Every time someone brings this up they magically forget one thing. NO AMARE STOUDAMIRE. If they had this version of Amare (not even the 2005 WCF version) they would have won the championship last year in domination. The fact that people fail to see this then say, "the Lakers almost beat them" COME ON. Amare is a hell of a lot better than Rockets fans grasp.
amare will probably have to retire when nash does b/c he's so sorry w/o him. same with everyone else on the suns.
Yeah what if the Rockets won 54 games without Yao or T-mac and made it to the WCF's??? I am sure people would think that adding in this player would make them better. Rockets fans here, many are guilty of watching only Rockets games. The Suns are on a mission, I am saying it right now.
ppl give nash so much credit. if i saw the game last night, nash was a NON-FACTOR. their bench killed us. as bad as our starters played, we played their starters to a standstill. then their bench came in w/ barbosa and jones and killed us. we played nash like we wanted to. he was over-dribbling and didn't even come close to even be a factor in teh game. his stats are misleading b/c he played in the 4th when the bench got that a double digit lead. barbosa is our problem on offense bc he's so fast. yao needs to punk thomas and tmac needs to punk marion. tmac punked marion in the first then settled for Js. stupid tmac.
numbers speak louder than player's names... and the suns are doing what they're supposed to do--put the ball in the bucket. The rockets, on the other hand, choke everytime they see the orange, grey, and blue. They don't know what to do and start playing off their games.. Ala rafer stopping and popping... why do you do it?? why does t-mac start shooting off?? why does yao start getting more turnovers?. and i'm not gonna be r****ded and say the refs have no part in this.. they let yao get hammered.. so yao isn't solely to blame for his bad performance.. this is more than i can say for the other players i named. that's the fact! deal with it or continue being ignorant.. The rockets choke when they need to play well.. bottom line so far this year, and NO ONE should be able to argue against this. barring some accidental shots that go in by t-mac.. he is the most confidence driven shooter i've seen. that's not bad.. but it's not good either, cause you can basically guess when his shots are going to start falling and when they're not.
We just can't beat very many teams by shooting sub-40% from the field. Period. I think JVG has yet figured out a strategy to beat the Suns. That doesn't mean he won't. He is trying. His self-proclaimed "dumbest move" last time with Novak was evidence that he tries. And that is encouraging. JVG is not as rigid as some people think. But preparation time in the regular season is just too short. Hopefully, if we meet them in the playoffs, the coach will have come up with something that works. I think we have players to execute whatever plan the coach designs. The only area that worries me is the PG spot.
i thought his game plan for the suns is GREAT actually. look at the first, we utilized hayes to punish them for double/triple yao. and we got a lot of easy baskets. defensively, we made nash a non-factor. we just didn't expect barbosa to go off like that. also, we're a 3pt shooting team. w/ yao or w/o yao. w/ tmac or w/o tmac. it's who we are. we SUCKED shooting yday so of course we lost. i hated that tmac jacked up so many shots but they clogged the paint every darn time, even w/o yao w/ 2-3 people in the paint. they played the JVG defense on us (pack the paint and force the jumpshots). we won't suck like that every night. we were on v. the nets/magic. so relax, JVG has figured out a plan but yao wasn't in shape for it to work long enough. and tmac and the shooters just plain sucked. relax people.
the excuses seem to pile up. sounds a bit like mavs fans actually, something to come up with to deflect the pain of loss.
we lost b/c we played bad. no excuses. but remember, tmac and yao SUCKED SO BAD and we were w/in 7 POINTS w/ 8 mins to go b4 we just gave up. i take that anytime.
How exactly is it making "excuses" to point out that the Rockets' horrible shooting had a huge impact on the game?
battier had a corner 3. OH it was so CLOSE! that would have cut it to 4, but i digress. suns have a gameplan against the rox. rox have yet to find something to break up that plan. I think it has to start with the flow, which rox seem to completely lose all consciousness when they play the suns. I am sure the coaches tell the guys, play the half court offense. But it seems to me like, we're going to show you we can beat you at your own game, or at least try! The suns have gotten into the rox head. Rox have gotten better, but they need to find a spark with those last 6 minutes with the great teams. getting close is what they have been doing, which is certainly good, but finding a way to get over that hump is also worthwhile.
I think people need to attempt to remember that we were on the road for the second game of a back to back, against a team who's game is centered around running your ass off, with a center that's trying to get in game shape, still, from a serious injury. Add to that the fact that Rafer had the kind of game he usually has 2 out of 3 games, and that (in my opinion) Tracy is a little banged up. Heck, you can include something I agree with jopatmc about, that we should have had Yao working the high post, with cutters slashing to the basket, at least part of the game. Total it up, with things I'm sure I either forgot or am clueless about, and you've got a blowout.
Here is why Suns will be a difficult match up- our biggest defensive weapon cannot make it to the other end of the floor in 4 sec and keep up that pace. That is something we should never try to do. Instead if we focus on Cutting down offensive rebounds and Hitting our shots- the games were close enough to give us a shot. Yao can be a force- but he needs to be given the ball. I would much rather see 10 turnovers from yao than 5 floaters from Rafer. We were with them in the third quarter- it was not tracy's night and barbosa is too fast for our PG's- and more importantly they hit their shots. If you want to win- Steve Nash ' should not have more than 5 assists- that is not very easy. Without Steve Nash- Phoenix will barely be in playoff contention.
Amare is not the stud he is made out to be. The real studs ( other than Nash and Marion) are Barbosa and Diaw- especially Diaw. Not many even know who these guys are- but kudos to D'Antoni- for bringing their talent out instead of making them sit on the bench.
Definitely should not be overlooked that Yao was huffing and puffing about 7 minutes into the game, to the point that he was looking for the bench...that's pretty un-Yao-like...he was tired, as was the team.
