imo jvg should have took away shots from rafer and tried to work in shane (because shane was having a pretty good year) more but again that's not mcgrady's fault. who on that roster that year could jvg trust to give more shot opportunities too (besides shane)? rafer? luther head? who was our sixth man off the bench to give us a spark offensively? i see why he gave all the shot opportunities to yao and mcgrady with the season rafer was having and us not having a solid bench.
See, that is one of the primary reasons I wanted JVG gone, his offense or rather reliance on individuals over teamwork will ultimatly lead to failure. A team with star players who play their role efficiently to me is the best thing for everyone. Tracy was inefficient as a scorer, and as such should not have shot the ball nearly as much as he did.....but he was given free reign by JVG, and I think it hurt the team in the end. I understand your question, and maybe a lot of it is in the mix of players that were put around the stars, but that also falls to the coach and GM, as to what type of roster to build etc. DD
JVG has gone deep into the playoffs (including one finals appearance) with that style of play (his knicks team relied heavily on houston and spreewell for their scoring and the rest is D). pat riley, pop, larry brown, mike brown, carlisle all have or are currently the same type of coaching philosophy and have done well. our role players were just atrocious before morey. there was no way around it. rafer/head/bobby j/wesley... they were below mediocre to mediocre offensively. JVG did the best he can do. the only thing JVG could have hoped for was tmac and yao to be even better than they were for the team to advance.
all that roster needed imo was that 3rd piece. imagine that roster with scola or landry on pf instead of chuck hayes. utah had a big 3 in williams, boozer, and okur while we had a big 3 of yao, mcgrady and......rafer? some blame could be put on not bringing in a more solid group and some could be put on jvg trying to play a 2 man game with yao/mcgrady and not using his role players effectively but i think its not fair to put blame on mcgrady entirely
Absolutely, but T-Mac and Yao both shot almost 50% that game. IMO I'd rather have 2 players taking lots of shots and making them at 50% than having other players taking more shots and making them at 33%,(Alston and Howard)
It boggles my mind how often you just get things completly wrong. JVG's team that got to the finals, lost Patrick Ewing early in the playoffs and had to play a more team oriented approach, and they did get to the finals, playing a non-star system. A lot of the role players that were acquired when JVG was the coach were done so with his blessing and the types of players they attempted to acquire were also with his approval. There were players that could have developed under JVG into NBA contributors, but he chose to go old instead..Weatherspoon, Strickland, Brunson, etc..etc..etc... Conversely, look at Adelman, he has played tons of young guys and had very good results...Landry, Von Wafer, Brooks, and now Budinger. Sometimes you need an injection of youth to invigorate the veterans and keep up with the rest of the league. DD
Please don't take a one game aberation as any indicator of how that duo worked, because ultimatly they failed in the playoffs, because other teams knew that they only had to guard 2 guys in a close game. And even in Tmac's 13 in 35 seconds game, he was like 11-27 or something....which is AWFUL..... Volume shooting does not work, volume SCORING does....but those guys shoot a high percentage and make them, not miss a high percentage and keep on chucking.... DD
Actually, it was 12-29 which is 41.3%. Given that the Spurs were known for their defence back then and that the Rockets went for a total of 29-82(35.4%) that game, I wouldn't mind T-Mac shooting at that percentage and taking that many shots. I still agree with you on that volume shooting doesn't work, i.e. Ariza and the 2008-10 T-Mac. P.s. the duo might've worked out had Yao/T-Mac missed so many games.
so is it really their fualt the organization put all the weight on their shoulders?. and how is a volume scorer better than a volume shooter?. They can get cold on some nights just as well.
I think what DD meant was efficient scorer not volume scorer, because a volume shooter can also mean a volume scorer.
errr WRONG. let me give you the stats of that team during the playoffs that lost patrick ewing. 1) sprewell - 20.4 pts on 41.9% fg 2) houston - 18.5 pts on 44% fg now their next highest scorer? larry johnson at 11.5 pts remember, during that year, those knicks average a whopping 86 points a game. so those 2 accounted for 45% of the entire's team points. they play a team oriented game DEFENSIVELY. but offensively, it was isolation spreewell and houston galore. you can youtube those knicks game anytime. YOU DON'T REMEMBER HEARING PEOPLE SAY THE KNICKS WERE A BAD TEAM TO WATCH b/c they couldn't score at times? 86 freakin' points a game. that team went ot the finals b/c they played superb defense. and as you can see, sprewell and houston weren't exactly very efficient. my point is you can win with this type of philosophy. our role players under JVG were simply atrocious. it's all about players in this league. stars will get doubled and whatever, role players will play a big part to win the game, whether that be offense or defense. we've seen it with hakeem the dream. as long as your role players hit timely shots when teams stifle your stars, you have a great chance. all the great teams have done this: get 1-2 great players together and surround the team with very good role players. we had rafer/luther/bobby j/wesley/ryan bowen/scott padgett... those are not championship caliber role players. rafer was our 3rd option for god sakes (on the magic team, he played around 30 minutes as a 5th option). JVG and adelman have shown they can win with their own ways. there's no specific coaching method for winning. YOU WIN WITH GOOD PLAYERS. it's as simple as that. outside of yao and tmac under JVG, we had very mediocre players.
I certainly believe that a Yao/McGrady team could have advanced past the first round with better role players but I'll never be convinced that a squad lead by McGrady could win a Championship. He just doesn't have the mindset to play at a high level when the clamps are applied. He's always been the guy who plays great when the pressure is off (like when his team is the underdog in a series) but who falters when the pressure is on. If you depend on McGrady, when things get tough you're team is screwed because he will fold like a lawn chair.
That's because everyone else sucked on that team. Yao and T-mac had to take all those shots. If they had better players, they would have gotten to take higher percentage shots and done a lot better. Even Kobe and Shaq needed quality guys like Robert Horry and Derek Fischer and Fox. Yao and T-mac never had that when they went to the playoffs. They had way too many scrubs on that team.
this might apply to the tracy of the 06-07 playoffs. that was the worst he played in the playoffs b/c he was so inconsistent at home and on the road. every other year, if you have better role players, i have no doubt we could have gone AT LEAST to the WCF (the 04-05 mcgrady was a top 5 player). but it's all hindsight right now. i just hope morey can eventually get us that type of player again. let's remember, whenever tracy was healthy, he was an all-nba player (every season that he actually "completed," he made the all-nba team).
