[Rocky Mountain News]Streak ends as Nuggets fall in Houston

Rasheed: "Both teams played hard"

 

haha, nice.

 

Karl may be an "expert" at shutting down an opposing team's star player, but I've seen that when his original plan A doesn't work... he has no plan B, C, or D, and his team will most likely lose. Also, even if plan A somewhat works, its not compeltely fail-safe.

When we played Seattle back in 97, he never made an adjustment to us having Barkley... and we saw them like 4 times in the regular season, and another 7 times in the playoffs... and each time Barkley played, and was healthy, he went off.\

Karl still stuck to his usual triple-team illegal defense of Hakeem, and Clyde was neutralized to a 3-point shooter, but Barkley was allowed to do whatever he wanted... post up one-on-one and get to the FT line, isolation against Kemp one-on-one, when Charles was savvy enough to get by him, and eventually, he carried us to a series win.

Now, take last night... his team does an okay job of shutting down T-mac early... but when he starts making shots, nothing happens. Also, when his team starts falling apart offensively, nothing happens... he allowed Carmelo to try and post up T-Mac 4 consecutive times, and each time he tried to go thru the double team, he'd get the shot swatted away.

The press called it "unusual aggressive defense against Carmelo"... I call it JVG knows more about basketball than George Karl.

That's what I admire about guys like JVG and Rudy... they always make in-game adjustments if their original plan fails. Seeing last night, and Karl's history, I'm not so sure how good Karl is at that. He's great at preparing his team for the game, before the game, but during the game?... he gets exposed.

 

Hey George, good analysis on Yao! but you have to ask yourself this question: why would you and the rest of the coaches in the league always gameplan defensive strategy around how to stop Yao?

You take Yao out of Houston and what do you get?(no knock on TMac)











So Karl.......................STFU!

 

I think Karl meant that his team was sagging inside too much on Yao and our outside guys were lighting them up -- namely Tmac. Yao's been averaging over 20 pts the last 7 games, so it's not like he's not a big player for our team.

 

I dont think there is any question that Camby is a huge part of the Nuggets team, but of all the stories I have read about this game they make a big deal about Camby being out but never say anything about the fact that the Rockets were without Juwan Howard who in my mind is a big part of our team as well. I mean with Camby out the Nuggets can slide in Nene. Not to shabby there. And without Howard our backup is Spoon? I mean there is a quite a difference there!

 

I think Karl is using the same higher expectations we all have for Yao, who did play a great game that was slightly overshadowed by his teammate and reserve, Mutombo because the team really started to gel when James and Mutombo came in.


MIN FG FT OR DR TR AST PF ST TO BLK PTS
Yao 23 5-8 3-6 3 8 11 3 3 1 2 5 13

Deke 22 2-3 7-8 5 7 12 0 1 0 0 3 11

Yao still had a great game in relation to the minutes he played. Same goes for Mount Mutombo. I wouldn't say Deke was much better, but I would say the team played better as a whole when he was on the floor.

 

The reason they don't make a big deal about Howard is that he is not coming back this year, while Camby should be.

 

I think Karl's mistaken. He did try to adjust for TMac; he had Buckner punch him the nuts. Good way to set McGrady off.

Sure McGrady went for 30, but we still had five other guys in double digits including Mike James, a backup, who went for 23. Denver had four players, two less than the Rockets in double digits.

 

Let's see.....the game ended at 8:30 mountain time at which point I went out to hang out with my friends, I came home and I slept. I'm sorry, I didn't know the correct protocal was to log on to cf.net, eat some crow and then move on. I'll make a mental note of that.

 

LOL

 

I applaud you. Looking through a lot of your post, at least you're not just a blind homer just here to make trouble. At least in that regard, you're better than a lot of posters here that root for the Rox. Your topics and replies are thought out and well stated, and you always show up regardless of the result.

OTOH, where is GizzguyX???

 

Don't let it get to you Nuggets4. You're a well-respected poster around here...despite being a Nuggets fan.

 

Dude, I don't sweat it. I've been here a hell of a lot longer than most posters. I know if I get out of line Clutch will let me know.

 

I agree. Don't pick on Nuggets4 guys. If you have been around long enough you would know his posts are always reasonable and well thought out. The same cannot be said about some other teams' idiotic fans who troll this site.

 

And he's got balls too ... regsitering in early '99 as a Nuggets fan ... impressive.

 

I saw that. It was funny! Not only was there a double on Melo. They were doubling Melo with Tmac and Yao! I was asking, "What they heck do they think they are doing? Does Karl think that he's going to beat a double by both TMac and Yao?" Crazy.

And Yao was coming from the weakside, so there wasn't a much chance that he would draw the foul. Tmac would have at worst.

 

LOL!