This topic was brought up last year also. Even though Rafer BLOWS at shooting and has no offensive abilities, he knows this team the best. We missed him tonight.
why is he the only one who can run proper plays.. brook is nice and all but can't seem to be dependable at critical time to deliver the ball to the right guy...
Yeah I was sick of seeing people celebrating him getting suspended. With Rafer or Brooks out we have no pg to back them up. Head no T-mac no Wafer no
Rafer's one of the better defending PGs out there, and FFS, we tend to forget that until someone like George Hill torches our starting PG.
Yes and NO..... There were 2 probs tonight.. Well 3... 1) Too many guys missing open shots (If they were hitting there shots this game would have been a blow out). 2) Too many vets trying to tell AB what to run (I blame the coach for this, he should tell the guys to STFU and play. This is the only time I can say that Rafer was truly missed) 3) No defense (Man was it BAD)
It's not until you lose something that's so usual to you, that you start to realize its significance.
Of course Rafer is going to run the offense better then Brooks... he's been our starting pg for a few years now... Why not blame our horrendous shooting for the loss?
We missed 3 of our best PnR defenders in this game -- Rafer Alston, Shane Battier, and Chuck Hayes (he got injured in the 3rd). The Rockets got burned time and time again guarding it in the 4th. Hayes going down was the turning point, in my opinion.
Rafer gets burned all the time too. There is no telling whether Hill would have done the same thing, or even better, against Rafer. Hill has only started a couple of games since Parker went down. Yao was horrible at protecting the paint. He had 0 blocks and barely contested any shots.
Rockets 1st team really need Rafer to win a game. Since they have been playing together for many years. But still, Rockets need to find a way to win without him. Just in case.
I will tell you what the significance of Rafer is.... When Rafer is playing, there is a chance that Tmac might show up. When Rafer is not playing, Tmac will make sure to disappear.
Brooks made George Hill look like Tony Parker in this game. He and Landry are a lethal pick and roll combination -- for the other team, that is.
That's absurd. People are overstating the importance of Alston. Do you think Kobe depends on his PGs to go better than 2-12 and 7 pts against a depleted team? Brooks was probably our best player tonight other than Artest. Sure, he made some mistakes but this was his first legitimate start with our key players healthy. The Spurs our always a good defensive team no matter who is out of the lineup. We may have lost this game by more if Alston started for all we know. T-Mac's poor game had little to nothing to do with Alston being out, in my opinion. Rafer was present when he went 1-for-16 in the two LA games. Whether it's injury, or just sucking, T-Mac was the biggest reason we lost this game. He did nothing in the 2nd half.
