Verse, I cannot really disagree with you. I cannot see the reason why we were so bad defensively for so long. The mindset and reinforcement was not there and have nothing to do with practices or injuries. Hell, you can cover all you need to cover for the defense on a flight for crying out loud. I hope these practice correct our reliance on the gimmicks. Hopefully we understand that the 5 spot has to be manned by Cato, Collier and Willis and not skinny little boys. We need to have bulk at all times. And that dreaded 3 guard lineup should go.
verse/chorus yeah yeah yeah. (repeat). Ok coach, now call me an iso. Never mind, I'll just skip into traffic jump in the air, and throw it out. Gimme that three on the run, that's it, Cat! You'll hit next time for sure. And put in my man Mooch! You pound that ball, little man. And TMo! Got to git him some! Hey, I need a switch. Who's guarding my guy? Man, my head hurts! Just kidding. Maybe. Good luck, Rockets.
It's not just about not being able to practice due to injuries it's about being able to practice as a TEAM. If the team isn't able to learn to play together in practice they can't execute as a TEAM in the games. And you are right, our injuries, this year are worse than normal. Sure you expect some injuries in the course of the season but nothing like this. If the team had the chance to practice TOGETHER, they might learn each others tendencies weaknesses and strengths, and the team play and passing should be improved. If it doesn't improve under those circumstances then there is a problem. But to judge anything based on this season is unfair and premature. The one consistent we've had is Eddie Griffin, and Rudy seems to have done a great job bringing him along. 1. The Rockets have been fined in the past for practicing on holidays, which is against league rules. 2. The kind of dedication you are talking about sounds to me like STeve paying $500 an hour out of his own pocket to keep the arena open so he can practice. Steve definitely has the dedication. 3.Teaching is what you do to rookies, such as the nineteen year old Eddie, who has come along way ahead of schedule. I wouldn't call his developement unsuccessful at all. Rudy seems fairly comfortable at it. Also when he's had a full team at the start of this year as well as last year, they played beyond what was expected or predicted of them. True, and I think the Rockets need to work on that, but familiarity and players that can catch will also help with that. The team that illustrated the textbook fast break(IMO) was Magic's Lakers. Worthy, Kareem and Magic running the fast break was a thing of beauty. But those players had time to play together and learn each others tendencies, spacing etc. Injuries and lack of playing togehter consistantly has prevented us from doing that. In addition the people Magic was running the fast break with were all-stars. It will take some work, but time, and practice would greatly improve our transition offense.
I agree with verse and NCSTATEFAN totally. Rudy still hasn't been doing a good job of coaching in my opinion. The lack of practice time is just an excuse. The other teams in the league pretty much have the same schedule, so the Rockets need to DEAL WITH IT. I believe in the past Rudy has rode the coattails of seasoned veteran superstars, and now that he's actually having to coach, he just hasn't done a good job of it. Period. The Rockets and Rudy need to quit making excuses and put up or shut up.
It's not just schedule it's a combination of schedule and injury. I think we're all tired of losing, and want to see changes. Because people say things that 'sound' like they want immediate action is just talk. Saying Rudy and the Rockets need to quit making excuses and put or shut up, is nothing more than meaningless talk. And it doesn't mean that people who use this kind of lingo want to see the Rockets win any more than people who don't. The Rockets right now are like a boxer with only one arm going into the ring. You can say that boxer should put up or shut up, but it doesn't hold any water, and is meaningless. The fact is there are legit excuses and plenty of times there aren't. From what I've seen of the Rockets with a relatively healthy team, they play well. Even with Mo on the bench at the start of the year they played well together. Last year their improvement was tremendous. Q: What's the biggest change on the team since then and now? A:Injuries It seems like a lot of time people are looking so hard to find what's wrong that they cant' see the forrest for the trees. It's right in front of our face. If a healthy Rockets still flounder the way the team is now, I will join you in saying Rudy is botching the job, but I'm not going to judge anyone unfairly based on this season.
Maybe Rudy and the franchise are angling to be good the year the NEW arena opens. Would be smart no? DaDakota
I guarantee if Rudy still implements his same limited coaching philosophy, even with a healthy team, the Rockets will not make the playoff, especially over here in the West. Yes the combination of injuries and the schedule are valid issues resulting in the Rockets sorry record, but the bigger issue I see with this team is that to me they seem poorly coached. The Rockets these days just don't play NBA caliber basketball, it's street ball. And if Rudy can't come up with something more original than an iso, I just don't know what to say. I'm not going to even talk about the defense. That's another issue all together. I believe the reason a lot of people have a problem giving Rudy critisism is that he will allways have that legendary persona of being the first coach to bring a major championship to Houston. That being said, the Rockets over the past few years just haven't been cutting it as a team, and there has been little improvment. Perrenial scum buckets of the league like the Mavs, Timberwolves, Kings, Nets, and Wizards just to name a few, have passed the Rockets up and left them in the dust improvment wise. I believe everyone of those teams are better coached. It's just the truth. I'll be willing to give Rudy one more year to take this team somewhere, but if the Rockets are in the lottery again next year, Rudy should be gone.
Rudy is NOT the problem. If we fire Rudy, who will we get to replace him? Name another coach available who has been able to take his team to the championship twice? Anything less than that would be a downgrade. You're just looking for someone to blame. If you read that article you would see that Rudy knows how to win. He hit it right on the money about running the floor. If the players were doing that more often, you wouldn't see so many ISOs. The problem is the players. They are playing lazy defense. They don't dive for loose balls, they don't stick a hand in the shooter's face, they don't even try to rebound or block shots or steal. Every time they run the ball down the court with a 3 on 2 advantage one of our guys pulls the ball up and sets the half-court offense. They don't rotate to the open man, they have no ball movement. Those are decisions players make on the court, not the coach. Rudy didn't just forget every he knows about basketball one day.
FranchiseBlade, usually, i personalize my responses, but in this case, just refer to pooh222's last post. i cannot say it any better.
I myself have said that if healthy the Rockets still don't improve and run the same kind of system, I'll criticize Rudy as much as the next guy, but to judge him on this season is unfair, and not worthwhile. When this young team has been relatively healthy they've outperformed expectations. Eddie Griffen has been coached with superb mastery this year.
I thought Griffen could do all of these things Evil Beaver.....Remember?? Man you really are a walking contradiction. Nice sig.
wrong on griff, imo. had there been no injuries, chances are that eddie would still have splinters stuffed in his skinny ass. it's only becuase of fource that eddie got the opportunity to shine. further, how do you explain rudy's suppression of oscar torres? re: judging rudy on this season... i don't care if rudy were coaching a bunch of high school kids against the 1992 Dream Team. there are certain things that should not happen on a professional basketball court. dribbling the helium out of the ball is one of them. not pushing the ball upcourt is another. running iso play after iso play, in the teeth of defense the nba has officially sanctioned to stop repeated isolation plays, is another. you say that time, repetition, etc. will help the team to know each other on the break? no, i disagree. how is it you can go to any neighborhood park and rec grab a board, and run a decent fast break? these are simple, philosophical issues.... point guard fill the middle, wings fill the sides. sounds simple, right? yea, but i still see our point guards going up the f*cking sides of the court with the ball!!!! jeez, i swear our collective basketball IQ is comparable to that of a box of rocks. what's sad is that the fans, imo, have "dummied down". the fans have accepted that "running a fast break" requires practice time. that "not dribbling the ball till there's no grip left on it" requires practice time and the schedule hinders us from working on it. B..U..L..L..S..H..I..T. this requires instruction, discipline, and leadership from the top man (the coach) down to the point guard. and i see flaws on both ends of that chain...from rudy down to francis/moochie.
Verse, 1.) Injuries: We can't even suit up 10 guys consistantly for a game. So in practice, you can run drills and whiteboard, but you can't simulate game situations. Teams make do but that certainly isn't a positive or even a nuetral situation. It's bad. 2.) Schedule: All teams contend with the schedule. I'd bet teams get to run maybe 2 full practices a week. If you can suit up a consistant lineup, game time experience gels the teams. Once the season starts, if you are relying on making big changes to the system via practices, that's not too realistic, I'd imagine. 3.) Transition: I agree. Our fast breaks suck. Partly because our gaurds rebound and don't pass the ball. If they'd just make a 20-30 ft pass, that's enough to get it going. If they dribble the whole way, the defense keys in. Oscar will be a FA. TMo is commited and is a great talent. So perhaps Rudy is looking at it as an investment. I don't know. I like Oscar's game and like to see them both succeed on this team. Our dribble problem is partly because our offense is poor getting setup. Steve/Cat/Mooch all dribble while we setup the offense. I think that problem would solve itself if the team could get into our offensive sets faster. I would like to see us pass more but that doesn't do us any good if we can't set picks, our spacing sucks, etc. I see our biggest problems as poor defensive intensity, give up too many offensive boards and most importantly very untimely poor-decision making during critical points of a game. Oh and I'll add poor 1st quarter intensity. These things happen when there is no continuity in your starting lineup and you can't simulate game scenario's in practice. If we would have won 50% of our "close" games, we'd be in the playoffs.
Beaver, Rudy has to be the problem since I am convinced that Pat Riley, Phil, Bird and Collins would not put up with that stuff. Just simply that these guys demand more and are able to almost forcibly extract the performance wanted from the players. Not to mention of course that they are infinitely more creative than RT and get much better shooting/scoring opportunities.
Have you heard of the rebuilding process? It's cyclical. That's the way it works. I can't say I disagree. The Rocks have had excuses why they haven't gone far...good excuses. Even this season is understandable. But the Rocks have enough peices in place and assuming a pipe bomb doesn't take out half the team next season, the Rocks better make the playoffs.
Yes, Moochie has hit some big shots. But the Rockets have a terrible record in close games. This is because we don't play any defense at the end of games. Other teams score at will against us. If Rudy believes defense wins, then think defense when you're matching up with the other team at the end of the game. Moochie has hit about 5 or 6 big shots this year, which does not translate into too many wins. A good defense will win you a lot more.
Yes I have heard of the rebuilding process but all of those teams I listed are better coached, period. None of those coaches or any other good coach in the league would put up with the crap being exhibited on the basketball court by the Rockets at times. There's just no excuse for it. The players are at fault, and yes RUDY is at fault too for this team's caliber of play. I'm just calling it as I see it. The excuse of injuries, youth, schedule, etc. is getting played out. I just won't to see some real basbetball from the Rockets, that all I ask. Rudy's known about the league changes for a while now so it's about time he implement a new system. Even earlier this season when the Rockets were healthy and winning, the play caliber was sub-par, and I truly believe that they wouldn't have continued on a great winning pace even if they were injury free because of the simple fact that this system the Rockets run isn't accustumed to the league's style of play at this present point. The Rockets are just ugly to watch, and most of the time when the camera is put on Rudy in the games, he looks like he has no clue whatsoever out there. When the Rockets get into one of their bonehead stretches of turning the ballover, forcing bad shots, and the like, Rudy stands there with that stupid look on his face. Like I said I'm willing to see if Rudy can have this team playing real basketball by next season.
Does Rudy have those headphones Jack Pardee used to wear, with no input jack? Rudy's not a complete dumb-a## . I can hear your frustration. He does seem lost in games sometimes, when its.not.what.he.prepared.on.video. He's not a great game-time- adjustment chess-player, and he's really stubborn - like when barkely was here and we went left block, left block, left block (repeat). I remember one nbc game where they had a telestration - 42 plays on the left block and 1 blown play on the right. His substitutions are goofy. Not many basic plays - pick and roll, give and go, backdoor... no post play since barkley left... Still, he's a pretty good coach. Good with vets and cba talent. Good with video. He did get Hakeem the ball on every trip when he was the best player. No "good" coach should have 5 straight lotto seasons, nevertheless.
