I feel it that it should be Turner who should be blamed for this. Sitting Kmart at a crucial time is really odd. Plus, not having someone defend the hoop at 0.4? wtf
This is basketball 101 put a big on your inbounds player to disrupt him. And who bigger than Yao. But putting Yao on Kidd was a stupid move on so many levels... Kidd is one of the smartest inbounds passer. He doesn't need to see the rim to know where it is at. This is a pass he can make blindfolded. Yao may be taller but Jeffries and Hill may have at least an equal vertical reach Jeffries and maybe Hill or quicker 2 react. Nobody is covering the rim. Put Yao back there stupid! Lee may be a more athletic but didn't understand to switch on the screen. even if Lee switched Marion would have most likely out jumped him and got that pass and had a shot. And finally if not for pathetic coaching and stupid play by inexperienced players it should have never come to this. Never! I am disgusted by the finish of the game. I am disgusted by the cheering of Mark Cuban and the Mavericks in a game they most definitely should have lost. I hope and I feel the Rockets are even more disgusted than me. Pathetic is the best word to describe this teams execution down the stretch. The only benefit to come from this is we have a short break before the start of the season and hopefully the team will be so disgusted with this loss and each other that they will work hard in practice. Hopefully they learned putting Lee in down the stretch in place of Martin in almost all instances is just stupid. It is more than just stupid when you consider Martin is our best offensive player right now, by far. Martin is a veteran and a better defender down the stretch than people give him credit for. And the loss on offense as opposed to gain on defense is just not there. Martin had a plus 9 and Lee had a minus 10 and Martin only gets 21 minutes of playing. Forget the numbers. I don't need numbers to see Martin needs to be on the floor. Substituting Lee in place of him made us a slightly better defensive team but also made us a pathetic offensive team because down the stretch Lee was pathetic on offense. Lee is not in the same League as Martin, not even close! IMO Martin needs to get a minimum of 35 minutes a game. 21 minutes come on Elston, how stupid can you be. Giving Lee Martins minutes is the most idiotic coachin decision I have seen in a long time. Martin has the kind of Lungs that could allow him to play 45 if he had too. Minutes or not an issue for him. Yes Lee is a great backup. But the key word is backup and unfortunately he is backing up our best player. SO I am sorry Lee you are on a team that doesn't need your services. Last night was so stupid. Yeah I get it. The coach wanted Bud out there in place of Battier. and felt Bud and Martin would be bad for the defense. So he pullled Martin for Lee. But that is so stupid. I like Bud, I like Bud a lot but Martin is on a different level than Bud. Martin is a better defender than Bud and better offensive player. That is the truth right now. If you feel we need more defense and you can't have martin and Bud out there together. Than leave Bud on the bench not martin. That is just stupid. Martin is a better defender and much better offensively than Bud. I understand there may be matchup problems in some situations. But if it comes down to having Martin or Bud out there I pick Martin every time. What this game really shows is we have a glaring weakness at the 3. Battier just doesn't cut it as a starter and down the stretch Bud is a liability on defense even though he is better. We need Iguodala. Man what do they want for him because I would gladly give up 2 first picks and Lee or Bud or Hill for him. This is not a put down on any of those guys. But we clearly have a lot of good players and only 2 borderline great players. Iguodala and Martin on the court together is perfect. But 3 with Battier and Budinger matched up with Martin makes us weak on the wings. And the answer is not benching martin for Lee. That is just stupid. If we can't upgrade or wing and you have so little confidence in Battier than leave Martin on the court and let Lee cover the best player. But please do not be stupid enough to leave martin on the bench. How can you bench the most efficient scorer in the league on the bench.Martin plays better D IMO than Rudy gay and he is a much more efficient offensive player! Do you think the Grizzlies would Bench gay down the stretch. Fortunately I think/hope this was just stupid coaching by Turner! I don't care how good Lee is, he is not the offensive player martin is. He can not shoot a 3 like Martin. He never will be able to. Yeah Last night was probably just a bad game for him. But the fact is Lee should never still Martin's minutes. If you want to give him some of Battier's minutes, fine. But don't steal Martin's minutes to give to him. Also watch Martin's defensive game you will see it is better this year. Replacing Lee for Martin is the single most stupidest decision last night and proves Turner does not deserve to be a head coach. First Martin is a better defender than the coach thinks. And second Martin is one of the most if not the most efficient offensive player in the league! As for the rest of the team... Scola was the one stinking up on both offense and defense more than anyone. Hopefully that is just an abberation and Scola will return back to normal. My concern is that great play in the summer wore him down a bit and that break to have his baby set him back a bit more. I hope he can return to the form of last year and I think he will. But the fact is when we had Landry, Scola was sitting on the bench down the stretch because Landry's intensity and offensive play was better. I love Scola but we need someone who can step up the intensity down the stretch. Yeah Hayes is not here and people think with his improved offense he will be the answer. But I don't see that. In the end end hayes offeense is still pathetic. I actually think Patterson is the answer. If he can improve on defense he will be our best all around player down the stretch. So I am not so worried about the 4 spot. Yeah I know this is just a preseason game but they played like a real game and we came up short! And the fact is, while I haven't voiced it on here before, I think we have a legitimate shot to come out of the west and making to the finals. I felt that myself but I also hear it in Adelman's comments. He likes this team and rightfully so. We are much better than that team that won 22 straight. We are better than team that took the Lakers to 7 games 2 years ago. We will win 50 plus games this year. Hopefully we will have home court advantage the first round. And the thing is this team is built to win in the playoffs. Yao makes us that type of team and if we can get him back up to 30 minutes a game by the end of the season than I expect we have a legitimate shot to knock out the Lakers this year. But we can't play so stupid as we did last night! The only thing that will get rid of that taste will be to start the the season on a big win over the Lakers! Okay I feel better. Let the season begin.
That was by far the stupidest. How does an NBA player not know to just hang on to the ball? You shouldn't even have to teach that. And Turner just guaranteed an assistant coaching job for awhile. Why did he put Yao in at 6 minutes when he only had 4 minutes left before hitting the 24 minute mark? Why do you have Lee and Bud out there? Yes, you needed defense and you had to keep Brooks out there, but Battier and Lee was a better option, easily. Yes, it's preseason, but that was just embarrassingly stupid.
unless we acquire a starting-caliber small forward from somewhere, that ariza salary dump was a terrible move.
We saw why Adelman is paid the big bucks to coach. The overall preseason performance by the team gave us a preview of a very exciting and competitive season. Go Rockets.
LOL - That is what I was thinking. Lee was in for his D to hold the lead. But man those were some serious brain farts there in the last couple of minutes. Here is a man who makes it his life profession to play basketball and yet most of who haven't ever made a bball team outside of the Y are sitting here shaking our heads in disbelief. I can't believe they let this one slip away. I know this is preseason but games like this show where the gaps are. We are not as solid 1-5 as most of us thought. We have got to get some help at the SF. Caron was killing us all game long and we couldn't even slow him down. Caron. Butler.
Not really concerned. Seems like Turne was keeping some of the subs in to see if they could work out the kinks when the offense bogged out down the stretch. More like an educational rotation rather than one where they were really tring to win the game as the primary objective.
I am sure Bud and Lee will learn something from this game especially after they watch the video from this game. I wonder if Turner just screwed up on player assignments or just wanted some of the players to learn from a last minute pressure situation? I thought Shane should have been in to disrupt the inbound pass.
Shane apparently was the one who screwed up on Marion: http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/bk/bkn/7260370.html
I have a hunch putting Yao on the inbound was not only to harrass the pass but also to protect Yao... he was safer from a stupid injury in the final seconds of a preseason game out on the sideline than near the basket where you would have to expect collisions to happen. Ironic that the defensive collapse involved the two "defensive specialists" of the team. But I agree that it would have been smarter having eiether Jeffries or Hill protecting the rim since only one type of play would have have resulted in a score.
Well, that was Shane being Shane--taking responsibility and everything. He didn't want to leave Dirk; understandable. However, Bud was just paralyzed, just watched the ball sail over their heads. Man, collapse on that rim. No basketball IQ at all. Man, I hope they remember the humiliation this gave them so we will never have to suffer such games again. Next time, play Yao in the closing minutes, okay?
Forget the last play.... It shouldn't have taken place. I blame Lee, the players on the floor, and the coaching staff for not demanding whoever had the ball to hold it in those final seconds...if they did, then double shame on Lee. I don't even think Bill, and Bullard the "analyst" even caught what was going on before hand... There was no "Now Rockets are up by one and should HOLD THE BALL and wait to get fouled" Overall, Kevin Martin is going o be great for us this year, and besides a couple of WTF layups from Ish, he really stood out the most to me... Can't deny his playmaking abilities and I.Q of the game.
Oh on the bench being very antsy and going up to Turner several times most probably asking why he wasn't being sent in. You'll see it on the replay. The first part of the 3rd qtr also KM was not getting any touches at all. Thus on one possession he simply brought the ball down from frontcourt and launched into a 3 point shot which he missed. Next deadball, you could see Turner and KM talking and soon after KM started to get his touches. I think we're seeing problems in the shot distribution and "chemistry" already. I hope RA steps in. Everything's fine when we're winning. But when we start to lose, guys will be demanding their touches. What I don't understand was why JJ was ending up with the ball and muffing so many attempts?
Also reason that Rick Adelman is head coach not Elston Turner. And why nobody mentioned too Lee during our last possession that there was no shot clock... Anyway it was a fun game pretty much, seeing Jeffries stinking it up, Ish with sick passes, Bud being awesome...
