That is exactly why we should get in a slugfest. If the league tightens it up, it is advantage Rockets. The Sloanthugs know no other way to play. Be so aggresive early that the refs have to tighten it up early, but do it with Hayes or bench players.
Maybe just Utah's system is better for the playoffs. In game one, rockets didn't match up well with Utah's physicality, I hope Rick and the players can adjust tonight, most likely not though. Its tough when your best players are finesse players.
in a way, i agree. but mcgrady and yao are both highly talented and skillful players. how to maximize their talents and convert that to wins and potentially championships is on the coaching staff and by this day has remained a myth. sometimes i think maybe things are just not meant to be. this yao-mcgrady experiment may have to come to an end...
considering that Sloan has a long record of putting up consistent 50 and 60 win seasons and has all of two WC titles and 0 NBA titles to show for it I'd be hard pressed to draw that conclusion.
What Sloan's system does is give his team an advantage over teams that are an even matchup. Thats why his team took 7 games to beat the Rockets, the teams were even. Against the Spurs, who are clearly better than Utah, they got whooped. Against Golden State, who Utah is better than, it was an easy series. This year, it will probably be an easy series because Utah is better than the Yao-less Rockets. The system helps amplify that. That being said, if Sloan's team is bad, then they wont sniff the play-offs because their system cant get a leg up on teams clearly better, which would be most of the western conference.
Even tougher when you are going up against a team whose best players (Williams and Boozer) are not finesse players. The thing about a Jerry Sloan team is that you have to be mentally tough to beat them. Jordan and his Bulls were definitely that and Hakeem in his salad days was that as well as the Spurs behind Duncan. The Rockets that we have now have no one who is mentally tough and heaven forbid, physical. Someone else touched on it - the guys we have that are physical are our role players and the ones that aren't going to be able to take over a game for us. I had a really bad feeling when I found out that we were matched up with the Jazz that this was going to happen. The team that we have now cannot match the Jazz in terms of physicality and I don't know if we could beat them if Yao was playing because Yao is painfully finesse. Maybe the next time we play them, Yao will be healthy and have grown some grapefruits and will lead the rest of the Rockets in punking the Jazz's asses into submission. But I am not expecting that anytime soon and I am definitely not expecting to see any physical play from McGrady in this series. In the next round when the Lakers play the Jazz, I guarantee you that Kobe isn't going to let the Jazz get away with pushing him around and definitely not while he has Phil Jackson as his coach.
I hate football analogies used to describe Basketball. All they mean to me is you don't have sufficient NBA knowledge to describe basketball in bball terms, or you believe your readers don't.
How about a bloody mouthful of Karl Malone's elbow or Carlos Boozer's shoulder? Would that be clear enough? Perhaps you could draw up a glossary for us.
There is a fine line between physical basketball play, and BasketBRAWL. Once you cross that line, then you cant describe it in basketball terms. Because its not basketball. Utah passed that line long long ago.
You are what you are, the only way I see Yao helps next year is for us to finish in the Top 2 and get a easier team on the first round.
Yikes, that's painful to read -- but 100% true. We're a finesse team. Like you say about T-Mac, we can be tough but only for quick outbursts. Then we run out of gas. We can't seem to do it for an entire 7 game series. Which is why we haven't been out of the first round in 10 years. This team would have been swept by the 93-94 Knicks...
It's not necessarily that Kobe won't let the jazz get away with pushing him around, but the refs sure won't. Kobe is almost Jordanesque in the pampering he gets from the refs. I agree that McGrady doesn't invite as much contact at the rim as Kobe, but he wouldn't get the calls anyway, because of his reputation as a finesse player. The inconsistency of NBA officiating is nauseating.
When did Jerry Sloan win a championship? One of the top PG's of all time plus one of the the top PF's of all time, on the same team, no rings. Hakeem managed to get one on his own...
Obviously, none of you guys ever saw Sloan as a player because he coaches exactly the same type of basketball he played as a player at Chicago. He wasn't the most athletic (think slow) or skilled player but he was a smart, tough, hardnosed defender and his Jazz teams have mirrored those qualities. He's also too set in his ways which is the prime reason he hasn't won a ring yet (the inability to adapt and change is his Achilles heel - think 3-point shot). I think all of this complaining about Utah's physical style does tend to miss the point: this style works (and is working now against the Rox) because the opposing team often cannot physically match up with the Jazz. The Jazz are bigger and stronger than the Rockets and it would be stupid of them to not use that advantage. Asking the Rox to turn the game into football is just silly. That's not who or what they are. The answer is to execute your game plan to the point that they (Jazz) have to stop playing their way and start playing the way you want them to - that's exactly what SA does to Utah and it's worked out pretty well for them so far.
Sloan's system only helps when he is close to the same talent and chemistry as the team they are playing. Thats why it took them a while to beat Houston(Bryon Russel was a big difference from 95 to 97). His team was never better than the Bulls.
Every time I see Harpring out there, and I think about rhester's claim that Van Gundy wanted him when Les was courting Mike James, I'm sick. I can't believe that even after such great fantasy numbers, anyone would want James over the guy. Now I know that had the Rockets signed Harpring, they probably wouldn't have brought Spanoulis over and might not have been able to trade for Scola. But I also know that the McGrady-Battier-Harpring wing rotation would probably be the best in the league.
