We aren't just winning. We are winning A LOT!!!!!!! If you want to talk about clicking as a team, its well regarded that the passionate double OT loss in Denver was the 1st time that Houston collectively as a team started to get it. Since that decisive game, we have won 16 games out of 22 games. That is a lot of wins in 22 games. Thats a whole quarter of a season. We weren't playing that many tough teams, but we didnt have t-mac and we were able to develop our rookies. 16 out of 22 games is .727 basketball. So I think its wildy inaccurate to be lamenting about the Rocket's play as of late. If we keep playing like we have the past 1/4th of the season, we might even see 50 wins. If youre going to judge the last 3 games to judge clicking, look at the past 22 games since that talked-about denver game.
13-3 is great and I think the team is improving, very slowly. But the way we are winning doesn't inspire confidence. At this point, I'll just settle for making the playoffs and seeing what happens. My expectations for this season aren't very high. IF we make the playoffs, our PG play is going to kill us once again and we don't know how Scola and Landry will react.
don't give these YOFs facts, they don't understand numbers.... they are trying to make their perceptions into reality, which sadly they are succeeding to a big extent. TMac is lazy, yet we continuously win much more games when he is in the team. He is a horrible shooter, yet his career and season average is decent 44%. He should never take another jumper and should always attack the basket, yet it is perfectly fine for Yao a 7 6" 330 lb center to shoot jumpers and he is shooting 50%, which isn't good among centers. TMac's return has led to stangnant offense, yet our assist numbers per game has gone up and we are scoring more points. SERIOUSLY DO YOU GUYS TALK OUT OF YOUR BEHIND? Finally, the perennial reason why we should not let TMac to be our go to guy, because we will never make it past first round if we let TMac do his thing. Why not?? We got very very close last two years, this year Yao has improved (his minutes, his fouls, his rebounds (horrible in playoff game 7 against Jazz), his catching, fewers TOs) and with a much better supporting cast (no defensive liability like bowen and hayes against elite teams), why cant we win! Stop trying to minimize TMac's role in this team. We will go as far as he will take us. Thats the fact, its been proven and until we have a better record without TMac than without Yao, no one will and should buy YOFs argument against TMac
cant agree with that more. i'm happy they are winning but squeeking out wins against bad teams is very encouraging.
We don't ever look like we know we are going to win. We do not project confidence. Maybe that will come.
I say we haven't gotten better. We're still relying too much on talent to bail them out. The offense has gone from inside-out to outside-in. It was done out of necessity early in the Indiana and Milwaukee games due Yao getting in early foul trouble. But there was no excuse for continuing that kind of play once Yao got on the court or last night when Yao went through a five minute stretch of not touching the ball. The problem is that this team goes through stretches playing with Yao like they’re the Dallas Mavericks. Tim Duncan gets in foul trouble and has off games too and Ginobili takes over, and the system goes outside-in. But when Tim Duncan comes back into the game, the system is run through him. They don't forget about him simply because Ginobili has it going. Their smart enough to realize the importance of post play. Our team ... not so much. Contrary to what people here want you to believe, the team has not gotten it. The problem isn’t the system. The players haven’t shown that they are capable of playing elite. They can’t when they as a whole team continue to allow this to happen. For the last three games we've been playing like early in the season and not playing smart basketball. I don't care who is to blame but it needs to stop because it's fools gold.
Roxs either have to rely on the rookies continuous development, or trade for a pure shooter/point guard.
word. we're winning games (obviously), but something isn't clicking with this team... and i'm through trying to figure out what "it" is. all you have to look at is the stupid, stupid, STUPID turnovers we had late in the games yesterday - lazy passes, stupid decisions, total lack of heart. it just doesn't add up, and although we're winning games right now, if we were to make the playoffs i dont see us making it out of the 1st round (again). and in the end, THAT is the only thing that matters.
A win is a win. Certainly it's not good for teams to play down to their competition...it's dangerous, but it's clear that these guys get up more for the better teams. As long as we win, I'll keep quiet.
Look at the Giants, they had to claw there way to get W's towards the end of the season and all throughout the playoffs, it gives a team character and allows them to learn to deal with tough situations. The warriors last year were an extreme example winning 8 or 9 in a row before the playoffs started just to get in. As long as we are winning at this point, the only thing I'm worried about is how we look at the end of the season/ if we are in the playoffs by then or not.
We're winning, but we're not imposing our will on the other team. The words 'overpowering' and 'Rockets' do not belong in the same sentence. At least we're winning in close games now. These used to be coin flips early in the season.
We let Tmac do his thing in game 7 last year. He refused to be the leader and deferred to his teammates. And what did we get close to in 05-06? we didn't make the playoffs. Werent we in last place? Bonzi has also stepped up this year, but he has been hugely inconsistent. We've acquired some promising rookies for our supporting cast. In my opinion, that doesnt really bridge the gap between us and elite teams. Yes, thats a fact assuming he's the leader of the team. But as you've said, Yao has improved tremendously. Yao has shown the desire and work ethic that a leader should have. If we have better record without Tmac, that means he'd have to miss a lot of games, and we'd have to win the majority of them. Since we play better with both of them in the lineup, I think its a safe assumption that if either tmac or yao miss extended periods of time, we'll be out of the playoff hunt. And if we do miss the playoffs, then I wouldnt be surprised if the offseason were rife with tmac trade rumors.
Great points,Yao can't get into any rythym if you don't fetaure him and feed him the ball.The end results make Yao in-effective and just a big stiff lumbering around the perimeter. Yao needs to be the focal point of the offense ate least early on,In my opinion T-mac is trying to claim some ego back out there and he's looking for his own instead of playing through Yao first.
Its just practice for the rox winning close games out like the one against goldenstate (towards the end). This is the NBA, there are NO crappy teams, there are just teams out there better than them!
The Rockets have games against Portland and NO this month. I think that there's a good chance that both those teams are going to come out and play with fire. Portland is in a dogfight right now with the Rockets for a playoff spot. They need to beat the Rockets if they're going to have any hope whatsoever. NO is looking better but they've hit a little losing streak. They've owned the Rockets in the past. I think this is the type of game they think they need to win to stay competitive. If the Rockets come and play flat bad things will happen. Can they come out in the first quarter like they did against GS and jump all over the opposing team?
We had no problem whatsover in getting Yao the basketball when he was player of the month in january. We devised a plan to combat the front defenses and we found a formula. Yao was more agressive in establishing position because everybody understood that the game plan was to get Yao touches.Yao proved he can beat junk defenses when he dominated golden state with 36 points 19 rebounds. Seems like that game caught Tracy's attention and now he's out there trying too prove himself,I'm mean he egotistically yelled at Yao and scola two players who played well together with fire against golded state and Yao was raving about scola's play and he was proud of the fact that he finlaly found a formual for the junk defenses that teams throw at him. Since tracy has come back both yao and scola have had medicore games. In my opinion there is no chemistry and teamwork and in the playoffs it will come back to haunt us.Yao functions best as the leader and focal point so does luis scola.
When Tracy play's we run a jeff van-gundy/adelman hybrid offense,Tracy doesn't in any way want to buy into the system. The results leave you with some of the team running adelman's system and others still playing gundy ball. The conflict of interest creates a chaotic vibration of resistance amongst players and you see the turnovers and other bad plays through out the ball game.
the only problem is to find a way to get Yao recharged. If we see the same Yao in Utah series, Rockets are not getting better.
