No, I know that is precisely my point, when the defense adjusted to the high PnR.....they should have tossed in some motion offense. Look, with the team not shooting FTs well, and Yao out, this was not going to be a win. But, I really wanted them to at least play some good team ball, they didn't...on offense nor defense - at least conistently throughout the entire game. The team hung tough, and were right there through 3 quarters, but when Utah punched, the Rockets wilted.... Too much settling for jumpers and not attacking the basket.....and.....not hitting free throws. Hell, if the team just hits a normal FT rate, they probably win this game. DD
The pick and roll is an effective play, but T-Mac sometime holds on to the ball too long, like he's waiting for the double team. When he uses the pick and gets some penetration, he's a phenomenal passer in the middle of the court. But when he's getting trapped 28 feet from the basket, that really bogs down the offense. One thing he doesn't do that some of the other great shooting guards do regularly (particularly Kobe and Wade) is split the double team. It can be a turnover-prone maneuver and maybe he's not confident enough in his ball-handling to pull it off, but that's a move that can be extremely useful when done right.
And effectively killing the defensive effort of the other players not involved in the offense. No motion - too quick a shot - not hitting free throws - bad defense - Utah hot shooting late - no Yao.... It was just not meant to be tonight. DD
I don't really buy that. What kind of motion were we getting from our offense last season? Very little, unfortunately, and yet I don't think there was a team that played harder on the defensive end. Our best defenders on this team are Shane and Chuck, and they hardly ever are involved on offense. Not playing hard on defense just because you're not getting enough touches on offense is a poor excuse.
I've been said this many times. Don't let Tmac handle too much ball. Let him catch and shoot. In this way he shots much higher percent jumpers. Every time when two guys Double him and he has to pass out and then get it passed back. I feel pain. Tmac is still not 100%. He need time to recovery. I don't blame him. But our O plan need to adjust. For current time, I prefer Tmac come from bench and close the game for us in 4th q. He need save his energy for 4th q.
The pick and roll is fine when you got big men that can shoot, and if it is used in moderation. In the last few games the Rockets have overdosed on it, and guys like Scola cannot hit the jumpers. Therefor it becomes a dumb play as there ends up being no ball movement, no off ball movement, and it negates T-Mac's bst ability- scoring. And no, T-Mac cannot break the double team like Kobe or Wade as he simply doesn't have that kind of explosion, especially with the injury.
Michael Jordan took around 35% of his team's shot attempts while on the court in the 72-win season. It probably went much higher than that in a close 4th quarter or if his team was down. And I don't recall people complaining about balance then.
Look, defense in the fourth is certainly an issue. But did you not see the rest of the game? There are three other quarters in a basketball game and I saw a ton of problems there as well. From what I recall the Rockets didn't break 40 points at halftime. Maybe offense in the first half also had something to do with this loss? If they Rockets had played halfway decently in the first half they might have been able to survive some defensive lapses in the second. T-Mac deserves a lot of praise for what he did in the two games prior to this one. But in a lot of ways this game is the perfect example of what the Rockets do not want their offense to look like. One guy took 30% of the teams' FGA. That is not how the Rockets are going to win games.
Rick Adelman is not Phil Jackson. Rick Adelman is not Jeff Van Gundy. The Houston Rockets are not the Chicago Bulls. You're comparing apples and oranges.
DaDa, you and I obviously agree that guys not getting involved on offense will result in an unconscious lack of energy and determination on the defensive end.. we also agree that the high PnR didn't do $h!t for out team, especially if we run it on every goddam play with Mac & Scola.. on top of that, we are both bothered by Tmac excessively shooting J's and not getting to the basket.. which leads us to 2 possibilities: 1. Tmac isn't being utilized correctly 2. Tmac is a lazy ballhugging jumper-settling horrible selfish pointforward player if condition 2 is correct, (highly unlikely IMO since I am a huge fan but still a possibility), we can't do anything about it and he would have to go.. which leaves us with condition 1 to try.. why not run Iso's? maybe when he is playing 1 on 1 facing up and not on the post, he will easily get to the basket a couple of times and get easy layups/dunks.. then, the other team will realize that they are in trouble and adjust by bringing help defense/double teams.. and Tmac, being the great passer he is, will easily get guys around him involved by driving and dishing in case of help defense or passing to a cutter incase of a double team chasing him way out.. this way, we have a great game plan and we can score almost every time down the court.. that's of course, provided that condition 2 is false.. what makes me believe that isoing him will help is his performance back in Orlando.. almost 90% of his offense was pure iso's/taking guys 1 on 1.. after getting FOMFOTABLE with it, he will start varying it, taking it to the basket sometimes, doing step-backs/spinning circus shots, or passing it to an open Battier when his man comes over to help.. it's simple people, we just have to iso him..
I'm saying that a "balanced attack" is not necessary to win, nor is it even inherently the right way to win (considering that perhaps the greatest team of all time had a decidedly unbalanced attack). So, I don't understand the logic in blaming our loss on not having balance. The purpose of "balance", presumably, is to get good offensive efficiency. But our offensive efficiency was excellent in the fourth quarter ... it was actually our best quarter of the game.
So your conclusion is T-Mac is better than Jordan? I am not so sure whether you know the team won more games while T-Mac took less shots.
So what? You don't need a triangle offense to win, maybe you can just grind down teams defensively. You don't need a defensive approach to win, maybe you can just run and gun it. But if the coach says "We're going to run the triangle" and a player says "No, I'm not" then he should be benched. And if a coach says "We're going to run a balanced offense" and a player says "Screw that" then he should be benched. If you don't like the motion system then apply for Adelman's job and install your own offense where T-Mac can fire off 25 shots a game.
The fact is that Tracy does not like to run and that hurts our motion offense, Sometimes isolations are the only way to get him going....
with his suck jump shoot,if he can't penetrate,he is nothing for us,even make our PG walk one the court like a fool
Nobody will complain if TMc-Great is the same caliber player as Michael Jorden offensively and defensively wise. But unfortunately TMc is the same type of player as his cousin Vince Carter , the player they called "Half-man Half heart"
So you think Adelman was instructing his team to run a motion offense, and McGrady decided to run pick and rolls instead? That's a bunch of nonsense. Adelman was making the calls ... we got back into the game running high PnR in the third quarter (all those Novak perimeter jumpers came off the that play), and we continued to do so in the fourth. Novak wasn't open, because Utah didn't help off him any more, but that left shooting opportunities elsewhere. It worked, and we had our best offensive quarter of the game. Should McGrady have abstained from take one or two quick three pointers that he missed? Sure ... in retrospect we would have been better off if he didn't do that (maybe we score a couple extra points if he was more patient). But it's always easy to criticize like that after the fact. He was shooting well in the period, and when he's in a rhythm like that I don't mind the occasional quick three from him. We've won a lot of games that way. Heck, we won in Seattle that way.
