I watched the game last night and noticed what I have been seeing all season. The Rox aside for T-Mac are not athletic or tall at the SF and PF positions. The Worriors abused the ROX at those positions because of lack of size and quickness. Yao cannot cover athletic 6'11 PF (Chaprakapa and Murphy) that can shoot the three and go to the basket off the dribble. This is a problem that will only show up more in the playoffs with the likes of Rashard Lewis of Seattle, Amare in Phoenix, Pau in Memphis, and Camby in Denver. We have no one who can match up with those guys. I am sorry but Weatherspoon is a joke at the position, Bowen trys his best but is limited, Padgett is tooooo slow footed, and Howard is also. Next season, the ROX need to address this issue.
we don't just need an athletic 4 and backup 3 for tmac. we need a new starting 2 because wesley can't play a whole season anymore and if we are looking to go deep into the playoffs we really cant depend on him.
Yao plays center so he's not responsible for covering those guys. Howard is supposed to fill that role and when he was on he was doing a decent job at PF and of course it would be crazy to replace T-Mac at SF. Right now we just gotta make the best we can with the PF's we got. While the Forwards are a concern we've shown we can make that up when our guards play. Since they aren't now the weaknesses at forward are looking more obvious. In regard to atheletes in general this is an overall problem with this year's Rox that we aren't that athletic. A lot of this has to do with the age of the players and as we see they look like they've been running out of gas at both ends of the court.
just to add to my first post: i think we can find an athletic wingman in the draft to backup tmac. as for the 4 spot., we have the MLE and a few last year contracts. one could go to upgrading the 4 the other should be used to replace wesley. sura can be moved to the 2 and we should bring in a good PG (one who can shoot and pass). call me crazy but i think we should use our MLE on a point. there are so many good PG's available in the FA pool this summer. there are a lot of great 4's available too but who can we really get? swift, chandler, SAR will all get more than MLE. marshal said he wants to return to the bulls (from realgm about a week ago). we should sign marco jaric, earl watson, or damon stoudamire. move bobby to the 2. then trade wesley and one of the last ear contracts (baker, spoon) for a PF. anyone looking to get out of a contract or just clear some cap for the summer of 2006 will be willing to take our ending contracts. the knicks could let us have JYD or thomas, the bucks might want to let joe smith go for ending deals. the kings have 3 PF's and no backup sg. maybe a wesley for skinner deal can be worked out? either way there are plenty of options and our needs are clear. i look foward to another great summer by CD. BUT FIRST! i look foward to kicking some sonic ass in the playoffs.
From the looks of our play recently, I'd say that Van Gundy is trying to solve that problem by having Yao run around at the 3 point line until he gets skinny enough and quick enough to guard the beanpole 4's masquarading as 5's. At the same time, he's supposed to bounce back into the paint and defend the interior. The only problem is that Coach hasn't figured out a way to jam about 4 protein shakes into Yao between the time he's out on the perimeter to the time he gets back into the paint so that he can be the Superstud in the paint and Coach hasn't figured out how to cram about 4 gallons of Gatorade in him so that Yao can then get back out and guard the 3 point line while the shot clock is still running. The problem is that we can't freeze the opposition in place and then move Yao around like a chess piece to where the defensive weakness is and then magically restart play. Come to think of it..................the problem is really our defensive scheme right now is not working. Combine that with the fact that we have no zip from our perimeter defense and we are just getting torched. Why is it that Van Gundy keeps insisting that Yao run out and defend the perimeter? It's useless, and it is making our guards lazy defensively. Instead of fighting over and around screens, they just lag behind and wait for Yao to come out and cut of penetration. Sura's and James' defense in particular has fallen completely off the table. And Wesley looks like a player that is giving up because he realizes he has no help out there. TMac looks like he is sleep walking on the defensive end. Van Gundy needs to keep the big guy in the paint area and get the perimeter defenders to hustling again. It's their job. So, the opposition goes small and tries to run all over the place and they bring in a 6'10" 200 lb 5 that sits out at the 3 point line trying to get Yao out of the paint. We shouldn't fall for that junk. Let Zarko shoot 20 3 balls, I don't care. If we are gonna lose, I'd rather lose by letting him shoot those shots, than to draw Yao out of the paint and open up the whole interior for a player like Baron to get layups, dunks, and little 15 footers. Just as the opposition is letting Bowen and Spoon get theirs, then we need to recognize who the weak players on the opposition are and let them shoot it. Get the ball out of the hands of the Barons and Jasons. Then on the offensive end, we have to jam the ball down to Yao because he is being guarded by a toothpick down there. Yao could have had 40 against GS easily if we would have just kept pounding the ball down to him. That would have forced them to respond with the double team and then we start getting McGrady loose. Combine that with McGrady driving the paint and getting layups like he did in the last 5 minutes of the game, and all of a sudden the opposition has foul trouble to deal with big time even if the refs are only calling 1 out of every 3 fouls. You have to get the opposition concentrated on having to defend you. Right now, they aren't having to defend that much because we are settling for way too many jumpers, too much dribbling, not enough ball movement and not jamming the ball into Yao. Then they come down the floor fresh and run Yao all over the place and finally get what they want on that end. Van Gundy has to stop reacting the the opposition and force the opposition to have to react to us.
Sorry about the rant. I just don't think more athletic players are going to solve the problems with hustle and scheme. Our scheme needs to change to funneling players into bad shots and guarding the paint area. How do you get more athletic at the 3 than TMac? And we could have Tarzan at the 4 but what good is it if Yao is still running out to defend the dribbler off the screen?
I like the defense, and I like the offense. It's the shooting that has become so demoralizing that the defense falters because of it. If you can't hit an open shot it effects the whole games. Just simply demoralizing. If those open shots go down the Rockets d will bump up a bit.
the Rockets need more guys that can throw the ball to Yao (regardless of the position). The PFs might have abused our PFs, but Yao was abusing their whole team
That's not a new problem, beating the dead horse again and again. Is is any way to get Sean May or Marvin Williams?
CD's summer shopping list - starting 1, starting 2, backup 3, and a shot blocking 2 per game, rebounding 10-12 per game, scoring 12-15 pts per game 4.
Jonathan Bender would be someone that could fit the bill. He can backup at both forward spots. Freakishly athletic and very long. If he could just get over his injury problems, he could be another Robert Horry type player. At this point, the Pacers would probably give him away for our expiring contracts.
I think JVG and CD did about the best they possibly could to upgrade this team, but I think the old men and the worn out stars like TMac's knees are just running out of gas. I pray for miracles in the playoffs and look forward to next year with a few more younger legs on this team. JVG are u listening? YOUNGER, I SAID YOUNGER!!!
