One thing that I noticed on this board, is that people tend to get overly excited about stuff, especially after a game, be it good or bad. Look guys, it's just one game, even superstars have their off days. Kobe didn't score 81, 62 in 3 quarters, or shoot above .500 for every game now did he? And people who play ball competitively will know, that just by going one month without action can throw a monkey wrench in your game, much less go without action since, what was it? March? Give the man some time to adjust back to competing at a high level after such a long layoff. The season is just starting, no need to get so worked up after one game.
That sequence pretty much killed it. I thought Rafer got touched good but whatever...Not the thread for it but after a bad start I thought Rafer showed a little something. A point guard if they start slow they sometimes just go with getting everyone else involved but he stayed assertive on his O with the 3 point shooting and had a couple drives to the hoop for fouls. At least he TRIED, instead of totally wilting like a b--- About Tmac, it seemed he HAD to shoot that many times. No one else was stepping up with an offensive effort. After like 3 passes to an OPEN Padgett who passes on his shot and just tosses the ball back to Tmac, that showed me they were saying "Its on you, Tmac. See what you can do" It was then they FINALLY got some stops on D in the 4th and Rafer and Snyder got involved on O that they looked good. Nice layup misses, Luther Head. That only leaves em with the best big man in the game in Yao to lean back on. Yeah, get him the darn ball when he's out there for sure I agree. Except he needs to be on the floor with no foul trouble. And he needs to still work on not having little guys strip away the ball when he puts it on the floor, that was a killer. I still don't mind Tmac shooting a bunch of shots as long its not off-balance jumpers all day.
That's what amazes me about T-Mac. He shoots a horrible 33% from the field, goes 7-12 on free throws, you'd think that should throw off the rest of his game right? 9 dimes, 2 steals,, 1 TO, 5 rebounds. Ignoring his shooting woes, T-Mac can (and IMHO, should) be our primary playmaker. Then JVG should order T-Mac to shoot 200 FT and 600 shots a day. Basketball is a profession, just like every job, you need to work for it. T-Mac needs to work on his FTs and FGs.
You took the words out of my mouth! I definitely agree TMac should start at point guard. He lost his athletic ability after the brokeback injury. He's not as explosive, he keeps bricking those stupid fadeaway jumpers. BUT, he's one heck of a good playmaker. He can really dish out a lot of dimes, as you can see tonight, 9 dimes! TMac should just change his role and be a playmaking point guard, I'm not even kidding on this. I even put him in the point guard position when I play the new NBA LIVE. It worked REALLY well! Jeff Van Gundy, listen up! The starting line-up should be like this. Point Guard: TMac Shooting Guard: Bonzi Wells Small Forward: Shane Battier Power Forward: Juwan Howard or Chuck Hayes Center: Yao Ming
I've got a simple retrospective hypothesis for everybody: If Yao got Tracy's 24 attempts and Tracy got Yao's 12 attempts, we'd be 1-0 instead of 0-1. When Tracy's shooting touch is obviously cold, he needs to wake up and get the ball to the 7'6" guy in the paint. It makes me sick when he tries to shoot himself out of slumps when his teammate is 8-12. It's like watching a toddler spend an hour forcing a square peg in a round hole when the square hole is right next to it and 7'6" tall.
No, we lost the game on defense and rebounding... Carlos Boozer had 19 rebounds, that is unacceptable, Battier or Hayes has to fight him for that ball every time down. We gave up like 50 free throws on stupid fouls We would've won if Boozer had 10 rebounds instead of 19 and we cut their FT attempts down by half
Just a few things to add-- In my opinion, the loss was definitely a TEAM effort. Utah shot 53% from the field and 84% from the line--we shot 43% from the field and 64% from the line. AND we were outrebounded and completely outworked on loose balls, and with that lackluster effort and a tough crowd, Utah started running away with the game early. We didn't look like we showed a serious pulse until the mid-fourth quarter. Yao looked like he was STRUGGLING physically to me--I don't know if it's just the first game or the altitude or what, but he got into his old habit of trying to tip the ball to himself instead of just grabbing it, hooking his defender in post, etc. (which he did a FEW times without it being called). He looked a step slower than usual and while he had four turnovers, there were three or four other situations where Utah doubled down and Yao completely looked dumbfounded. That being said, I think that the main way Houston is going to win games is Yao's reaction to the double-team. When he kicks that ball out when the double-team comes, the shooters have to step up and it just didn't happen last night until late. I'm a big Battier guy--I can't believe I'm saying that, but the team seemed more controlled on offense and defense when he was on the floor. And he has a MUCH more consistent shot than I gave him credit for before the season began. I watched V-Span warming up before the game began, and dude was CRAZY shooting the ball. I counted one streak of 15 threes in a row and several others at 8 or 9--I thought his hustle could have been a sparkplug last night for the team, although I don't really disapprove of the way Rafer played, either. Snyder looks lost offensively. I know that Utah is a solid defensive team with regard to not giving up many open shots, but Snyder got bailed out with dumb fouls every now and again. He just ran around the perimeter a lot of the time, I guess so that he could fake more threes and run around some more. Overall, the lack of intensity in the third quarter I thought was our undoing--Utah gave us some chances in that quarter to close the gap and we just didn't take advantage. But credit has to be given to the way Utah played last night--if they shoot the ball and execute that way for the rest of the year, they are EASILY a 55-win team. Looks like the days of hating the Jazz are back again. Just my thoughts.
Look, the reason Rox lost yesterday was NOT TMAC! It was Yao!!! He was abused by Boozer at both end of the floor. He had 4 or 5 TO, numerous times offense was disruptted because he almost lost the ball. Everyone WAS trying to feed him in the early going. But the whole offense becumes stagnant as a result. TMac did not have much choice but to take it to his own hand. If his performance was really as lousy as you guys made him to be, will JVG left him on the court for 42 minutes???
Agreed. Starting Battier at the 4, IMO, was what really killed us. I think Juwan MIGHT have been a better choice, if only just to push Boozer around and box him out. Shane's just giving up too much physically.
Oh...so shooting a horrible percentage (which causes more potential defensive rebounds) didn't make a big difference too... I see.
Somehow manages to fill the stats on a less than average night. Guys, its just one game. The sky isnt falling
The one thing that really jumped out to me about T-Mac's game last night was his jump shot form. He really looked physically out of synch on his shooting form, it always seemed like his legs were pointing sideways and he was twisted in the air while shooting, and I wonder if he has gotten into some bad shooting habits. Obviously he has the physical tools and gifts to be successful and overcome some minor bad habits, but perhaps the injuries and such have made that harder to do consistently? Or maybe I'm making a mountain out of a molehill...
Yao gets more touches only if he is aggressive, no fading. Go strong to the basket. Derrick Fisher showed every guard that plays against Yao how to stop Yao before he ever gets a shot. Get low and get the ball on the bounce. For our sake, I hope he makes quicker decisions and just make a quick move to the basket. Bottom line for the Rockets, you have to make lay ups and FREE, FREE, FREE throws.
I would blame the loss to TMac. 1: He took too many jump shoots, and teams don't win with jump shoots. 2: His shoot sucks, so is his FT 3: He is half-step slow than 2 years ago 4: with TMac in, ball movement stops, and other plays stand still (because they know that TMac will set for a jump)
There are multiple reasons why the Rockets lost the game. I'm not arguing against that. The missed freethrows, bad team defense, bad turnovers, lack of hustle, bad individual defense, lack of muscle...it all hurt the Rockets. Some of these things are out of a team's control in terms of game adjustments, like hitting freethrows. Also, like matching up to Boozer. Jeff Van Gundy tried many different defenders on Boozer. Battier got 3 fouls early, Padgett was getting abused and fouls called on him, Mutumbo was big but too slow and the team was put at a disadvantage, and same for Yao, for Boozer would just take fadeaways from midrange. The point of this thread is that there will be many games where the other team just flat out plays better than the Rockets in many aspects. But I believe that if the Rockets are to be a great team, they need to win without having to play great. That's what great teams do. You can outhustle a great team, out rebound them...and they seem to find 1 advantage and exploit that to a win. Miami was outplayed by Dallas for much of the finals and won games in which they weren't clearly outplaying Dallas. A much better example is the first game of Detroit vs Milwaukee in the playoffs last year (and Jeff Van Gundy was doing the color commentary). JVG was very respectful of the Milwaukee defense, and rightly so. Mil was shutting down Detroit in the half court and playing well on the offensive half court too. In all honesty, Mil was dominating Detroit in so many aspects of the game, except for one - transition play. Detroit exploited its advantage and one a game where they only did one thing great. In regards to Houston, the Rockets will always have an inherent advantage to other teams in post offense. I believe Yao Ming is the most efficient offensive post player in the league. This means vs any random defender, Yao Ming can score or get fouled in the post better than any other player in the League...and he doesn't even need great position. During the offseason there so much talk about playing smart. Jeff Van Gundy spoke of exploiting Yao and going to him constantly in the paint. What happened there? Even in a bad game, the Rockets can still win by using their monster down low...and they just didn't use him enough. This is something that is directly within their control. It's not like Utah was fronting Yao either. Every day in practice the "How we play" building blocks say: Free Throws, Deep Paint, Open 3's. They got to the line 36 times, which is a lot better than their 24 attempt average the last 2 seasons; however their 64% FT shooting would be the worst in the league. So for 1 game, they shot freethrows more poorly than any team in the entire league averaged for a season. Thank T-Mac, Snyder, and Battier for that. Battier is surprising, but T-mac and Snyder had freethrow shooting problems all pre-season. Well at least, the Rockets were much more agressive than before and are getting to the line a lot with T-Mac driving, Snyder pump faking open 3pt kickouts and driving (though I don't think this is a good long-term strategy for him, for defenses will start daring him to shoot the 3), and Yao getting his usual hacks. I liked their 10-22 3pt shooting. Keep in mind not all of that was from kick out and swings, and also keep in mind shooters (mainly padgett) were passing up many open 3pt opportunities. The Rockets took 74 shots last night. 11/23 from the deep paint (which is bad, but keep in mind many drives ended up in getting fouled, so deep paint is always productive...but this does need to get better, except for Yao). 3/9 from close range, 8/20 from midrange (both bad things), and 10/22 from 3ball (good). The shot distribution comes out to 31% deep paint (Yao and guard drives), 12% close range, 27% midrange, and 30% 3pt range. Last year the Rockets took 39% of their shots from the deep paint, 16% from close range, 22% from midrange and 23% from 3ball land. So supposedly a point of emphasis during the off-season was to take more paint shots, more 3pt shots, more freethrows, and by process of elimination, less midrange shots. I like that philosophy. The Rockets played to that philosophy in the preseason. It's a smart game plan, and it's smart basketball, especially considering the weapons the Rockets have. So what the hell happened? They practice and preach 1 style of bball, then in the very first game of the season, they take less deep paint shots than last year, less close range shots, and more midrange shots? I'm glad they took more 3's and drove more to get to the line, so it wasn't a complete meltdown...but their shot selection was just r****ded. I'm sorry, it's r****ded because they practice and preached so much to play one way, and then they don't do it. Thanks T-Mac
