The Rockets played bad, the Jazz played well. It'll be interesting to see how good the Jazz can be. They play Phoenix tonight...a team significantly softer than us on the interior. Let's see how Boozer & Co. do.
Good point about Yao having to guard the perimeter -- I guess I didn't think that one through enough. Basically it then boils down to Yao being fairly ineffective defensively against Boozer (and probably a lot of that had to do with foul troubles, I suppose).Perhaps Chuck Hayes could have been more effective with Yao out -- in which case we would be running a small lineup. We could then compensate for the lack of interior size somewhat by going big in the backcourt with T-Mac at the 2 and Novak at the 3 (guarding Kirilenko). Still doesn't solve the guard penetration problem though (which is essentially Rafer's fault), but at the same time it is a very potent shooting lineup. Just throwing out possibilities ...these were options we didn't have last year.
Durvasa, I love your statistical analyses and contributions to this board. ............especially when it confirms what I thought to be true. Anyways, won't say it, but TYS. BTW, ** should have been an offensive foul on Boozer. Battier got his feet down and was set outside the circle. I am convinced we are a better team than Utah. Yao's early foul trouble cost us a whole lot on both ends of the court. The offensive foul where he got called on the pick should never happen. He shouldn't be out there setting screens. And the play where he reached and didn't stay vertical fouled the driver (I believe Miles, possibly Brewer) on the arm were flat out mistakes. Then the play where gets called for the blocking foul while attempting to take a charge on one of the pentrators was very poor judgment on his part. The basic problem still comes down to Yao's aggressiveness. He is 180 degress off in aggression. He is too aggressive defensively early and too tentative offensively early. He should be the exact opposite. I have all the confidence in the world that Yao can check Boozer effectively. He just can't do it when he is in foul trouble. Shane was highly effective, witness Okur's poor shooting night. Shane had his number. Shane will be a very effective defender in the JVG system against perimeter big shooters because of his combination of athleticism, speed, quickness, and bball IQ. If I were a betting man, I would bet that Dirk has a poor shooting night from outside against us tomorrow night. A lot of people watched a 3 game playoff series and are using that as a gauge of how well Shane can guard Dirk. Once again, that is not true. It's not the same scheme. In fact, I look for Dirk to go away from his outside game in favor of attempting to post up Battier on the high block. Either that or Shane forces him to put the ball on the floor and drive from the perimeter which I think they will attempt to do a lot of early to see if they can get Yao in foul trouble again. Hopefully Yao plays this out smarter this time around. Anyways, back to Boozer. It was plainly obvious that the only credible defender we had for him when Yao got into trouble was Chuckie. Why in teh world JVG went away from Hayes is beyond me. Don't understand that one. If Yao had stayed foul free or at least foul lite and demanding the ball on the offensive end, he would have fouled out Okur or at the very least sat him on the bench for even more minutes than he sat. Then we would have been looking at Yao matching up with Collins (hardy har har) and forcing Sloan to have to made a decision to either bring Boozer over to help or switch Boozer off on Yao altogether. Yao owns Collins big time and he would have owned Boozer if Boozer were having to defend him. But alas Yao was not aggressive enough offensively in the block to make that happen and he was overaggressive defensively and on setting a stupid pick out at midcourt.
Shane was 75% (3 of 4) from the arc. And 67% all in all (4 of 6). Should he have shot more? or should he have demanded the ball more? its not like he's passing up shots for a better shot from one of his teammates because he has zero assist.. while tmac was 33% (8 of 24).. should he have given up the ball more? yeah utah was killing us with yao-okur boozer-battier mismatch but we should have attacked them the same way.. have battier shoot threes and dare boozer or okur to come out and leave yao single coverage I think a good strategy in general is first try to have an easy transition basket, then feed yao to the post, then kick out to battier.. if he's free, he has to take the shot.. I trust him more than tmac right now unless tmac is real hot..
For a guy who tauted SF3 as the second coming you probably shouldn't be bashing people for their support of other players. Bottom line is it wasn't the coach or any one player that led us to lose the game, the whole team stunk. They played with no intensity and let Utah basically do whatever they wanted to.
I think your analysis were on, in terms of aggressiveness in defensive and offensive ends. I believe it has a lot to do with JVG team philosophy - It's ok to perform poor offensively, but NOT ok to miss a defensive assignment. JVG never told Yao or anyone, sometimes you have to let it go, in the open, on any occasions. To me, it's a mind game. You have to pound your opponent first to ease your defensive pressure. Offensively, Yao is a mismatch whenever the player list is set. Rockets have to pound inside determined to force early double team, to open up other guys. Defensively, they should start with a zone in the first minute, to protect the big guy inside, insead of having him chasing guards in the premieter and rolling back late. It's not a matter of willingness, but rather capability. Yao simply can't keep up with those nimble guards, especially they are treated as fragile china nowadays. If Okur and Boozer were made to spend a lot more energy on defense, they wouldn't be that effective offensively. What's so wrong with zone? It works for so many teams, why JVG doesn't want to do it more, especially with Yao onboard. I understand 3 pointers might kill you badly if you stay in a zone, but it's not like Suns didn't kill us without zone.
Great analysist by durvasa. Confirms my anecdotal impressions. It's interesting to see how knee jerk reactions made by mentally r****ded fans based on regurgitation of stereo-typcal rants of second-rate sports columnists fail to hold up under any kind of careful scrutiny. Whether that scrutiny is a hard look at the game or put in a statistical format.
Are you suggesting if Rudy Gay would have been our starting PF instead of Battier then Boozer's numbers in this game would have been only about 40% what they were? I find that hard to believe, when healthy, Boozer is one of the best PF's in the game. If he's on he will eat us up every time we play the Jazz. We have to make up for our weakness of not having a serviceable true starting power forward with hustle, intensity, team defense, and most importantly making them pay by getting wide open outside shots for our "power forwards". I tip my cap to Boozer, of course I also wish we had a "true" power forward who can bang down low, play great D, and hit outside shots consistently. That missing link is the main reason we will likely not make it past the 2nd round this season. (I hope I am wrong of course) But your post is pretty silly, and does not serve a useful purpose imo. Boozer would have been just as if not more dominant if Rudy Gay was trying to guard him.
Point taken. Rudy Gay may become a great player, even an all star. But that has nothing to do with our loss to the Jazz. We lost to a good team on the road, who played harder than us. The Jazz should compete for a playoff spot this year if they stay healthy. Hopefully this loss woke us up to understand we have to want the win more than our opponent even with a healthy Tracy, Yao...and Bonzi... The Rudy Gay taunts are neither here nor there at this point, I should have known better than to take the bait. So, how is the PF crop of draft picks looking for '07?
i dunno if McRoberts qualifies as a PF, but i'm pretty sure Big Baby Davis will be declaring himself for the draft, as will Joseph Jones of A&M.
I would like to see a sequential pattern on how Boozer scored against certain unit run by our team - but is probably indicative of determing which team set JVG should have run than a summary of stats. For example, it may show a pattern of whether JVG let particular line up too long or not. For all I know, he could have distributed minutes more equally and regardless of the loss that would have been better for the team by giving everyone some run out in the new season. So know this statistical analysis doesnt quite let Van Gundy off the hook. But what durvasa does show is the fact that Shane Battier's stat isnt quite indicative of his general contribution to the match - the point I agree with. Nonetheless, real_egal makes a valid point, if Shane is PF for this team then he has a responsibility to get down and make some positive contribution to the team and be more than a marginal player. Shane is an integral part to this team and I think we should expect from him. But I have up most of my confidence that he will do better than last game and fulfill his obligations. He is a solid pro. Anyway beat the Mavs and all be forgotten.
here's what Marty Burns thinks about Yao and shane: 8. Yao in for big season His team lost its opener at Utah, but Rockets center Yao Ming picked up right where he left off last season. The 7-5 center scored on his first possession and looked to have no ill effects from the toe injury that bothered him last year. The only thing that stopped him was foul trouble, though his second foul midway through the first quarter was a bad call. Meanwhile, Shane Battier is going to be a huge help to the Rockets with his smart play. The 6-7 forward understands the concepts of team defense. He covered for Yao after the center got in foul trouble and once even taking a foul on a Utah player so that his big center didn't pick up another. He then stripped his man at halfcourt, leading to a Rockets fast break. If Bonzi Wells can get his head on straight and get back on the court, Houston could be a factor in the West. Oh yeah, and he even mentioned Novak, a second rounder: 10. Novak update OK, so Rockets forward Steve Novak had a quiet three points (on 1-of-4 shooting) in his debut against the Jazz. But as I have been writing since before training camp, the 6-10 second-rounder from Marquette is going to be an impact rookie. He is just simply too good of a shooter. Against Utah, he checked into the game late in the first quarter and immediately drained a three-pointer with Boozer in his mug. Sure, he missed a few after that, but he has an incredible stroke and he's going to make a ton of shots, benefiting from defenses focusing on McGrady and Yao. I think if people who's jobs depend on their analyzing skills think that Battier did a good job, that should be all irght with us too.
The reason why Yao was guarding Boozer rather than Okur was because Okur would just shoot threes all night and Boozer would have easy putbacks. the problem was that Boozer was hitting all his mid range shots. What should have been done was what was done in the 4th quarter (too late I might add) a zone to make other players beat you. It is what brought Houston back into the game with better shot selection, less crucial turnovers, better free throw shooting or a better TMAC and Houston would have won that game.
They tried zone earlier in the game. Yao committed two defensive 3 second violations in a row. If zone worked better later, it's because Yao finally got a clue.
What yao needs most from the PF position is a three point shot to spread the D and prevent them collapsing on him. Battier gives that and just needs to get comfortable shooting more. As for rebounding, Tmac and Bonzi will help out Yao in that department, once Bonzi gets playing time. As pointed out many times already, how can you bash Battier for Boozer's numbers when he didnt guard him. Battier spent most of his time on Okur who shot 4-15. As for claiming other people are stupid for defending Battier, think about how you look for condemning him after all of one game.
okur still scored 17 off 15 shots so he didn't exactly shut him down. but hey, if you guys are arguing that the rockets aquired battier to "hold" the okurs of the world to 17 points, I guess its all worth it.
