1. Taking Cato out of the game to play MoT down the stretch - that is the kind of nonsense Rudy T did. MoT is ice-cream for Duncan 2. Stubbornly not playing Ame in this game and others while PoP chooses to rely on 40 yr old Willis to put a further pounding on Ming 3. Bonehead game plan failing to take advantage of SPurs playing a back to back. Very little running. 4. Being blindly in love with JJ who continues to foul jump shooters at the 3pt line. 5. Convincing himself that ugly basketball is going to get it done. There is another way JVG. You should resolve to never score 25 points in a half again. You should absolutely be ashamed of yourself. Again, I ask, would this team have scored 25 points in the first half if Posey, Hawkins and Tmo was on it? How can expect this team to run more when we make those changes and bring in Pike, JJ and Padgett. You could not be serious. You better talk to that judge about getting Eddie a break!
Because we were desperate for offense and Cato was a liability?? He hasnt played all season and you think he is going to come in and be the savior? Amaechi's game is working inside. The Spurs effectively shut down the inside game of Mo and Yao. The odds were stacked against Amaechi doing any better. As JVG has said numerous times, the players have to want to run. Players take the blame for not running in this game. 1) Bowen made the shot with JJ all over him. 2) He missed the FT. So how did JJ's foul hurt?? 3) How many other times has JJ fouled a shooter on a 3pt shot?? You say he "continues" to do so, yet, I dont even remember it happening in any other game this season (maybe once or twice, but hardly a habitual problem as you insinuate). Agreed. I cant believe JVG committed 14 TOs in the 1st half and only scored 25 pts and missed alot of wide open shots. Just say it DR. JVG is "clueless" and not "worth his weight in gold". Try blaming the players for once. They all stunk tonight and thats why we lost.
To be fair, they didn't all stink. Cat shot over 50%, 100% from 3pt land and held Manu to 11 points on ~38% shooting.
1) When we were discussing a potential trade for Antonio Davis or the like a while back, I predicted that Cato would once again resume his career place as a good back up/pedestrian starter, and that remains my view. The problem facing JVG with regards to the power forward spot is this; If he plays Cato, he gets the rebounds and defesne, but Cato's complete lack of a jumper means that teams have absolutely no need to fear doubling/denying Yao. As such, Yao suffers, as does the concept of inside out offense. If he plays Mo, his ability to hit the 15 footer makes teams pay for sagging on Yao, but his complete lack of defense and board work means that Yao is our only inside presence, thus hiking up his fouls while reducing his ability to get rebounds or blocks, as defenders can tag team him ( one boxes, the other gets the ball, etc.) The problem is that we have 2 one-dimensional power forwards whose weaknesses are, relative to other starters, extreme. As such, unless we get a better all around 4, JVG is going to be flip flopping all year. The trick is to try and initiate, thus using your strenghts more than other teams exploit your weaknesses. I don't see us doing that right now. 2. Can;t comment as don't know status, health, etc. 3. Agreed. Although, to be fair, it's hard to run when you're struggling to control the boards as we were. 4. But what is the alternative to JJ? Whoever you mention, I'll bet I can point out their weaknesses, and JJ played a decent game. If our stars were doing likewise JJ's lapses would have hardly been noticed. 5. IMO, the only thing JVG can do is say Yao and Steve are options 1a and 1b, and everyone else can find theirs working off our 2 stars or they can sit. IMO we are a team in confusion on the offensive end right now, and everyone's role is up in the air on a nightly basis. Short term, when Mo or Cat have a strong game, fans can hurrah and say we need more of that, but long term you win by building around your stars, and ours are Yao and Steve. We're not doing that, we're not using them right, and everyone is only having different ideas each night about their role. The offense should run through Yao and Steve, period.
Codell not only do I watch the games I tape them okay and there are numerous times JJ has fouled a jumpshooter. That is basic knowledge. In fact I just looked at the 4th q again and JJ is also responsible for a direct pass to Rash. He also walked when he had Brown in the low post. All in the tight 4th Q. Ame is not supposed to be a saviour. In fact it seems no one is a saviour because Mr. Pike, Mr. JJ and all the others brought it are no saviours. Ame do not need to work inside, he is bigger and stonger than MoT and will get us a board or two. Why you think Ming was benched? Pardon me but I think it is stupid that Ame is not playing. Willis, at 40, was not a saviour but he finished of Ming tonight. I find it very funny that JVG could feel comfortable using scrubs like Ford and Braggs but cannot find a way to use the size and bulk of Ame. Play the man, that is all I am saying. He can set screens, can't he. He can get a rebound. Why dick around with Padgett? Why? JJ is a pontificator. Talk talk talk. Lay down the law. Do not tell me that JVG is convinced and commited to the idea of running and the players would not. Is this a joke? Clearly JVG is nonchalant about running despite what he says. If you want them to run and they are not running you call a blased timeout and bench who you have to bench. You mean all of a sudden, Mobes and Wink do not want to run? These are the same guys who live for the highlight on Sportcenter? Codell you think that this team just out of the blue decided to play ugly basketball on their own while the new coach is the master of ugly basketball. You kidding right? All of a sudden? This is JVG's game plan. He shortens the rotation, expends a tremendous amount of resources on the defense and then you expect pretty and clean offensive execution after the defense of the Spurs is allowed to set up and wait for you. Are we expecting miracles? The game plan sucks. Sooner or later he will have to start sacrifice some on the defense to improve the offense and bring in some more resources. JVG is not clueless; stubborn but not clueless. I still believe the departure of Posey, Hawk and Tmo is not consistent with a team that was going to be so overwhelmingly reliant on defense. At least those guys could put the ball on the floor and get a foul, for christsakes.
Macbeth, another killer is the number of undersized players we have who have to do a lot just to make up. Typically you will always come out behind. I would have kept Cato in, simple. He was doing a bang up job in the game both containing Duncan and on the boards. If you needed MoT, bring him in for JJ. Cato may not have a jumpshot but he can be pretty disruptive to a defense like when he floored Gino. It may have been a foul but you get my point. You want to keep Mot away from Duncan and force Bowen to guard him in the post. If he cannot dominate there what is the use. To me the benefit of having Cato is greater than the cost. The only person I would have taken Cato out for is EG. I believe it is harder to play smart basketball when you are undersized.
Are we still a top 4 team DearRock? Mobley's playing great, and Francis is a great player.... But they can't co-exist. I find it absolutely PATHETIC how almost no one had more assists than TO's for the Rockets in this game. They just don't fit, and that's exactly what I said before the season. Now JVG's seen it, everyone else has seen it, let's do something about it. There's no way in hell we're trading Steve. The only reason Steve is playing bad is because he needs more freedom to operate and not have t share the duties with Mobley. I commend Mobley on his performances, he's absolutely stunned me so far. However, to me, it just means his value is higher and we should trade him along with Moochie for 2 other smart backcourt players. Please CD, get something done. This team NEEDS a trade. This team needs way more shooters, more smart players, and better pieces. Francis can get to the basket as well as anyone in the league, and Yao dominates the post against 95% of teams. MoT can post up or take jumpers. We need to distribute the offense around these 3. This line-up would be great: Yao MoT/Swift Battier/JJ Redd/Pike Francis We need to buil a better team, a team that has a chance at clicking consistently.
Which JVG has mentioned. But will he address it? Will CD and Les bite on a trade we might need? The one thing is, JVG can't win in the West (consistently) with a small lineup. The sort of lineup that JVG used to win (Ewing and midgets) might work East of the Mississippi but not in the rough-and-tumble West. He's constantly patching holes, trying to make up for deficiencies here and there. I still believe that we need a solid backup center (re: Battie) and an actual power forward. Cato/Boki for Eric Williams/Tony Battie would help the backup 5 and the 3 spots, if Ainge would be so inclined. Then what about the 4? Not to mention a no-defense no-brain max-contract point guard? Do we stick with this crew long enough to actually realize that we will soon be passed also by Denver, maybe even the Clippers, if Kobe escapes a prison term and bolts for the other LA team?
You have Redd listed here but yet you complain about Francis having to share the ball with Mobley. He'd have to share the ball with Redd as well; or any other SG in the NBA for that matter. The problem is right under your nose, and it stinks!
This team was playing ugly basketball long before JVG got here. Turnovers, ball movement, poor shot selection and lack of focus/aggression are what plague us on a bad night. Problem is, we'd seen that happen with Rudy T standing at the sidelines as well. There's been one constant; stupid play. And it's now progressed beyond two coaches. If the players won't listen and follow the lead, can we continue to blame coaches? Two different game plans....the same mistakes being made in both.
It's true, this team wasn't much better on offense under Rudy T. As for the Redd vs. Mobley issue, I believe Redd is more of a shooter than Mobley, by a longshot, and he would fit around both Steve and Yao. Right now, Redd is the focus of his team's offense, while over here, he'd NEVER get double teams. The guy is just a superb shooter, despite what you're already planning on showing me about Mobley's stats. Redd also doesn't require the ball in his hands, is a good rebounder, and a good passer. Basically, it's Ray Allen vs. Kobe Bryant.....They average very similar numbers, but they've got completely different styles.
JVG's biggest mistake was clock management in the last seconds of the game. We were down 5 points. If we're gonna play the "score-and-then-foul-'em" game, we should have been shooting threes. Instead, we took it to the hoop hoping they'd miss free throws. They didn't, and we ended up just swapping points with 'em. We should have set up plays for three pointers to give ourselves at least a final shot to tie. We never had that shot, though. Also - maybe we would have had time to plan a high-pick-3-pointer play if we had some timeouts, but they were all gone. Again, another mistake by JVG - he shoulda managed our timeouts better. I think he's doing great things for this team, but I think those two errors contributed greatly to our loss last night (though it wasn't entirely lost because of JVG). -- droxford
Sane player turnover we have always had and it is always an option. However, I do not see why we should be looking at player turnover when we have not done some of the other things first and remember we have had player turnover already. We brought in JJ, Pike and AD and took out Rice, Posey, Hawk, Tmo. In July you give me that option I would say you are not going to be any better offensively because your biggest weakness is early offense and fast breaking. Change all the players you want if you do not run you are making things hard on yourself. I do not care what is said, there is no commitment to the run. If you had doubts about our pgs running they could have brought in Daniels or a well known available passing pg. Heck Strickland was available. No, instead they when and got Pike and JJ, two guys who should only play the 3 on a part-time basis. Not only are they undersized they are not the best cutters, slashers, passers or finishers. As I pointed out in another post, we are 7-10 fg percentage worst that the big teams in the west in the close to midrange shooting game. That is a direct result of no running and early offense. You do not have to move anyone to get early offense and to get fast breaks. The attention and commitment has been to the defense and to get Ming to dominant. JVG has pontificated about the need for balance even telling MoT that he does not want to be known as an offensive player. Well hello, Mr JVG, your team is only a defensive team. Put some serious attention to getting the fast breaks and early offense going. It is glaring that Ming does not have the physical or mental composition for you to be so reliant on him. Look at his shoulders, look at his hands. At best you are going to need an extended period to get Ming up to that stage. In the meantime are we going to let SF just stagnate. You bench Ming for poor boxing out and then he comes back and, on que, goes and give away a rebound and basket on a missed FT. After looking at all the tapes, JVG came away saying we need better jump shooters. He did not say run more, early offense, or more athletic high flying types. He said jump shooters and went out and got jump shooters. So there you have it. It was the wrong diagnosis and hence the problems are not fixed and you have already let Posey go. I am not for player turnover. Trying to get EG back will be infinitely easier that trying any other alternative. Refocus on the early offense game and fast breaking. Ming is making progress but we are and may continue to pay too much of a price. The result was never to gain Ming and lose SF.
FYI, this thread was not about Saturday's Spurs game. It was about Thursday's game. Another reason why we have a game thread and why more descriptive titles rock.
Didnt Cato get hurt after that block? I saw him on the bench during the game so it couldnt have been that bad.
