JVG seems have the habit of screwing up his guards, seeing him playing Head as a PG and Bill as a SG is making me sick.
NewYorker for 2 and the foul. Absolutely correct. Vspan should not be seeing more than 20 mins a game. Anything over 20 mins and you risk exposing his weaknesses. Alston is the man unless he puts together a series of bad 4th Q and then JVG will go in another direction. Also, on the thought that Vspan is not utilized correctly. If the ball is in Vspan's hand then its out of the Rocket's two best player's hands. Vspan will produce just fine playing off the ball and attacking the rim when the defenses breakdown from double teaming Yao or TMac. His pick-n-roll game is pretty, but lets make sure that he can handle all his other assignments (defensively and offensively) before we start running plays for him.
While I'm concern about JVG's offensive schemes to get Yao involve in the 4th quarter, when the opposition are denying the post pass, it is Tracy Mcgrady that I am most concerned about. While keeping in mind that it is but 10 games into the season & that he is a notoroiusly slow starter, I'm concern about his scoring. Whats most disconcerting is his "lost step" taking bad shots and tendency to drift to the perimeter. On the bright side, he has continued to be a great distributer, decisionmaker and playmaker. While I think Mcgrady will round into his usual superstar form by or after the all star break, the truth of the matter is he IS NOT playing like a Star right now, let alone a SUPERSTAR. But despite that his numbers and impact on the game has been pedestrian, the Rockets are 8-4 and winning. Which is why IMO there isnt a real need to panic or be concern about the Rockets seeming inability to hold leads or win "easily". Its seems to me the problem right now is scoring consistently Especially when teams are successful at denying Yao. It effectively shuts down our offense by shutting down the one player on our team who IS playing like a superstar. By doing so the opposition has been able to get back into the game, but when Tracy is back I doubt we will see the continued collapses or the consistently long moments of offensive stagnancy. The Rockets being 8-4 despite T-mac only avg 19pt, shooting 41% and 29% from 3 point land is a reflection of how good the team can and hopefully will be. Once his effectiveness, efficiency and scoring increases, the problems wont consistently be due to Alston or Head or V-Span playing but rather to how great the opponent plays that night.
i'm goinga be laughing when the summer comes and new york offers JVG a 10 million dollar a year contract.
I'm quite critical of Rafer (check my posts history), but tonight he played will within his game. He played very good defense (relative to his normal defense) and he did not have any turnovers (he usually has 2 or 3). Rafer only took 3 bad shots in my opinion (TMac took 4 bad shots). People need to step back from Rafer. I'm usually a Rafer "Hater", but this is not the game to be hating on him. Sure, Rafer missed some wide open 3's, but I'll take 4 for 9 on wide open 3's all the time. People are saying Rafer was wrong for driving, but that's what the defense gave. I agree that he failed to get the entry pass into Yao many times in the 4th, but the Wizards defense was a big reason for that. They gave him huge openings to the lane. Most of y'all would be loving VSpan for taking an opening to the lane. So Rafer missed layups, and I agree that he NEEDS to improve on finishing inside. Last year Rafer was quite good at finishing inside shooting 51% in there, but this year he's at a terrible 36% in there. But the point is those were good shots to take. When TMac gets doubled and kicks to you wide open, you take the shot. When you have the ball and your man sags to Yao, you take the drive. I'm no great fan of Jeff Van Gundy, but no way in Hell do I put in VSpan at the end of this game. VSpan was a solid 2/3 from 3pt land, and I thank him for that, but it would be foolish to think VSpan is as reliable from 3pt land as Rafer or Luther. In the 4th quarter, the Rockets played the right way on offense. TMac and Yao found open players or their presence got open shots for players. That's all you can ask for as a coach. If Novak is seasoned, maybe Novak could be an alternative in the future. 4th quarter touches Yao got 7 entry touches in the 4th quarter. He shot 2 for 4, got fouled and went the the line, and turned it over twice. 7 entry touches is fine. Luther Head went 0 for 2 on wide open jumpers and also committed 2 turnovers, before getting fouled for 3fts and hitting that big 3 on back-to-back possessions TMac went 0 for 2 in the fourth but continually found the open man and directly contributed to the 2 huge 3's by Head and Rafer Shane played solid D. He got 1 iso and made a drive, and missed an open 3pter. I love Shane, but he is now officially in a 3pt shooting slump. In an earlier analysis I wrote that Shane needs to shoot around 40% from 3ball land, and he started out a smoking 43.5% on 3tper in his first 4 games, but now is only shooting a terrible 25.9% from 3pt land in the last 8 games. In this offense, Shane will get 3 or 4 open treys every game, and he needs to start hitting 1 one night and then 2 the next night to get his average up, but he's only been hitting 1 and then crapping an 0fer tonight from 3ball land. VSpan missed a 3 in the 4th with the clock running down Rafer was 0 for 4 at first(2 shots with the shotclock running down) and they were good shots. The lane was open on the 2 drives and his 2 jumpers were open too. Rafer played solid as he is capable of on defense, and then nailed the clutch 3. So the Rockets only took 17 shots in the 4th. Yao had 4, Tmac had 2, Span had 1, Head had 3, Shane had 2 and Rafer had 5. Head also got to the line once on shooting, and Yao did too. If it wasn't for the 6 turnovers committed by the Rockets in the 4th (Yao with 2, Head with 2, and Jho and Mac with 1 each), they could have taken more shots. Point is they went inside to Yao as much as they could in the 4th and Washington was keying in on trying to prevent that. Everyone was taking good shots, but everyone was just ice cold bricking Wide Open jumpers. Rafer missed, but so did everyone else. Thank goodness Rafer and Head hit them at the end. But this isn't Van Gundy's fault. Span wouldn't be a smart substitution because TMac and Yao were making plays. The Rockets weren't needing a play maker. Their offense wasn't being dumb. They just needed someone to hit an open jumper. And finally it happened. So again, I no likey Van Gundy much, nor Rafer, but this game is not the game to be critical of them. Just my humble opinion.
I get tired of them too. While i do understand fan's desire to play vspan, jvg is making him earn playing time. the more eager v-span gets, the harder he practices and the better he gets. He also gets to observe, and learn from watching the game. If v-span can see what raefer is doing wrong, then he knows exactly what to do right in order to earn more playing time. Bash jvg all you want, hes our coach. I dont see enough praise for our wins, as much as I do the scorn for the losses. If we beat dallas by 30, its the players that won the game. If we blow a 4th quarter lead and win by 3, then rip jvg to shreads...
Good points. Tmac needs time to adjust too. Like he said, it was crazy for him to grasp when he only scored 13 pts and Rockets still won. Right now he is a little too unselfish at times and yet to find out a effective way to kill opposing teams under the new Yao centric offense. His confidence is also low right now. Did you notice the long look on his face after he missed two FTs? Same look at the line in Knick game.
LOL i was about to write tehe same thing about your detail analysis! Regarding shane battier, I completely agree. Without Bonzi and with T-mac struggling abit, battier needs to be a bigger contributer on the offensive end. Perhaps we need Mike Krzyzewski to give him those calls agains, where he ask asked him if he can be a 20 point scorer and keeps hanging up on him. (not that he has to score 20 for the rockets)
crazy.... Anyone watched the game? Spanoulis was fantastic, and his defense was great until late in the third and early in the 4th. He was playing in your face defense, but Arenas started driving the ball in on him and passing it off for easy shots 2 possessions in a roll. That's when the change was made. The shots for the Rockets were all wide open shots, but we missed em. The wizards did not get too many easy shots, except for the turnover layups that got it within 1. The shots that they took when we were up 1 were all challenged shots out of the shooter's range. The defense was phenomenal and the crowd on sections 114 was GREAT!
Also, as happy as I am that Spanoulis's shots were going in, his set on the offense still bothers me. He was afraid to shoot the ball for the most part and was late in passing the ball on double teams allowing the defensive rotations to come back. One of them caused a turnover that was costly in my opinion. Overall, a great game and he gave the crowd a spark. However, he just isn't comfortable out there.
u know jvg cannot be blamed for a horrendous mcgrady. my optimism and everyone's on the rockets are really bad because ,cgrady frankly sucks!
Padgett is here more because of his familiarity with JVG and the Rockets system then anything else. I would think JVG wants Novak to model his game after Padgett. I have no idea when Novak will get anything beyond gabage time, but I would assume it's going to be in December or perhaps January at the latest.
Billy played well tonight but he could do better if given more chance. Sooner or later, you will know he is the most trusted guard down the stretch. Alston's playing time will decline for sure. He enjoys shooting his own rather than passing the ball around. 4.2 APG in 37.2 PPG? Probably the worst of all starting PG in NBA. And Cowboys is your fav team?
Actually I understand people like JVG, because I'm one of them. He works extremely hard, studies every detail before games, does his homework 10x more than what's needed, and he is extremely prepared come game time. BUT, when there is a change in the game - such as when the opposing coach changes his usual lineup or comes up with a new improvised game plan when they are trailing us by many points - JVG becomes lost. Why? Because when the opposing team is trailing us by 20 points, their coach kinda gives up a bit. Under such circumstances, the opposing coach usually will throw out a completely abnormal lineup and game style, since his normal strategy is not working. Now that's when we collapse because JVG doesn't know how to react. That's why we blow our leads. People like JVG can't improvise. Unless he has totally given up on a game (we trailing by 30 points), JVG is not capable of completely unleashing a rookie when all other means seem to have failed. All that go against the very fundamental of his coaching philosophy and his human character. He just can't do it. In his mind, he thinks (he 100% believes) that if he plays a rookie or try something new, it's a guaranteed failure simple because that's not in his original well-prepared plan. If you are too prepared for something, you are not prepared for anything different from that thing.
