Play hard - make shots

I think Scola let his emotions get the best of him early in the game. I know he's the "Passion Assassin" but he needs to tone it down a bit. At one point, there was a timeout on the floor and Scola was busy arguing with the ref when he should have been in the huddle with the rest of the team who were clearly pissed off at him for wasting time.

He was missing so many easy shots early in the game but then started tearing it up after he calmed down. It's not like anyone on the Jazz team can guard Scola.

 

Haha, well said, DaDa, couldn't say it better myself.

I can only agree with you, I was stunned yesterday when I watched the game, I thought the Jazz would be a much tougher opponent then they showed to be. I think that our biggest problem is that we can't hit our shots while Utah does, we need to step up basically and Tracy needs to drive a hell alot more.

And Brooksball, are you still around? You should be banned, you're nothing more than a clown on this forum and everybody is playing you around after, "No way we make the playoffs". Get a life dude.

 

No, you don't have to agree my opinion just like nobody has to agree with yours. No offense taken here.

I thought you were making it sound overly-simplified when you said that the Rockets just need to play harder and make their shots. That's Captain Obvious stuff.

 

Play hard. For every foul they put on us, we should foul them one back. That's the only way to make this fair.

 

No, I am not still around. You are imagining it.

 

I agree to some extent about missing the easy shots. But the Rockets did miss a lot of these shots all season and, as a team, this is more of a problem than with any other team in the Western Conf playoffs.

I disagree that basketball is easy to play or that that is even relevant. Even if "basketball is not all that hard" or is easy to play, it is about who does easy better, who executes better, who has more talent to do the easy things.

 

I think you're misinterpreting what I'm trying to say. Scola's passion is what I love the most about him. But his passion yesterday was different. He looked like he was about to get into a fight with Boozer during one possession. That is something we've never seen from him do in the regular season and I really think that affected his game early on.

He wouldn't be missing so easy shots if he just focused and calmed down a bit. It was if he was trying too hard. He can be the X-factor in this series if he wants to be.

 

Scola was tight since it was his first playoff game and I expect probably so for all rookies. That being said, Scola is not the "X" factor.

Mutumbo is the "X" factor.

Rebounds, Blocked Shots, Defense!

If Mutumbo blocks 4 shots in a game, grabs 10 to 13 rebounds a game and forces opponents to adjust their shots for misses we win the game.

 

Hope you're right, let's see if they can just "turn it on" and play harder, execute better.

Truth be told, I subscribe to the belief that the Rockets are playing hard even if it doesn't always look that way.

I think it is more of a matter of can we execute better and I don't think that is something you can start doing overnight.

The Rockets showed signs of good offense here and there during the course of the season, but it was never consistent. We are still a below average offensive team and I don't see how we can change that and then sustain that change for the rest of this series.

If anything, we win this series by tapping back into the JVG-instilled defensive excellence that carried over for much of this season while hoping that the new guys like Scola, Landry, Jackson, etc... can give us that extra offense we were missing last year during the first round.

 

DaDakota I pretty much agree with you. Utah is not that good. I mean of course it is very tough team to beat but they are beatable. We showed it last night when we made that run and we cut the lead.

We just can't give up after one or 2 bad plays (of course we can't make the same mistakes as we left Korver for 2 3s in a row). We gotta excetute and play with passion evey minute, all 4 quaters.

Tracy needs to attack the whole game. He was doing a great job of that during 2 and 3/4 quaters.

And what is very simple and easy. WE HAVE TO MAKE SHOTS especially when we had good positions last night. In this offense we will find good positions inside, outside but we just gotta knock them down. Hopefully in Game 1 we were just too nervous and that was that.

 

Utah hustled and they fouled all night. That's to be expected. If we don't hustle and foul them right back and contest every single shot we won't win.

 

You think Utah is not that good but they are very tough to beat. Does that make sense?

 

We are not winning utah. Our so called superstar keeps disappearing whenever money time arrives.

Yesterday he vanished in the 3rd and 4th quarters.

Minor comparsion to lebron james in the earliar game, showed how a superstar plays. Double teams, triple teams, he drives to the basket and stops at nothing.

 

With Utah, you saw how they hurried our players into taking shots. We shot a horrible shooting percentage whiled they scorched us. We gotta lower their shooting percentage to at least as low as ours. That's why I propose the Hack a Kirilinko, Williams, and Boozer defense. If we do that, we can win. Play all our guys and go deep into our bench. We can beat these guys.

 

You are absolutely right. T-Mac has a tendency to disappear at times. Great players/scorers will find a way to get theirs even when others aren't getting it done.

This is just the reality with McGrady. He is still an extremely gifted player but his body just isn't what it used to be. Even if his mind wants to sustain good play, his body rarely cooperates for 4 quarters. Few comparative superstars on other teams have this problem, espeically the stars on other playoff teams.

The bottom line is that T-Mac is still better than what we initially gave up for him a few years ago and we are a better team team than we would have been minus that deal.

 

Landry just looks outclassed. He isn't flying under the radar anymore so the easy dunks are not going to happen. He isn't ready for the speed and physicality of a playoff series vs. Utah. I thought Deke was useful which was not what I expected.

What sucks is that Scola had a good game and Battier had a great game offensively (although his defense looked MIA) and the Rockets still lost. It looks like for this Rockets team to beat the Jazz we need all 5 guys on the court playing well or 3-4 guys having great games. Average or below average performances from even 2-3 guys seems to spell doom.

I liked the effort but if the ball isn't going in the hoop then it is all for nothing.