VSPAN could barely contain himself on the Bench !!

When you have a big lead, and when the shooters start to cool off, put in Novak. He might put a dagger that kill the opponent's fight. He might revive the shooting. Shooting is contagious.

When the team is running scared, and when the team is hanging their head, put in Spanoulis. He might re-energize the team. He might get the hustling spirit back. Hustling and morale is contagious.

We don't know if playing the rookies would help. The chances of them not helping is probably more than them helping--in normal times. So I understand what JVG is doing.

BUT, sometimes you need to take risk. Sometimes you need to exploit some psychological factors. JVG is a good disciplinary, hard nose, fundamentally sound coach. But he doesn't take risk. And he doesn't understand psychological factors.

 

Good post - I agree. Like I said before Gundy is the Marty Shottenheimer of the NBA - good fundamental teacher, picks good fundamental players, then he always went into Prevent Defenses vs Elway, etc. in the 4th quarter and the only thing it prevented was victory.

So perhaps Mr. Van Gundy should look at himself if he wishes to see why his team is so conservative, so fundamental, so BORING, so lacking in passion.

Other teams blitz us - like the Spurs 2nd team did in the 3rd quarter - double teaming the point guard, trapping, trying to disrupt our movements. We never seem to do that to another team. We just let the Chris Paul's and the Michael Redd's go on and on having a big quarter and pulling their team back into the game.

Not only did the team not want it enough but it sure seems like the coach didn't want it enough either.

There have been lots of complaints over his tenure here that he does not adjust his gameplan to the circumstances of the game at hand. Seems like it just happened again.

 

He'll come in soon,and play a big role.

 

you guys don't remember last season...the same thing happened with all our rookies...it takes time under JVG, thats how he is, Spanoulis even said it, he understands that playing time goes by seniority...this is Howards last season, he will get big time minutes....Luther and Hayes earned their minutes...they only played last season because of the injuries that happaned...I believe VSpan will get some playing time, but its going to be really limited...... but if Alston get injured, I could see him playing all 4 quarters...

If VSpan lasts till next season, he will be our first option, but thats an "if", It's really up to him, if he's patient enough he will be a starter

 

I just love VSpan!
Please let him play!!!

 

I guess the biggest season why rox lost that game vs spurs was JVG lack of adjustments. with Rox up by 19 pts, JVG should of rest some of his players and keep them fresh in the 4th quarter.

JVg should know a game vs Spurs is a no easy task. Specially when Yao starting to show he's a bit exhausted. T-mac is back to his shooting slump.

Have tmac play the point, and bring in fresh legs like vspan, or wells/novak.

instead they were either benched or inactive.

Look how pop did it with his team, his starters aren't playing with heart he benched them and brought in the scrabs.

 

It wasn't boring for me when we soared to nearly a 20 point lead. It wasn't boring for me when we soared to a 20 point lead over Miami. Was Dallas boring?

Those are just recent...we weren't boring when somewhat healthy the season before last and made an impressive run into the playoffs.

JVG personally isn't exciting? Why care?

Defense can often be boring and in a new season a heavily-coached team can struggle at times as they try to develop chemistry while implementing the system. That's the price you pay for going into the post season prepared. This squad has shown some serious potential ... earlier than in prior seasons. I expect them to improve greatly and deliver all the excitement you can handle. Some of the street-ball teams with limited discipline and defense can even do well this time of year, but by the end of the season they can get shut down by the disciplined teams with defense (a prime example being the Spurs).

btw, criticising JVG on defense? you've got to be kidding....

 

I enjoy reading the Monday-morning quarterbacks.

Are you sure he didn't rest the players? Should he have been resting his starters when SA starts making a run?

The entire team was in a slump. TMac shot 4-7 from long distance, and was shooting worse than 40% in his slump. And iirc, Yao did get a breather during the Spurs surge, did he not? Yao played more than 2 minutes less than he did against Miami. If JVG kept him off the court more, many here would question why our best offensive weapon would be on the bench.

I would give anyone credit here that made such reuqest before problems develop. When I see someone either in the game thread or chat saying, when we're up by 19, 'we're going to start rimming them out and all our starters will continue to miss almost all of the next 20 or so shots... we should pull our starters because our bench will do so much better'.

I don't argue against some adjustments, but to make it sound so simple after the fact is ridiculously misleading. Our starters need to be able to defend a 19-point lead. Shots were in and out...one after another. And for new players to this team, when we're trying to slow another team's surge you want to weaken our defense by throwing someone on the court that is not fully efective within our defense?

As for Pop's 'strategy'... when his team is getting whupped he often pulls his starters late and let's them rest. If his second squad can make a run, that's prob a bonus for him but I've seen a number of games where he sits Parker, Duncan and/or Manu and they lose. It's not a panacea to pull your starters when you're getting whupped.

 

No, but it sends a good message to your starters about what is expected of them.

The Rockets starters quit during that game, they got complacent, and then they backed down from a fight (challenge) and that is simply not acceptable.

DD

 

Yeah, and if he had rested guys and we still lost the lead, you would be saying, well he should have kept the guys in that got us the 19 point lead.

We lost because our offense and rebounding was faulty from the get go. We were simply relying on McGrady's solo jobs in the first half and that got us up big. It was overcoming the glaring weakness we have when Juwan is on the floor, that is defenders sagging off him to help on Yao. We lost because Yao shot 7 for 21 and couldn't get a shot off or even dribble without 2 Spurs on him before he put the ball on the floor. We lost because we got killed on the glass. Had nothing to do with guys getting rest or not. Poor offensive execution and rebounding.

 

And who are you the Thursday-morning waterboy?

People have been b****ing about Van Gundy for years and the biggest b**** is his inability to adjust. A 20 point lead lost and he does nothing. As you said yourself the entire team was in a slump... so do something about it, call a timeout, make a switch, have a lifesaver! But NO! Van Gundy only sees a plan that must be executed to the end regardless of the circumstances. It's a major flaw in his coaching and you have to be an idiot not to see that!

 

That's probably true. But at least it would give us something else to whine about the coach for a change.

 

I think JVG is waiting on an easy game where we can blowup a team by 25 points in the 4th quarter and when the opponent puts all the starters on the bench, but guess what!!! this game will never come any time soon as all the teams are pretty good and will fight you till the end.

 

I agree, JVG should atlease try him out in different spots in the game...a few minutes here and there to see what he can do....he can't mess up that bad and if he does, then you can pull him...he deserves some playing time to prove what he can do...even if its only 5-10 mintues, lets see what he can do...I don't get why he can't get off the bench....I think Novak needs to see a few minutes too....otherwse come playoffotime if we need them, they will be making rookie mistakes when it really counts instead of now...

 

How did this get to 115 replies.

 

Ok, I thought we were 5-3. Why is everyone talking like we are 0-5? We lose ONE game against a great team like the Spurs and all of a sudden we need to make drastic changes? If our starters couldn't contain the spurs, what makes you think V-Span and Novak would have changed the outcome?

Nobody in their right mind would have given two rookies playing time that late into the game, esp. with the opposing team making a rally. Two fresh bodies who haven't played all game are thrown into a very important deciding 4th quarter? That is not good coaching strategy.

Our inability to score in the 4th wasn't our only problem. Our defense fell asleep after our huge lead and the Spurs took advantage. The players deserve more blame for losing this game than JVG. And I don't wanna hear any crap about, "Oh the players were tired, JVG should have rested them when up 20!". That's just another lame excuse. These are NBA players that get paid to play. It wasn't like this was an overtime game, they all played about the same minutes they've played these past games.

I swear, it seems like fans rather see us do poorly. Kind of like how the Texans win but fans only want to talk about the negatives. We are 5-3 and people are still whining and complaining. 74 GAMES LEFT, theres too much time left in the season, no reason to cry and moan about why are rookies aren't playing 8 games into the season while we have a winning record.

 

You have to be an idiot to not understand the concept of hindsight.

Our shots went in and came back out. After that happened about 5 times, did you think it would really happen 5 more times? After ten, did you really expect 15?

Those are our starters. If they were not hustling you pull them, but if JVG felt that they were hustling and getting good shots off... yet just getting beat by a good team on a roll, does it freaking help to throw all of your second stringers at their first? And you're so willing to sacrifice defense for offense? A rookie mistake.

No NBA team ever won all it's games... and we'll certainly lose many more so instead of being so d*mn quick to b**** and whine and point fingers with every loss, why not try to determine what really happened and what this team (and coaching staff) may have learned from it. I'm sure JVG would be the first to admit he's not perfect, but neither are any of our players or any of our fans.

JVG has proven his worth. The year before last we had about the best win % down the stretch. Last year he formed a bunch of bench players into one of the best defenses in the league. This year, a retooled team has already shown flashes of brilliance even with a sluggish TMac and Wells MIA.

JVG is far from stupid.

 

Are you sure they quit? Or did it look that way because of what the other team... a very good, veteran one... started doing?

Were we taking good shots ... which just failed to drop?

Coaches have different appraoches and different approaches with diffferent teams. With a team trying to find it's identity in an early-season game, do you yank your first stringers at the first time of trouble or do you let them mature into a team that can weather the storm...and let's not act like the Spurs in the 4th quarter is a normal storm.

I believe that JVG rightly sees putting a rook in at this point of the season can seriously jeopardize the defense... will anyone disagree? Now I experienced the torment of that game as you did, and at the time I also felt that he needed to do something to shake our offense out of it's funk, but if JVG's approach win 4 out of 5 games and mine only wins 2 out of 5, I'll go with his.

People acting like he needs to prove anything to us are mistaken. Much of this board has a short term memory and point-the-funger approach and it's not at all helpful to a constructive, ctricial analysis of our team.