Rafer had an uncharacteristically good shooting night versus the clips, 7-14, 9 asts, 1 to.... amazing. i liked seeing steve hustle and dive, provides a healthy spark off the bench after a terribly stagnant first quarter... MJ played terribly, and looked very confused bringing the ball up the court....
half of his shots were Layups so he had a better chance of making them. I didn't see ne floaters go in and most of his out side shots where wide open and he didn't make them. With soo limited shooters on our team he should be able to know them down.
Some fans are just going to have to accept the fact that thus far, RA likes playing Rafer! He is not showing any signs of benching him either. The game after francis has his best performance thus far, rafer gets 40 minutes.
I agree. However, RA could have turned on the pressure by playing the other guards more, so that rafer would have to be effective in limited time. However, other guards were not given much time. Instead he basically played Rafer the entireu game.
I think RA will have to come to trust Francis in time. Francis obviously isn't the sporadic, dribble maniac that he used to be. James on the other hand, hasn't changed at all. Still trigger happy. I think 10 of rafer minutes could have went to Francis in the second half when he went 2-8.
How can you complain about Rafer's minutes in a game where he basicly had an all star level stat line AND we won? I certainly don't expect that to be the norm from him, but in this particular game any criticism of Rafer's minutes is nitpicking. If anything the criticisms from this game should be some of the bad line ups Adelman put out there in the 2nd quarter. If I remember correctly it was Yao, Deke, Rafer, Bonzi, and Battier at one point... How they were supposed to score with that line up I have no idea. Any play that required Deke catching the ball was brutal. James and Francis playing at the same time was not particularly effective either, granted they only played 8 minutes each.
MJ having a horrible game and Rafer shooting well, means nothing. One game of rafer shooting well, can't undo weeks of losses in which he gave us nothing. MJ continues to me to look like a 3rd string pg and a 2nd string SG when the team is pursuing small ball. Steve is emerging as the leading second unit pg IMO and challenging the raferism that strands so supreme around here. Two great performances should at least put him in contention with sir skip for starter's rights. His heart/hustle/penetration/intangibles/tenacity is too much to be ignored when rafer simply can't shoot up to his potential. Historically, we know that Rafer as a Rocket has shot from 3pt 32.7% in 05/06 (JVG) and 35.9% in 06/07 (JVG), so i think we can expect him to end up at 33-35%3PT by the end of the season under adelman, even if this system warrants more shots for him (seems unthinkable but not impossible). If he shoots 35% or greater from downtown and gives at least 2 st/6 as/2 TO(max) then he would be giving us a stellar RAFER performance, no? Something in me suspects he wont reach these marks though, and that Steve should see more opportunities to win the job from Skip.e
You're probably right about Luther and MJ7's perimeter shooting being a lethal combination with Steve's penetrating tenacity. The question is..... can we teach LH and MJ to look first to space outside the perimeter looking for the wide open J (often in b/t zone defenders) and to use much more discretion when driving to the basket, even encouraging him to opt to pass the ball off for a jumper rather than finish an uncontrolled, off-balance layup that he may sometimes finish, but is rarely a high percentage look?????
Rafer played well, and was actually shooting OK. I'm not a Rafer hater like so many. I actually think he usually does a good job running the offense, but some of his shots, and shooting ability do drive me crazy, and I'm yelling at the TV for him to be yanked out. Steve has been playing pretty solid. I like to see it. The more minutes he gets the more comfortable he will be. So far he hasn't been an attitude problem for the coach or team, he doesn't dribble out the shot clock, he looks for the pass, and at least has been working on defense.
I still think Rafer clocked to much PT (40 min is just too much) in this game. Steve 8 min PT is just too little. I think Steve Should get 15 min PT and Rafer 25-30 min PT this game.
Cumlative Stats for all 3 guards over the 3 games they all played in (Pheonix, Denver and Clippers*) FRANCIS 51 MIN 7-21 FG, 0-6 3PT 6-6 FT 7 REB 7 AST 4 STL 1 BLK 1 TO 20 PTS ALSTON 98 MIN 12-27 FG, 4-11 3PT 1-2 FT 9 REB 18 AST 3 STL 0 BLK 2 TO 29 PTS JAMES 55 MIN 11-28 FG, 3-8 3PT 3-4 FT 7 REB 5 AST 3 STL 0 BLK 5 TO 28 PTS *James and Francis only played 8 minutes each vs Clippers.
Skip played very well so he was rewarded with more playing time. We played well so he was good a very good job. If you notice, Skip gets less minutes depending on how bad he is playing, which is pretty fair. In very limited minutes, Francis impressed again. Kept the ball moving and made some nice plays.
umm I wasn't complaining. I am pointing out that RA, much like JVG, has no problem giving rafer extended minutes (40) from what I have seen this season. This is after a break-out performance by francis.
The problem with MJ7 is that he really think he is MJ-the23... Everytime he got the ball, then it's a dead end. He will either drive the the rim or shoot the ball. SF3 and MJ7 they both played about 8 minutes, but look at how many more shuts he took.....
If anything Francis should have been taking minutes from Bonzi last night. Alston averaged 21 points per game vs the Clippers last year, so it made sense to keep playing him when he was going good last night. Why would you want to sub out some one who is playing well? Steve played fine in a virtual blow out vs Denver and was decent in extemely limited minutes last night, but his "break out" game wasn't THAT great. I mean did you expect Francis to do better than 50% shooting, 9 assists and 1 turn over in a game we comfortably won? Keep in mind that Francis and James both have lower FG% than Rafer for the season so far. I don't expect that to be the case by the end of the year, but some of you are so focused on Rafer's misses that you ignore that the other guys have been shooting worse. Rafer is not going to play 40+ minutes regularly unless he is playing like he did last night, in which case I don't see why anyone would complain.
The problem with Rafer is consistency. Overall, his numbers were much better last night compared to the season, but even with that, he was like 2-9 in the second half and had a couple of just really bad turnovers (not too mention the lame brain technical on the delay of game).
He shot 7-14 and he had one turn over and played almost the whole game. The technical was a bad decision, but if we want to nitpick bad decisions, look no further than Yao's 6 turn overs. Now if your point is that Rafer is unlikely to play like last night on a regular basis, then I completely agree. Last night was absolutely the exception rather than the rule shooting wise. But we won comfortably, so I don't know why people would have any complaints about our PG play.
