Luther screwed up tonight, but Snyder still has not proven himself over head. I Think the biggest problem was tmac not being to hit his free throws in crunch time. If he would have made them, they would have gotten the W.
what are you talking about ?they swing the ball on the last 2 possession when t-mac got free..free throw miss or not we were in a position to win the game.just give the ball to t-mac .be patient don't swing the ball away from your best player.watch the game again you will see that t-mac got free on those last 2 possessions..give him the damn ball.
Luther actually almost screwed us last game. But Tmac saved it. This is not the first time Luther made those wrong choices. He used to refuse to pass to Yao. Now he even won't pass it to Tmac. Don't know what this guy was thinking. He is trying to be a star. But sorry, you are not good enough.
its all about freethrows. on the top of my head, alston missed 2. juwan missed two. battier missed 1. tmac missed 4? blame jvg all you want for not playing snyder, but freethrows is what killed. if you wanna blame jvg for something, blame him for the timeout situation at the end.
the alston missed freethros was what really started me on him tonight. that was just th beginning. I was YELLING at my comp when he did that, YELLING
We lost by three, if T-Mac hits a couple more (8-11, slightly above his season average) we still lose the game. It could also be Howard hitting his FTs...or Rafer hitting his. But again, FT shooting fluctuates, some nights better than others...you win and lose games on most nights with your execution and hustle. Teams like the Spurs and Lakers always struggled shooting FTs, but still won more championships than anyone in the past decade. I think turnovers, allowing second chance opportunities, and horrible shot selection/inability to get your best player the ball were the biggest reason why we lost...those are the things that depress me as a fan.
I guess I should rewatch. It seemed to me that they did a good job getting ball out of his hands. Yeah, you could try to swing it back to him, but how far from the basket would he be, what would the ball pressure be like when he gets it, and much time would be left on the clock? The Mavs do as good a job as any team at denying McGrady the ball. It happened in the previous two games in the second half. Good defensive teams in the playoffs will also force other players to make plays. That's something they need to be ready for.
He did get free a couple of times after running through multiple screens. The biggest problem is that we don't have a player who's competent enough to get him the ball. It showed tonight...
they never once thought about posting tmac.... he was being doubled teamed every time he brought the ball up and had to swing it...the best thing would have been to post him up and draw the double team that way, then kick it out and swing it around or repost. instead they swing it to luther or rafer and they are 30 ft from the basket and have to create themselves....pathetic. how hard is it to post tmac...he does frequently. gotta blame that on coach and whoever was calling the plays.
Luther is proven to kill us every time we play Dallas. It's a shame Snyder didn't get a shot. Ideally, Luther would have sat most of tonight and a real backup PG would have played and then maybe Snyder's athleticism and ability to get the rim could have been utilized. Luther can't handle the speed of the game when we match up with Dallas but other than Rafer he is the only guy who resembles a PG so unless Rafer plays 48 minutes then we are stuck with Head running around and throwing crappy bounce passes and thinking he is Calvin Murphy in the half court set. Can we get a PG so Luther can do the only thing he knows how to do (shoot 3s)? This team is held hostage by the lack of a backup PG.
final play: I thought Tmac should have driven into the defenders coming at him and as he reached them heaved a 3, plowed into them to draw contact and tried to draw a foul with the 3 ft's. The defenders were moving and not planted and so there would not have been an offensive foul.
It would have been nice to throw the ball downcourt at the end of the game. 4 seconds isn't a lot of time to move the ball the length of the court agaist pressure.
why JVG's always freaked out at some trivial things? We need to use timeout smartly. The greatest Phil tends to let players figure those little problem out by themselves.
The worst part of letting this slip IMO, and I was just saying this, is that we wasted a rare fire from McGrady. Not only was he feeling it towards the end of the game, but he was animated. He wanted the ball. He was making plays happen. If we could have given him one shot i'm sure he could have made it or made something happen yet he didn't even get the opportunity. And it's not exactly the Celtics we had a chance of knocking off...it was the freaking Mavericks!!!! The best team in the NBA right now and we almost beat them severely shorthanded (w/o Yao). Wasting McGrady's fire and letting the Mavs slip like that is the teams fault, they didn't take this game away, we let it slip. (Kind of sounds like Dirk's comments about the ring last season) That hurts.
JVG blew all the timeouts before the end of the game and was something the commentators brought up. JVG has a habit of wasting timeouts.
I was at the game last night and I wanted to pull my hair out in the second half. There are a couple of things that bothered me about last night's loss. First, the coaching. I know it's easy to monday morning quarterback, but honestly, I'm not sure what JVG is thinking in the second half of this game. The first thing I don't understand is how he left his second group on the bench for the entire 3rd Quarter, minus 40 seconds, while the offense became stagnant. I know he played them nearly all of the 4th, but when you see a group struggling you HAVE to make adjustments, period. Afterall, that was the group that gave you the lead before the half, it just doesn't make sense. Also, he needs to find a way to get his role players out of their bad habit of watching Tracy when he has the ball, it's disgusting. There is absolutely no motion, and the offense is very predictable. Against the elite teams that will not fly. Granted things change when Yao is back, but motion (cutting, back screens) are necessary either way. He admitted that he did a bad job. There were several possessions when the team looked lost, forcing him to call early timeouts. There is no excuse for that, none. He knew from the last games that Avery was going to come at T-Mac with double teams, but again had no answer for it. Of course, it would help if the other players on the team were aggressive, but a large part of a players reaction is being prepared. Some will say that the players weren't able to execute, in that case it is time to bring in another option, ala Snyder. I know he has no problem attacking the rim, and that is what you do with double teams, attack with confidence. How do you combat the double teams? Don't put the ball in Tracy's hands so early. Sounds like a bad idea, but that allows the defense to zero in on him too far out on the court, forcing a long pass over two defenders. Have Rafer bring it up and post Tracy forcing the double team closer to the basket, or run him off screens while the other players screen their men. Finally on the coaching. Do not reward bad play. JVG's hand is forced as far as Rafer is concerned in regards to bad play b/c there is no viable sub, but there is no excuse for playing Luther so much if he's struggling early. If a player is not being aggressive, time to see what a guy like Snyder can do. The Rockets had a span of over 6:30 minutes when the Mavericks were in the penalty in the 3rd quarter, but only shot about 4 freethrows. Attack, attack, attack, that's all I can say. I'm not saying JVG hasn't done a good job with this group, but sometimes I just wonder. I also wonder about Bonzi. I think he can be valuable, but CD has to do some major assessing before the trade deadline. I'm not saying this team can't win with the current roster once Yao is back, but Rafer's extended play in the playoff's is scary. We do have a glut at the SG position and we do need a backup PG in the worst way. Either they get rid of that extra SG for a nice vet pg or they trade for a decent pg and keep Bonzi for depth. I'm not sure though how his game will compliment Yao/T-Mac when the roster is full strength. I'm just of the opinion that we desperately need a PG who will go to the rack strong and not avoid contact. Someone the opposing team will actually have to worry about in the lane. Ok, I'm better now. Yao will be back and the universe will realign itself. PS: Devin Harris is the biggest P**** in the NBA, bar none...right behind him, Sir Dirkendouche. Dallas Mavericks = The Big Flop.
Again, why the hell isn't Spanoulis playing? This is precisely why the coach of the year talk is off-base.
