This is the stats for the 4 players who commanded most of the minutes, took majority of the shots in this series. It should reflect the performance of the Rockets as a whole in this series. I'm not trying to draw any judgment/conclusion from it, just some observation from the cold & hard stats. FT 3pt FT ORB RB AST TO PTS 29-73 8-29 8-12 3 52 10 9 74 ***** J. Jackson .397 .276 .667 .6 10 2 1.8 14.8 31-68 0-0 13-17 11 37 9 13 75 ***** Y. Ming .456 .000 .765 2.2 7.4 1.8 2.6 15.0 28-66 8-20 15-22 5 24 14 18 79 ***** C. Mobley .424 .400 .682 1 4.8 2.8 3.6 15.8 30-70 7-17 29-40 6 42 38 21 96 ***** S. Francis .429 .412 .725 1.2 8.4 7.6 4.2 19.2 Here are some of MY observation, o. J. Jackson took most of the shots, but has the lowest output in scoring with lowest shooting % (2pt, 3pt, and ft) among all 4 players o. J. Jackson leads the rebounding at 10/game with only .6 from the offensive glass; o. Yao averages 7.4rb/game with 2.2 on offensive glass; o. Yao shoot a .456 percentage, which is way below his season average; o. Yao ranks 3rd in Field Goal Attempts, scored only 15.0/game, almost 3pt below his season average. o. Mobley turned the ball over at 3.6/game with 2.8asit/game; o. Mobley shot .400 from 3pt line, average 15.8, higher than his season average; o. Steve ranks 2nd in Field Goal Attempts, average 19.2/game, 3pt better than his season average; o. Steve shot .429 for the series, and .412 from 3pt line, both better than his season average; o. Steve averages 7.6as/game, 4.2TO/game, both higer than season average; o. Steve went to the line 8 times a game, Yao only 3.4 times per game. Both shot below their season average. There you have it.
I was just about to ask someone for season vs. playoff stats, but this will do. Here are some key stats: 1. Cat and JJ combined for 16 of 49 3-pointers, 32%. Thats terrible, considering that most of them were open looks. 2. SF out rebounded YM. The guy who is suppose to be our future, and is 7'6", had absolutely no force in the paint. Yes, its his first playoffs and he is playing with Karla and Shaq, but we can't have this. Barkley said "the Lakers will only go as far as Shaq will take them," and this is true about the Rockets too. I thought, along with a lot of others, that YM would improve more than 2ppg and 1rpg this season. We all want YM to carry this team and all that stuff, and we've seen it with Yao's stats when we win vs. when we lose that he is the key to our success. Whether Yao will ever be the player we want him to be or not: The Rox success lies on him. A 15ppg/7rpg YM isn't something the Rox were expecting this post-season.
No offense, but why combine CM and JJ in 3-pt shooting. CM shot 40% by himself, which is pretty good.
You need to separate J. Jackson from Mobley. Both Mobley & Francis shot above .400 from the 3pt line, which is very good. On the other hand, Jackson shot a horiffic .276. Yes, Yao needs to do better on the glass, but that's not his biggest problem in this series. Against a team like the Lakers, you have to play defense as a team, block people out. Yao was doing most of it, that's how Jackson average 10 board per game. On the other hand, Yao average 2.2rb on the offensive glass, not bad, but he could do much more than that. This is the result of the combination from setting picks far away from the basket, and not aggresive enough to crash the board. Francis & Mobley are the only ones played better than their regular season on average. What I found most disturbing are two things, 1. Yao's playing declined towards the end of the season, and continued throughout the playoff; 2. J. Jackson problem. I have mentioned this in other posts, , there is a reason Jackson was bounced around in the league all those years. I had this feeling about his last year when he was playing for the Kings, have the same feeling this year. How can you expect much out of a team when a role player like Jackson leads the field goal attempts? Don't give me this "we would go nowhere without Jackson" nonsense. I'm not denying that Jackson has done a lot of good things for this team, but that doesn't hide from the fact that he frequently stepped out his role, caused the team out of the sync many times!
I've seen this Barkley quote a few times on this board already. The funny thing is, Shaq didn't take them very far in this series, and they still won in 5 games.
