Feb. 27, 2002, 2:03AM Rockets summary A fine motivation Rockets guard Steve Francis added another motivation to the Rockets' list of factors for their recent upturn. He said the emphasis on defense has been the biggest reason, but that Rockets coach Rudy Tomjanovich had given the team more incentive to pay attention to details. "He's starting to lay down some more fines," Francis said. "He's telling guys, `If you miss assignments, I'm going to have to start clocking you.' He's been talking about it since training camp. If guys don't instill it in their brain, when will they get it? Everybody understands, that's the rule he's trying to go with." Tomjanovich said Francis might be exaggerating in that he has rarely mentioned fines and hasn't levied any. But the suggestion apparently was enough to get the message across. "We just had a game (in Washington last week) where we missed some assignments," Tomjanovich said. "I said next time we come out of a timeout and you don't do the assignment, there will be fines. But there's no rule. It's not written down. That was just something said." -- JONATHAN FEIGEN This is an exerpt from today's Comical. The thing that is depressing to me is that it has taken 2/3 of the season for Rudy to start to get tough about missed assignments. I don't know exactly who was being referred to in this article, but we have the usual suspects. There are a lot of us that watch the games and think that the crappy play is due to Rudy not knowing anything, or Rudy having no control over the players. This article makes me think it is the latter. "Excuse me Mooch..uh Mr. Norris, sir, but do you think its possible, if it's not too much trouble, to uh you know, try to get into our offense a little sooner, and uh maybe not dribble quite so long before uh, you know, you uh make a move or pass the ball. And uh, you know, the rest of you guys, uh if you could just move around a little bit, please, on offense, and uh kind of, you know, pass the ball a little bit, if it's not too much trouble, and, uh you know, make it one of those deals where the other team has to uh, you know, defend a little bit? You know, that deal we always discuss in our practices, you know, that your high school coach used to tell you?' I can't believe Rudy knows as little about basketball as the team seems to show. Come on Rudy, kick some butt!
LOL C'mon, Rudy can't be that soft. I mean, remember the time when he...um...ah hell, I got nothin for this one. Rudy sucks.