The problem is not the lack of Yao, because even when we had him if we were not hitting shots they would just front him and not allow him to get the ball deep. The problem is our shooters are notoriously streaky. Both Rafer and Battier are quite streaky. Head goes through minor slumps but he never dips like Battier or Rafer can. This really is a problem that has no solution. I believe this is why Landry and scola are so essential to our success. Even on off nights these guys can offensive rebound, drive and slash or shoot the midrange jumper. I really feel that these guys are the key to consistant winning, and winning a title takes these guys on their game and Rafer and Battier being ON more often than not.
In the NBA - over the course of 20-some odd games, everyone is going to have off night and good nights. Even Michael Jordan did. That's why 22 in a row is so remarkable.
I thought about this and glad someone posted it. I thought even with Yao last night we probably would have lost. The way Boston defended and clogged up the middle they were daring us to make our open three point shots. We got some good looks but there weren't enough open shots like in the Lakers game. I thought they needed to swing the ball more and harder. No lazy passes. They even took away our backdoor cut. If we had both Yao and Landry, this could have been a close well fought game in the post. However, our three point shooters and our wide open two's needed to be made.
we're one of the worst free throw shooting teams in the league. of course we're going to be streaky shooters.
It's possible we would have lost even with Yao, but it's also possible we could have pulled out a win. Last night the shooters don't really have good open looks like they always had during the streak. With Yao, open looks would have been more. And most importantly, No way Boston would have done that much damage inside the paint with Yao in the middle.
In the first meeting between us, with Allen and without TMac, we led all the way until the last minutes.
Actually Roctets came back from 20 points deficit and had the lead with a few minutes to go. Yao fouled out 2 Celtics centers insteading of fouling them like we did last night.
SOOO TRUE. I mean, we don't know who's gonna score and who's not. We go from scoring 71 points to avg 100 pts a game this streak. If that isn't streaky i don't know what is.
I think Celtics defense has a lot to do with the poor shooting. We saw tons of open looks during the streak, but not last night. Had every team defended that way, their would have been no such streak. Tom Thibodeau knows every single weakness of Tmac, Alston, Battier, Head, Hayes etc, and he came up with a perfect plan against Rockets. Rockets actually had trouble scoring at some point of the game for 4 games in a row now. Rockets will see more and more low scoring games once other teams figure out how to counter the current style. That is also what Rockets going to face in playoffs.
Remember the last time we played @ Boston w/o Tracy, Yao had an off night starting with 2/10 shooting or something. We had a worse 1st half and a great 2nd half, lost by 5 pts in the end
Yes, our shooters are streaky, but as someone else mentioned, it is the NBA; a long, long season filled with peaks and valleys. Every team experiences it (mid- and long-range teams more than others of course) and must figure out a way to eek out a win. Last night Boston was just the better team in nearly every way. I think the larger problem last night was the lack of ball movement. Rafer and Tracy's hands were, at times, a bit stickier than usual, and a number of our players went for so-called homerun passes instead of the right pass. Turnovers killed us, but so was not making the extra pass. That being said, the Boston defense contested everything down low, and our bigs missed a lot of point-blank shots that just have to go in.
I've been seeing this coming but I couldn't tell if it was just great Celtic defense or if they just figured us out. Most teams have many players who can take a player 1 on 1. We have tmac and maybe Scola, we have to create every single basket by smooth passes. Its very hard to watch. The biggest problem with this is that when the Celtics (and maybe other teams in the future) double and triple tmac they just rotate on the open player he passes to. This wouldn't be such a problem for other teams because they would take advantage of the mismatch. We can't. When teams rotate a 4 onto battier he can't break them down and score. When teams rotate a 3 on chuck he can't post them up. It shows more without yao but it has been a huge problem of the rockets for a long time.
Even the best shooters has some off night. That's why you need a big man like yao to stabalize the offense. Jump shooting team may win many nights, but to win a championship, we need yao.
