Thats true irony for you, considering our whole offense is philosophically designed to be unpredictable.
It drives me crazy. I mean, we run it every single time we need a shot at the end of a game or half. And IT NEVER WORKS. AB gets fouled (no call at that point in the game) or has to shoot a trick shot around two defenders (degree of difficulty too high) And it's ALL WE RUN when we need a basket at the end of a game. I don't get it. I mean, I realize that AB is one of the few guys on our team that can create his own shot, but that's pretty much negated when fouls are not going to be called. Everybody rips on Brooks for missing them, but it's just a horrible play.
Wow? Out of all the players you can think of when it comes to clutch, Luther Head cums to mind (pun intended)? I guess he has that killer instinct.
How can you label someone clutch who went 1-14 in the playoffs against the Jazz in 2008? And who is 12-50 lifetime in the playoffs? Clutch is earned in the playoffs and not during some occasional games in the regular season.
In the Utah series even McGrady wasn't clutch, and he was our best player at the time. My definition of clutch is the ability to make a shot in the last seconds of a game to win it. Robert Horry did it, Mario Elie did it, Hakeem did it, and Cassell did it. Head did it, but it didn't extend out to the playoffs. But it got us TO the playoffs.
True. The coaching staff needs to realize that Brooks isn't going to get a foul call by driving to the hoop at the end of a game. Ref's aren't going to do it, and I don't blame them. It just doesn't make for exciting basketball if they hand a win over to a team with 2 free throws.
You have a better candidate who could hit the last second shot of a game other than Yao and McGrady? And even those guys were suspect most of the time for various reasons.
I hate Kobe with a passion but man is that dude clutch. He hit yet another game winning shot last night. I wish we had someone like him in our fourth quarters.
The Rockets were a playoff team without Head. He didn't get the team to the playoffs. I disagree in saying Head is a clutch performer worthy of recognition... He just isn't.
Among the rockets roster of recent years, he was our only non-superstar clutch player (some might argue Novak counts). And at the moment, we don't even have someone as pitifully skilled as Luther Head to hit a last second 3 with consistency. Whatever you say about Head, at least he could do it during regular season with consistency.
I agree that Luther Head was very good at hitting last second threes. But how many of those came after the Rockets blew a 4-point lead with 2 minutes remaining because Luther couldn't dribble past half court without turning the ball over? The comparison of Luther and Brooks is unfair because the three point shot is only one tool in Brooks' arsenal. Because of that, Brooks is the focus of the opposing team's defense at all times. Shooting wide open threes was ALL that Head had to do, and it was all that he could do. The only time Brooks seems to get wide open threes in crunch time is if he is three feet behind the line. On top of that, Head (and Alston)'s clutchness is probably overrated, precisely because they were both such inconsistent shooters. When Head hit a clutch shot, it seemed amazing coming from a guy who could disappear for entire games at a time. Meanwhile, Brooks is expected to carry the team scoring load every night, as well as the responsibility of being the primary ball handler, yet we are upset because he misses sometimes? The truth is, Brooks HAS hit a bunch of clutch shots this year, but we all overlook those because he has also failed to hit several clutch shots. That is because he is our go-to guy every night, and has to take all of the late-game shots. No one else on our team can consistently even get a good shot at the end of a game. Brooks is the best point guard the Rockets have had in 15 years, and he might be the best player on the team. Yet, everybody here seems to want to make him the scapegoat for all of the Rockets' problems. Strange...
I think Brook's percentage of clutch this year is about 2/10, so 20%. This may be due to the high volume of endgame plays that Adelman has him run as Blake pointed out, but nevertheless, he doesn't have the knack for it. And at the end of the game everyone is standing around so of course no one is going to get a good shot. Brooks is better than Steve Francis ever was, more dependable than Knee-Mac's up and downs. But he is the last person that the rockets need to be running a play for when it comes for clutch time. He's not going to draw a foul, or hit that last second 3 with a defender locked down on him.
Not really. Sure Brooks can score a lot of points sometimes but thats about it. His assists are nowhere near a Nash, his defense is often absent, he's hardly a floor general, and he makes a LOT of really dumb passes and turnovers, not to mention he trips over his own feet nearly every game and does that chicken with his head cut off fast break where he runs it all the way to the basket then runs it back out beyond the arc. And thats just the tip of the iceberg.
