Skip to my Who was that? :)

Where does he belong?

Rafer appreciates your approval

 

If you watch the games you'll know that he does takes many ill advised shots too early with no one under the basket. He drives to the hoop and puts up floaters with 2 defenders on him when he could just pass once he draws the defenders. He also chokes in the fourth. Stats are deceiving - I work with stats everyday. You need to look at more than just stats.

 

I can't remember which games they were in, but I specifically remember Rafer hitting some clutch 3's in the 4th. There were several games where his late 3 pters iced the game for us. The only thing I can think of for you to say he chokes in the fourth is when he accidentally stepped out of bounds against the lakers, but even that isn't choking. If you evaluate Rafer from an unbiased standpoint, you will see that is not as bad as you are making him out to be.

 

I'm not hating on Rafer, but I agree with this especially after the Laker two game. He put up some boneheaded shots with a ton of time on the clock, can't finish in the lane and is looking for the bailout foul, and often just runs AWAY from Yao, just as he is posting up. In one critical sequence very late in the Laker game on Friday, he shot an air ball from three point land, then turned the ball over, then fouled a jump shooter (Kobe?) all in a row in a span of forty seconds. I would have been defending him earlier in the season, but lately these mistakes are just killers in a close game.

Running to the other side from Yao, just as Yao is calling for the ball is the mistake that is the hardest to forgive. That is just stupid.

Anyway, I still think he can be a serviceable point guard and he's the best we've got right now, so we just need him to minimize his shots early in the clock and try harder to make the entry pass. If he does that, he can be enough.

 

man ya'll are killing me. The one time I try and read a thread about Rafer that will be anything but everyone ragging on him and I get this.

I like Rafer. As previously mentioned, he is directed to take the open shots (so called "jacking Up") that he took tonight. He was on tonight just like in practice. I'm sure JVG sees him knocking down his shots all day long and knows the best thing for a shooter to do is keep shooting. Now I know Rafer isn't a "true" shooter ,but he can knock his shots down at a descent %.

What I want to know is who that hates Rafer liked Francis ? It seems to me that everyone or almost everyone hated the fact that Francis couldn't hang on to the ball to save his career. Now we have a guy who has gotten under what? like 5 or 6 turnovers in a couple of games. Sorry for my lack of stats. What do you want? We don't have room for another all-star.

Tonight Skip had a great game.

35:02 8-13 3-6 7-8 0 0 0 8 5 0 2 0 26

He drove to the whole when the play wasn't developing. Got a couple to fall, a couple fouls. He hit his threes. and assisted like always. I think he is finally warming up to the idea of no T-Mac. He is having to go back to last year and it took a little time.

Everyone had a good game. Yao had another great game 3 30-10 games in a row, WHAT??. Skip really stepped up and we got us a win in the west to kill a 3 game slide. I am HAPPY. I just wish I could see us support our team all the time. After losses I don't even come to the board b/c of all the negativity. It gets to me a little. We have a long way to go ,but who knows what this league will look like in a couple months. Too many things can happen. We don't have to be so stressed.

The last thing I wanted to do was upset anyone; I was just trying to get my point across.

 

I've been saying it for a while now. rafer has the ability to burn people with he's dribble penetration. at worst, he'll get to the free throwline. at best, he'' draw a few doubles in the key and give it off to a free player under the bucket. he must use he's quicks lot more ..

 

I think Rafer's low turnovers are due to a combination of things:
1) He rarely takes his dribble into traffic, generally picking the ball up at the 3 point line to pass to someone who is also on the 3 point line (useless, but safe pass) or to lob it into the post.
2) He rarely goes to the basket.
3) He rarely runs pick and rolls.
4) He doesn't make interior passes.
5) McGrady initiates the offense whenever teams play pressure defense.

Rafer may not turn the ball over, but he certainly has no ability to make things easier for his teammates. For the reasons above, he can't create shots. The turnovers may not be in Rafer's stat line, but his shortcomings increase the team's turnovers dramatically when McGrady isn't playing point.

I would love to find out if Spanoulis and/or JL3 could create shots in McGrady's absence.

 

Your analysis of this is partially true. But the offense is designed to where he does not throw the post entry pass. Van Gundy's scheme on offense is to have rafer pass to the wing and have the wing throw the entry pass. Therefore his turnovers would be down and so are his assists.

In McGrady's absence, JVG has modified his offense to where half the time they reverse the ball around the periemeter and then throw the post entry pass to yao coming across the paint. The other half of the time, they have rafer dribble to the wing on the side Yao is posting up. Yao would set the pick for the man in the corner to clear out the side and then Rafer would throw the entry pass. Therefore half the time Rafer is throwing the post entry pass to yao, and this is apparent in his assists over the last 3 games. In the last 3 games, rafer's assists numbers have increased, having games of 8, 10, and 8 assists. But, relatively speaking, his turnovers have been roughly the same. His turnover numbers have been 0, 7, and 2 in the same 3 games. Besides the Lakers game, his TO's have been relatively low, while he has been making more challenging passes and creating more shots for other players. Remember, that Lakers game was the 2nd game of a back to back in which Rafer played 48 minutes after playing 46 minutes the night before. Fatigue could have played a factor in his turnover numbers for that game

 

I didn't see this but maybe i'm blind.

Didn't anyone notice that Rafer had a bounceback game??

He played terribly in the Lakers game at LA but he played great against the Clippers a couple nights later!

And this wasn't just his normal production either, this was ultra-Rafer today. He probably came out very determined and I like that he has the mindset to play like that. If only he could keep it, he's a good player.

He makes mistakes, so does everyone. Maybe his boneheadedness loses us a game but there was no McGrady that game and his clutchness often wins us games even when McGrady is on the floor.

Usually when I see a bounce back game it means that something clicked mentally for that player, which is a good thing. So maybe he doesn't become the league MVP and the best PG to ever play the game, but let's see how he himself reacts to this game the next time he plays.

It's going to be interesting as long as it isn't brick city.

 

I bet TMac took a lot more bad shoots (most 3s) in the last two years, although it is not happened that much this year. I saw too many bad shoots by Tmac in the game when yao has 13 shoots or less, I just saw Yao ran up and down with only a few touches in a quarter. I'm surprised no one blame TMac for doing that. Alston is a better 3 point shooter. If you blame Alston, you should also blame TMac.

 

i cheer whenever a rocket makes a 3 pointer, but with rafer, i breathe a sigh of relief when he makes it.

 

and we lost 3 of those games down the wire because of his boneheaded plays or shots in crucial situations.

 

Hey, I believe we lost one of those games because scott padgett doesn't know how to hit ft's

 

wasn't that the game where he went 0-6 from 3pt?

 

The point of my post was that you can't blame one player or one situation that would cause a team to lose. I was trying to use sarcasm to make my point. I could just as easily say we lost that game because Yao had 6 turnovers, or that shane battier shot 1-8 fg and 1-5 3pt, or that luther head fouled out, or that TMac was hurt. Just trying to say its a team thing, and you can't blame any one individual for a lose.

 

Don't smoke all the crystal meth at once. If Rafer is the third best player on the team and has "stepped up", I'd hate to see what he was like before.

 

yet ppl started bashing up despite the inital post, some people seem to bash Rafer for everything

 

man...this thread suks....this input is so useless that warrants it to be singled out. <br> rafer gd when penetrating???!???