Stro on the contract" and Stro responding with "Thank you." or some simple stuff like that. I'd like to see a sit down interview with him with questions being asked that he did not get to rehearse the answers to beforehand. I'd bet he stutters a lot. CD made the right move for Battier.
I always respect Howard's professionalism. However, he was playing like crap since the beginning of the season, so far I haven't see any reason why he should get anything other than garbage time. On several games I saw Juwan doesn't even want to jump up and grab a rebound that's clearly his (he has good position and the ball is bouncing his way), instead just walk over and try to grab the rebound, the opposing player jumps up and grabs the rebound from him. I was quite disappointed in Howard this season.
Why would anyone ever want to trade Novak? Sure he may not be playing right now, but that doesn't mean he won't be crucial to this team in the future.
On the big screen in the middle - during a timeout they played one of those interviews - this one with Luther Interviewing Chuck so we learn more about him. He has the messiest locker. Luther asked him who the coach's pet is and he smiled and said "Juwan Howard" and they both laughed. Truth. BTW they have done a couple of Vspan Greek lessons this year on the screen and the guy has a long way to go if he wants to be a TV announcer when he retires. He makes Clyde look good. Starting with a smile would help. Right now he is Mr. Flat. Stick to basketball and make me happy Bill.
my observations: - we have really small line-ups. with kirk and bonzi out, and with our void at the 4, we usually have Battier/Hayes/Novak at the PF spot, V-Span/Luther at the 2, and V-Span/Luther/Rafer at the 1. if our opponent has a big line-up, like, say, Detroit, i don't think we match-up that well. theoretically, with a smaller line-up, you're supposed to exploit the opponents' size with your quickness, but b/c we run so little and instead pound it in to Yao in the half-court offense, it's as if we get abused on one end and don't take advantage on the other. Chucky and Mac are great rebounders in that they can corral a board if they decide to do so. Yao has trouble doing anything other than tipping the ball if he's not alone under the basket. players like hakim warrick, dwight howard, paul millsap, carlos boozer, etc., i think will always get their fair share of rebounds against us b/c we don't have players that have both (1) size and (2) leaping ability. - i haven't looked at the box score yet, but i did not see Juwan hit a SINGLE shot in the first half. WHY did we keep running plays for him if he KEPT bricking the baseline jumper?? when you run an offensive set, you're trying to get a good shot, and you shoot it unless you can get a better shot with one more pass. how is juwan shooting ANYTHING going to be the best shot for us? i'd much rather have luther bomb a desperation 3 while heavily covered than let Juwan keep bricking the baseline jumper. we didn't see a SINGLE one of his shots go in. my little sister was watching the game with me, and she now hates JuHo - without me saying anything about him. - shane was missing his shots, but they're dependable shots [coffin corner 3s]. he took a right-handed hook in the paint that hit the back of the rim pretty hard - why does he take that shot? i HATE it when Juwan thinks he's a bada$$ and tries to do the hook - i can't remember if i've EVER seen him hit the hook. we DO NOT need shane trying to hit that shot, too. the difference with shane, though, is that even though he wasn't hitting his 3s, he WAS exhibiting some intangibles. i can't remember how many points mike miller had, but he didn't have many - battier was covering him last night. there was also a point in the 4th quarter where we were up by 13 (85-72) and Mac made a bad pass in traffic (more about this below) to Shane that Stro intercepted. instead of giving up on the play and just running downcourt, Shane stuck with it and got a jump ball. (i think, eventually, after the second toss, the ball went back to the Grizz, but nevertheless, you get my point.) - last night, TMac was doing a lot of what VSpan used to do - driving in and getting up in the air, and then trying to pass it off to someone/ANYONE. the play that i described above was a TO on Mac [or should've been] b/c he made a bad pass in traffic simply b/c he got up in the air and didn't have anywhere to go with the ball. Shane tried to save the possession, but it ended up being a TO, IIRC. - am i crazy, or was there a period of games down the stretch before our 04-05 1st round meeting with the Mavs that JVG had told Juwan to FOCUS ONLY ON REBOUNDS? he did pretty well, all things considered, and most of us on the BBS felt that we lost a lot when he got injured. there were many of us, myself included, that believed the Mavs series would've been very different if we had Juwan's then-rebounding ability. does anyone else remember this? Juwan apparently doesn't, b/c he doesn't contribute a DAMN thing when he's out there. - last night's game was called a little bit differently than it's usually called. there was a lot more physicality allowed in the paint, and there were a few blocks that normally would've gotten called for fouls. the thing that most stood out in my mind was the Blocking/Charge foul. there were at least 2 instances (once with Shane, once with Scotty the Body) where we had gotten in prime position to draw a charge, but instead got called for the blocking foul. regardless of whether they really WERE charges or blocking, those are calls that normally go our way. - rubber chucky is really good at defense. there are a few people here that point to his foul count and complain that he fouls too much. his hands are really quick, and he's able to get steals by stripping his opponents (a la K9/Kenny Thomas). the risk, however, is that the ref won't be able to see the play, and will just assume that he hit the opposing player's hand or whatever. padgett, on the other hand, had some fouls last night where he simply got BEAT. oh, btw - chucky needs to work on his finishing ability around the basket. - TMac would've had at least 15+ assists if we hadn't missed so many easy, point-blank/wide open shots.
Gay scored 11 points and had 8 rebs. Battier went for 5 and 5, yet he had so much more impact on the game, which is exactly what all the Battier supporters have been saying all along would happen. Hopefully some of the haters are starting to realize it was a solid trade. Just ask yourself right now if you could trade Battier back to Memphis for Gay and Stro would you do it. I say no way.
For sure why would you want to trade Novak,who is likely to be our greatest ever spot up three point shooter? I can see a trade which could include a combination of Bonzi with Mutombo, Howard, Padgett,JL111 and/or Sura.
Call this negative if you want, but, Memphis is a "horrible" team right now and should have been "blown away" by the Rockets who collectively had one of the worst second quarters in recent memory. Playing down to your competition is a very bad habit. It seems that the Rockets play only as hard as they have to. Of course I am happy with the win and the record. All great, but in the NBA, playing all out, all the time, and "with malice" is a much more productive practice. MJ was living proof and, clearly, LeBron is trying to emulate his pattern. I wish the Rockets would too, which would equal much less "drama." And I don't think this is a matter of "jelling," I think that it is a matter of team temperment, a reflection of the fact that this team has so many "nice" guys, for which I am thankful. But once again, they need a "Bob Sura" type of floor leader. I think the player with that attitude has to be the third best most skilled player on the team to be fully effective. I don't see anyone on the roster like that. If Bonzi weren't Bonzi I think he could be.
