If your perimeter Role players can't play their roles ie score then Yao and Tracy will never win, even as great as they are. tonights game was a good example of this fact.
Again with the speed. No matter what they do, they're not this much better than us. Six wins in a row? Most of them blowouts? No, the gap is not that wide. We played their game and obviously, we lost. It's like trying to play chess with Kasparov when you have the option of playing basketball or soccer with him. My only hope is that by the time we meet the Suns, they will have been through two playoff series already, and playing their style for another series will just be draining on them. PLUS, the playoffs are slower, PLUS Yao will hopefully be healthier and so will Bonzi (key to slowing the game down). Someone answer me this: who in the league can match the speed of Amare, Barbosa, Nash, and Marion at their positions? It's stupid of us to try, but we keep falling into the trap.
I'm telling you guys... as much as I don't want to meet up with the Spurs or, even worse, the Mavs I know we'd have a legit shot against those teams. Against the Suns I think we'd be screwed for the most part. Not to say we couldn't beat them but... it would be a huuuge surprise upset victory. The Rockets just do not match up well with the Suns. Sometimes you see that in sports. Two great teams meet, but one team consistantly dismantles the other for a long period of time. When two teams of similar talent and potential meet and one team consistantly gets beaten it has to be just a bad matchup. We have two great stars, an amazing defender (not to mention a very solid defense overall), and some solid roleplayers with decent depth if Yao is healthy. We play a slower half court game, just a completely different style from the Suns, but we play it well, and due to this our slowness against most opponents isn't apparent. Even when our slowness and low scoring is apparent and somewhat exploited, our tenacious D and two big superstars prove too much for most teams. However, the Suns have superior athleticism overall, less superstar focus complimented by much more team/bench scoring, plus a great coach and the ability to put up any number of capable lineups-big and small. The Suns have the ultimate playmaker, near superstars Marion and Amare who are perfect fits, great depth and some of the best roleplayers in the league. They are really the one team we can't seem to force into playing our style of ball (thus not really allowing us to pound them into eventual submission with Yao + TMac). It is just a bad matchup for our team, and while I don't look forward to meeting San Antonio and/or Dallas in the playoffs, I know we can beat those teams with solid play and the little things (calls,free throws, fouls, etc) falling in our favor. The suns though... I've said it a hundred times and will continue to until we lose to them in the WCF... the Suns are likely the end of the round if we meet them in the playoffs. Mavs are a better team overall but the Suns match up with us better personally. Damn them for that.
I don't think we played their game and lost. I think they played their game and we tried to play our game except our game was off tonight.
I rated this thread 5 stars, very good discussions here and I agree with your points Ehsan. I mentioned this in the game thread although it sounds a bit crazy, I kinda believe we are setting up for our playoff matches with Suns given the way we played in the recent Suns games. Our flaws were so obvious and we not just played like a different team when we faced the Suns, we played in the total opposite way! It is hard to believe that our Coach and players would ever think that they could outplay Suns by speed and by playing an uptempo game. We are in the best playoff position now IMHO as we would only face Suns in WCF, we have nothing to prove in these games against Suns, W or L in these couple of games would not affect our final position at all. The second last Suns game this season would prove nothing as I do not believe we will see the true Suns nor true Rockets team in that game. For the rest of these regular season games, I just hope our players stay healthy, every player in our team. A healthy Rockets team, esp this Rockets team, fear no others. GO ROCKETS!!!
Someone said the Mavs and Spurs are a better team than the Suns but the Suns are a bigger matchup problem for us. That's a very accurate statement. Mavs and Spurs are the best teams but the way the Suns play against us they are right up there with Mavs and Spurs. All i Know is if we have RAfer Alston continue bricking wide open shots (which i know he will) we'll never win !
We didn't play their game. We need speed for the defensive end against them, not the offensive end. Oh, and the Kasparov analogy was silly. You can do better than that. How about: "It's like trying to keep up with Dr of Dunk when you can run circles around DaDakota instead."
i think suns defense gameplan is very simple, pack the paint area with 2 or 3 players surrounding yao, and this also made tmac driving to the rim very difficult. They basically invited us to shoot wide open 3s. I do not think we have any choice but to take the bait. I think at the first Q JVG ordered battier/alston not shooting 3s even when open (as many suggested here). We HAVE TO SHOOT OPEN 3s and MAKE them to defeat the suns defense. I suggest we go with head/tmac/battier/howard/yao, this may not be our best defense lineup, but even our best lineup could not do too much to prevent the suns from scoring, so no big diff in term of defense. Let's just trade battier/head open 3s and howard's midrange j with their semi contested 3s. Unless they change their gameplan, that's the only way we can beat them.
We need speed on D to cut down their transistions. Speed isn't just a matter of running up and down the court scoring buckets but also running down to cut off the other teams fast break. Even in the half court set the Suns use their speed to disrupt the D and we need speed at the guard position to keep up with Nash and Barbosa to keep them from breaking down our D. We actually have fast players like Snyder, V-Span and Jon Lucas III. Unfortunately those guys aren't getting the playing time.
True we might not see the Suns again but the problem is other teams are scouting us and if they see an uptempo game with a strong zone disrupts our game we are going to see that being used by our playoff opponents.
your points are very good, and the only thing is our offense should focus on paint, not 3p shouting which Suns never give any good openning chance for us and then neither Rafer nor Luther can make 3P. That means we need another paint-offense guy like Wells/Syner/Battier. For the defense, if they put Barbosa in at SG, I think our good matching is Syner who is also with speed and quickness. I was really felt bad about that T-Mac did not do good on offense when he played with Sun twice this season.
I really think JVGs rotation and choice of players to play against the Suns sucked. 2 major players that he should have used are Kirk Snyder and Novak. We clearly needed speed and defense which we would have got from Snyder and 3 point threat from Novak. Suns killed us from midrange jumpshots and 3s. Snyders ability to defend and long arms would have really helped against the Suns. Novaks 3-pt threat and consistency would have avoided double and triple team on Yao n Tmac. I dont understand why does JVG not use Snyder???? I know he was in the dog house but he was on the bench and ready to play last night. Players JVG should have used the most on offense and defense should have been this 8: Yao, Battier, Novak, Snyder, tmac, Hayes, Head and Howard. Alston always plays bad against the Suns. And Tmac should have been the play creator rather than Alston. All it takes is different strategy against different teams. Same strategy does not work with every teams. Not that JVG was all in fault....Guards should have done a better job to go to the basket and create something rather than jack up shots. Rockets cannot play Suns basketball against the Suns itself....you make them play Rockets temp basketball. Oh well, it was an expected loss anyways....Suns is a great team but Rockets should have shown something different than what they had the first time they played them. They were just not prepared. Hope things change when playoffs comes around.
For everyone that is still holding onto this belief that we can beat the Suns, just let it go already. The Suns own the Rockets, it's glaringly obvious. So many people fear the Mavs.........I have to ask WHY? Why do people think the Mavs are so tough, yet we could still take the Suns in a 7 game series? The Suns are on a different level than the Mavs or the Rockets. The only team that could have a shot at the Suns is the Spurs, and the Rockets could have a chance at any team except the Suns. The good thing is luck of the draw. Dallas, Spurs, Suns, Rockets will pobably all make it to 2nd round. However the Rockets/Jazz series is no cakewalk, most fans here act like Utah has no chance, well right now it is very close. Then it would go Dallas-Houston and SA-PHO in round 2. So the Rockets have a very lucky draw, they get a team they could actually beat in round 1, then they get Dallas in round 2, a team that in REALITY is the REAL paper tiger. That's the team that is SOFT, not the Suns. The Rockets have a chance against Dallas. On the other side of the bracket the only team that really can macthup with the Suns is SA. There is a legit chance SA could take them, but no other team really matches up with them. This could allow the Rockets to somehow magically face the Spurs in the Final of the conference, another team they could have a chance at beating, then to the Finals against a team they could also have a chance at beating. So fht matchup seeding looks good, that's got to be the hope, the hope that we will actually be able to be the Suns in a 7 game series because, "things are different in the playoffs" just seems like unrealistic homerism. I will say this though, both the Suns and Spurs and Heat as well are more to handle in a 7 game series than Dallas is. Now I am not saying Dallas won't win it all, because they have enough to get it done, but the TRUTH is that Dallas is soft, they are also mentally weak, and their superstar is a b****y-a$$ whiny choker. The only reali will and heart they have is the coach, but that's not enough to just automatically beat these other really good teams. Rockets fans need to get some better perspective, hell just a few weeks ago people were acting like we would sweep the Spurs in a 7 game series, the Spurs can do everything Dallas can, difference is they have heart and will and are not soft.
Not exactly. What they do is entice you to take the wide open 3 early in the shot clock, so they can get the pace faster. Then defensively, they close out the 3 point shooters (at least against us) and overplay the passing lanes (because they know we want that late 3 ball shot). That is why I say they were begging for the back door plays last night. If they are gonna blanket Yao down low, then bring him out top for crying out loud. Let him get off some wide open 17 footers and nail them. He will! And force Phoenix to have to adjust to us. You bring Yao out high and you have athletic cutters like Snyder and McGrady who are cutting to the basket when they are overplayed. When Phx gets burnt enough, they will quit the overplay. Then you have the set up for the 3 point shots in rhythm and you can drop Yao back down in the paint. You gotta see it. Bringing Yao out high does so many things. It unclogs the paint, it forces one of Diaw or Amare to be out of the rebounding picture. And then when we make baskets, not only do they have to take the ball out of the basket to inbound it. They have to run down from the FT line to get the ball before they inbound it. Defensively, we can be more competitive with Kirk in there giving us some minutes and dogging the hot shooter (Barbosa/Bell/whoever). You don't have to worry about assignments when you tell a guy, "Go get in Barbosa's jock". Then it simply becomes an athletic play for a guy like Snyder. Cut his man out of the herd and make like real difficult for him.
You all would rather play a team who has won 3 titles and could've won another won last year if not for Mavs or play against the one of the most balanced teams in history. R u crazy? I would definitely want to play the Suns instead of the Mavs or Spurs. I think in these type of games will simply get outcoached and outmanned, I believe we should go big against Phoenix and really try to slow the pace down. Alston should be regulated to bench, while McGrady should move down to guard and use Bonzi or Snyder as the SG. We've already shown we can't run with the Suns or beat them with a small rotations, so naturally why not use a deeper rotations and go big on them and make them have tougher time defending rebounding.
Why do people have a hard time dealing with the facts that we couldn't beat Phoenix? We have a point guard that currently shooting below 38% with a BBall IQ of room temperatures ,and a coach who becomes senile every time we play Phoenix and refuse to play the bench or make any necessary adjustments. We are who we are, we're not that good yet until we solve those problems!
It's because the Mavs are soft. I actually find it amusing that people fear the Mavs. They are soft, yes they are damn good but they are soft and they are chokers. The have one true superstar. You know all you have to do is disrupt them and they totally fall apart, it happens to them every year. Are they even better than SA or the Suns even in terms of talent? I don't think so. They are a paper tiger and Rockets fans "fear" them because of the 2005 playoff game 7, nevermind that without Juwan Howard, if you took away the horrible officiation the Rockets would have won games 1-6. The Mavs are the definition of paper tiger, they are the NBA version of the Indianapolis Colts, sure the Colts won the Super Bowl, and sure the Mavs could win the Finals BUT the Colts can only win in a year where there is no legit champion team, the Mavs can only win if there is no legit team. This is why the Colts have 1 superbowl win and Dallas has no titles, right now Dallas has to face legit teams, the Colts team this year wasn't even the best Colts team.
The Suns aren't exactly hard as rock either, look what happened to them in the last two playoffs and in the regular season vs. Utah, they don't play well against teams that play very intense, physical defense/offense. They were literally getting knocked around by the Lakers last year, because they neutralized their running game early by being physical with the Suns and slowing down the game at stretches. Then, they took over once they were up by 10 or 12 pts. And made appopriate rotations moves, by using fresh bodies, going big at times, or using small rotation. This is why Phil, Popovich, Sloan, and Avery have success against Phoenix, because they are great coaches - they get to the championship because they know how to take away teams best assets and maximize the talent avaliable on their rosters.
