Our margin for error is too thin

It seems like everything has to line up perfectly for us to beat the top notch teams in this league. Yao and McGrady have to play over their heads and we've got to have Rafer shooting better than 50% along with Juwan shooting well and Hayes and Yao not getting into foul trouble, low turnovers, outrebound the opponent, and play stellar defense. It just seems to be so many things have to break just right for us to beat the top notch guys.

While you can look at teams like Dallas, Phx, SA, Detroit, and they can be missing players or have players with off games and they still win their share against each other. If we don't shoot well, or if our FT shooting is mediocre, or if we get one of our rotatioin players hurt, or any single thing goes wrong, our chances of winning fall below 50%. Championship teams can overcome at least some of these things and win anyway. Utah was there for the taking. Boozer playing terrible and getting into foul trouble. We should have been up by double digits in the 4th and walked away from them. Instead we pull a hare and let the tortoise walk past us to the finish line.

 

Boy, I hope you are right. I really, really do. I hope we win nailbiter after nailbiter all the way to the ring.

But I just don't see it happening. I simply believe that our offensive is fatally flawed by relying on McGrady to make every play and with 3 role players surrounding our big 2. It would be okay if one of those 3 was a big time scorer who could get their own shot. But they can't. All 3 guys get their shots off 111. And one of them is one of the poorest shooters in the NBA. And what it comes down to is in crunch time, the better teams are going to force McGrady to give up the ball way outside and they are going to front Yao and force Yao to catch the ball outside his real range. If I was an opposing coach, that's they way I would run the 4th quarters. I'd front Yao in the post and double team Tracy before he got the ball. I'd let Rafer dribble around with it all day, because he's not going to the rack and finishing. And he's even a worse shooter off the dribble then on the spot up.

I am quickly coming to the conclusion that no Bonzi means no chance. As much as I really don't care for his lazy attitude and his poor conditioning, I see where a player like him is necessary for us to be able to go to. We can't go to Snyder. He's just as likely to dribble the ball out of bounds off his foot as he is to get to the rim and dunk. He's just as likely to lose his man on a backdoor cut as to block the shot. Shane simply does not create anything for himself. Chuckie and Rafer can't really create anything for themselves. Rafer is really the weakest link but since we have spent all season not developing another point guard that could play in his place, the most likely place we need to go is to get Bonzi ~30 minutes a night playing at the 3/4 while Hayes is on the bench and to use Bonzi to take attention away from 111 or to have an option to go to when the opponent takes 111 away from us. Spacing, distance shooting, it ain't worth a pot to pee in when the opponent drapes McGrady and fronts Yao and forces them to give up the ball at crunch time. We have way too many games where the lead and the game slips away because the opponent slowly ratchets up the pressure in the 4th quarter and forces 111 to give up the ball. You can't keep expecting McGrady to turn the corner and can 3 pointers when he has got two defenders on him and a third playing zone, just waiting for McGrady to come into his area.