It seemed like earlier in the season the era of small ball had officially ended in Houston, with the experiment of KT playing at the 3 and the emergence of J Hawk. Now it looks like small ball has made a comeback in the last two games. From looking at the minutes in the box scores, Franchise, Cat, and Moochie are racking up 15-20 minutes on the court together. I won't begrudge Rudy on this too much, since the Rox are winning, and it just points out that the the Rox possibly have yet to really solve the issues at the 3 spot. I think some posters in other threads have pointed out that small ball may work better this year simply with the addition of Yao Ming in the middle. But I think most of us on this board were hoping to see the end of the 3 guard offense. I didn't catch the Kings game, but can anyone tell me who was on the court for the Rockets when the Kings made their big run in the 2nd half?
this is why you cannot look at the boxscores to figure things out. The Kings played 3 guards the entire 4th quarter and actually went to 4 for awhile. The Kings forced the small ball, not us. Many teams will field 3 guards, not just us. notice Christie, B Jackson, C Jackson and D Jones added up to 120 minutes out of a possible 96 for two guards. The Kings went three guard before us.
Plus, Rudy was still going with T-Mo for a portion of that time, but it just wasn't working. A couple of bad shots, specifically when they weren't needed, and Moochie popped right in the game. As for small ball in general, I'd personally like to see more of the Francis/Mobley/Griffin/KT/Ming lineup, with Griffing playing the 3 role on offense (he's a solid spot up shooter) and the 4 on defense. THoughts?
Thanks HP, that makes more sense. I also looked back at the Philadelphia box score and it looks the 76ers had a lot of guard time as well. I'm not sure if that was to match up with our small ball offense or vice versa. Sort of like figuring out whether the chicken or egg came first. I guess we'll see if this develops into an actual trend. If it does, it's a sign of weakness at the 3 spot in Rudy's mind.
Not really. Ming was "conviniently" ignore at the offensive end before that chron article. Now Ming will get ball if he has the position. I have no problem Rox mix it up a little bit. It seems right now the offense is pretty even distributed. I heard on Rudy.T show that Ming told Rudy he didnt like to get the ball every time, he want other teammates got invovled too. The last two games Ming was a little bit off in the beginning of the game, and teammates just took the presure off him. So "ignoring Ming" vs "help him by taking off offense pressure from him" is quite different for my taste. I like the chemistry they develop right now.
The reason he did not want to begrudge RudyT for playing the small line-up..was that he had not seen the game . Sound familiar? Besides matching up ..the Rockets were protecting good leads and Mooch was used as an extra ball handler.
I am not a huge Moochie fan, but I do think our offence runs better when he is in. It's not that he is so good, but the team just plays better. Remember a few games back when Francis was calling for the ball, and Mooch waived him off to get the ball to Yao down low. Yao may well have passed back out (no assist for Mooch - does not show up in the boxes) but the right play foir the team.
I thought MoT didn't see any game time against Sac. I believe I read in the H-Chron that he saw his second NPT in a row.
The T's and Mo's on this team are numerous, indeed. I was referring to Terrence Morris (T-Mo), who saw some minutes, didn't do anything special, took a couple of eager perimiter shots, and was promptly replaced by Moochie.
True, but I remember Rudy brought in Moochie specifically to handle the ball. He did this last year all the time as well, using Moochie as the point, Steve as the off- guard, and then Mobley was usually always in there as well. Recently, Moochie saw decreased minutes, and Cuttino was hurt, but now that they are all playing well I think they will be part of the regular 4th quarter rotation. Otherwise, who do you bench? I would rather see Mochie only come in for bursts of energy, but it seems Rudy T. likes him running the offense down the stretch.
Mr Clutch, imo, Rudy brought Moochie in with SF and CM specifically to match up with Christie, Damon and Jackson. If he brings Moochie in to sit SF or CM (which didn't happen), that's a different story...but to go 3-guard is either to make the other team do it as well or to match up with the other team since they are doing it...which is what the King's did, plain and simple.
Moochie is also the best ball handler and a decent free throw shooter so it makes sense to have him in the end of games we are winning.
Heypartner, Okay, maybe you're right. But I think Rudy likes having Moochie at the point in the 4th, we saw it a lot last year that's for sure. We'll know in a few games.
