Great numbers. Hopefully he doesn't choke like Tracy in the playoffs and can bring some pride back to the city. It seems like the whole team is on now (except for last nights FT). They are meshing well together, and like everyone is saying, we are so much more fun to watch now. Hopefully over the summer, we can shop Tracy and sign Ron. But before that, I wanna get out of the first round!
What I am most impressed with is after the loss in Chicago where Ron went haywire, the team has trusted each other late in games and been highly successful. When Ron started going off the reservation last night. Rick pulled him for a minute, got him redirected and put him back in.......GREAT work by Adelman. DD
excellent point. adelman also had great subs the whole game. he coached a good one last night. DD in your previous post you also mentioned how much better we would've been if he had this team from the start of the season. i've been saying for a while that consistency = chemistry. with tmac in and out of the lineup, and last minute at that, the team was always caught off balance. the coaches and players prepare for the guy to be there, then he's not. how can you win consistently like that? the number i look at is 7 losses to last place teams. this team without tmac, would've had 7 more wins. good enough for 2GB on the lakers, and a few games ahead of the spurs. just think of how good this team can be when they trade tmac this summer for a starting SG and a backup C!
By doing so, what was a tentative double-digit lead turned into a single-digit lead. And that happened pretty fast. Just sayin, I'm happy with the win, just that if we had lost, I'm sure what Adelman did would be more scrutinized (and we were very close to a loss here). I don't think he did a particularly good job here.
If anything we looked like crap early on and it seemed like it was going to be a bad loss till Adleman went with a super small line-up to get us back in the game.
Combine that with the fact that Scola and Yao combined to commit three horrendously stupid fouls in the last 2:30 to open the door for the Nuggets. And it irks me that someone could say Adelman didn't coach this one well. Everyone on this BBS b****ed incessantly about Adelman's loyalty to his starters even in the event that they were clearly playing inferior basketball to the bench. After the starters were thoroughly outplayed throughout the first quarter, he did what everyone has screamed for all year: he put in the bench and kept them there after they began to turn the game around. As a result, a 9 point second-quarter deficit turned to a 5 point halftime lead. For the rest of the game, substitutions were made to place fresh legs in the stead of those playing worst. Can a coach do anything right in some of your eyes?
Obviously his ankle is feeling A LOT better and we can say he is somewhere really close to 100% because he finally has no problems with attacking the basket. The difference is, he is MAKING shots. I still don't like his shot selections sometimes but the guy is ON FIRE. Gotta give him the ball.
Artest has been very consistent since he is now a starter with a more primary role with T-Mac being out. "Tru Warrior" is a beast and I hope the Rockets can resign him in the offseason.
errr... his ankle got better... playing with the same rotation EVERY game and EVERY day in practice... and i love the way ron's playing. keep it up ron.
I agree and Artest is showing that he is better at hitting the wide open 3pt shot, something that those players couldn't do consistently. I don't have the numbers, but Artest has been deadly when he can set his feet.
He'll come back down to earth at some point. I want to see how the Rockets respond offensively when that happens.
it will. we were on a 12-13 game peak last yr when yao went down where both our offensive and defensive efficiencies went THROUGH THE ROOF. then you can only play with adrenaline for so long. the averages will balance out. we're going to depend on that defense sooner or later. but i'm optimistic. we have such a balanced offense this year that we can shoulder 2-3 guys having bad games, including our yao and ron TOGETHER. but that may not work v. the better teams in this league though.
Artest has averaged better than 20 ppg in two seasons. In 2004-2005 he averaged better than 24 ppg. His fg % is impressive but I think there's a good chance he can sustain his current level of play into the post-season. He's no rookie.
