Eddie Griffin was just horrible! He stood flat-footed and watched other people rebound. His shot selection sucked. He had very little defensive presence and just flat out looked disinterested all night. Why does Eddie continue to stand around and watch other people rebound. He looked like a girl tonight and I don’t remember the last time I was so disappointed in one player’s performance. He gets a big ole F for tonight’s game. Eddie appears to have gone to the Shawn Bradley big man camp this summer. Cat just did not look like Cat to me. He finished with good numbers but he just did not seem to do a good job of attacking the basket. I can’t explain it but for someone that finished with 22 and shot just a little less than 50% Cat sure looked like a no show. I wish I could explain it but I cant. Steve just plain dominated the ball tonight. He tried to get the ball to his teammates in the 1st quarter but then played as if they were not there the rest of the night. He seemed to just go down and shoot almost every time he touched the ball. There were several times he could have passed the ball to a teammate with a much higher percentage shot but chose to keep it himself. One play where he should have passed the ball was when Cato blocked a shot and then followed Steve down the court on the fast break. Jermain Oneal left Cato alone to defend Steve giving Cato an uncontested slam had Steve chosen to pass the ball. Of course Steve kept the ball, missed the shot and Indiana ended up getting the ball back with out Houston getting any points out of that possession. He scored a lot of points and hit a high percentage of his shots but I see him as one of the primary reasons the Rockets lost tonight. Moochie just seemed lost to me. Dribble, Dribble, Dribble shoot miss. Enough said on that. Boki and Hawkins both looked good from what I could tell. Even Boki seemed to be willing to play some defense. No one other than Yao will pass Boki the ball. Yao passed him the ball and Boki rewarded Yao with his first NBA assist although it does not show up on ESPN. Yao did not have a good game. He better start rebounding and getting some elevation on his jumps or he is going to get scored on a ton. Cato was the real surprise of the team tonight. He had a ton of rebounds and 2 or 3 blocks. His offense is no different but this was basically the Kelvin Cato we all expected after he signed that contract a few years ago. The 5-man offense sucked tonight. If Francis is going to continue to play as a one man offense all year then we need to go back to the clear outs where everyone plants themselves on the opposite side of the court. With the five-man offense Steve just has more people that can help defend him as he ignores the rest of the team. Its nice to see people moving with out the ball but it is depressing to see Steve continue to play as if they are running ISO’s. If Eddie does not make major improvements in his game then there is little doubt that MoT will be starting again after the next 4 games. I will be thrilled to when KT is back in action since maybe Steve will be willing to pass him the damn ball. Also the Rockets need to pass the ball with authority and not like they are afraid that they will break someone’s nails if the pass to hard.
This is the most honest assessment I've heard all night. The team failed as a whole. I posted some stuff that made me sound negative against Steve, but really I'm not. He had a great personal game. But for all the rest out there who read Crash's post, you can't argue with the truth.
rudy T should have left yao out there...this was a HUGE event for like 300 million ppl across the globe...atleast make it memorable for em!!
I'm not worried about Eddie, I mean, the kid is still like the youngest guy to be wearing a Rockets uniform at 19. I'm not worried about Francis. Not Mobley nor Moochie - Mo T nor T Mo - KT nor Cato Seriously, if the Rockets lost by 30 but Yao looked decent, I'd be more at ease then this. Because really, who cares if these guys can't play well as a team and don't pass the ball and jack it up...they are YOUNG...they are SUPPOSED TO SUCK until they get older and go...wait, we're sick of losing, let's try winning. Right now they just talk the talk, but we all know they just don't give a damn about winning, at least not at the expense of their own personal stats. And that's ok...no big deal. Here's what really worries me: "Yao, the top overall pick in the June draft, entered to begin the second quarter and Jonathan Bender went right at him for an easy basket. The 7-5 Chinese rookie pulled down his first rebound with 8:45 left in the half and later had an assist to fellow first-rounder Bostjan Nachbar. Otherwise, Yao was a non-factor on offense, showing little willingness to aggressively post up. The Pacers opted to isolate O'Neal on Yao, and the All-Star used his quickness to exploit him. O'Neal drew a foul on one possession and easily scored on another for a 36-31 lead with 4:41 left in the first half." Now I have heard all sorts of things like he needs time to adjust, he's new, he's tired, blah blah blah...but I've watched enough basketball to know one thing...great players show greatness the moment they step on the court. They may throw up bricks or airballs, but they don't get write-ups calling them slow and non-aggressive. That's a bad sign, and I'm beginning to think Jerry West will be wearing a pretty big smile in Graceland come Feb. It's only been one game, but geez, it's not a good sign.
Very good take on the game. I missed the first quarter and so I missed Steve's attempt at involving the team. It's great that he scored 39 but I'd rather see much more movement out there. With the dribble-dribble-dribble-shoot run back on defense offense tonight, no one but Steve and Cat could establish a game. Cato looked real good. 17 boards!
the thing that worried me about Yao is his lack of elevation he gets when he jumps and yes his lack of aggresiveness. But I will continue to give Yao a muligan for quite a while because unlike all of the other great ones Yao did not grow up playing in America nor did he have the benifet of playing against top notch college talent like other NBA greats. I will give him time to adjust and learn the offense and the speed of the game. There is just no excuse for Eddie.
I will give Yao some time. He didn't elevate, and he also looked like he was getting pushed around at both ends of the floor. He may have been scared about collecting fouls, or something I don't know. He didn't establish a good post position once, the ball came to him several times, and he passed once for an assist and made a good move to the basket though the ball was stripped. He wasn't aggressive on defense though and unable to establish any kind of position on offense. He did set a great pick for Steve on the play where Francis hurt his hip.
Crash:- The reason why Griffin was so out of the Game was because the Point Guard forgot what position he was playing! Same goes for the rest of the Team.
I don't know. Maybe it is just a knee jerk reaction but Eddie really looked bad tonight. I know he grabbed 7 boards in the second half but he is just starting to look like a Theo Ratliff starter kit. I think he is capable of so much more.
Yetti, why blame Steve when others blew wide open shots and played with no emotions. If you are going to do that then I will start giving Steve credit for getting Cato 17 rebounds.
My sentiments exactly Crash. The board is divided into 2 groups now - ones saying Francis needs to quit dominating the ball, and ones sayin "he had no1 to pass it to." People say "oh Francis would have had a couple more assists if the people he were passing to could only make shots..." Well do you think Andre Miller or Jason Kidd or even Marbury (avging 8 assists a game) get assists on EVERY SINGLE pass they make to setup a teammate? NOOOO. People miss shots. It's just a testament to their PG abilities that they can average such high numbers - MIller for instance prolly makes about 16 or 17 good setup passes every night, but he only gets 11 assists b/c people MISS shots. Of course Francis could avg. 8 or 9 assists a game if every setup pass he made resulted in a shot, but if that were the case, then MIller or Kidd would average 16 or 17 assists a game. It's a part of being a pg - you have to keep passing, you have to keep looking, and you can't start hoggin the ball when some people start missing. You can't just stop passing the ball - i dont mind if stevie takes plenty of shots but he needs to keep trying to get people involved every now and then instead of giving up after 1 quarter. That being said, hopefully the return of 2 of our 3 missin players will help in Game2, but I have a feeling that we'll still be witnessing the same ole stagnant offense again, except with a few post up plays for Kenny. I just want to see some more effort at the 5 man offense. Another thing - Injuries suck, but the Pacers WERE MISSING their starting backcourt of Tinsley and Miller. If they can overcome these things, why can't we?
It doesn't say too much when our guards go lights out on their second string backcourt and their starting PF is out, and our PF goes 1-11. Didnt O'Neal scoot over to PF because Croshere was out?
I agree about Eddie. I was really disappointed in his play. He makes just half of his shots and maybe we win. He better his act together quickly, because Mo Taylor is waiting to take his starting position. I know Eddie's Defense and reboudning are going to be better than Taylor's, but if he continues shooting this bad, there's going to be no other choice than to start Taylor.
if steve scored a career high of 39 points and rockets still lost, is it telling us something? how far can he go? and how far can rockets go?
Obviously, players miss shots. The thing is the Rockets miss more shots than most teams. The frontcourt was 5-25. That's 20%. You think Kidd or Miller are going to get many assists if his teammates shoot 5-25?
