Man Francis was looking like Mario Elie tonight with those clutch shots and hustle. Whatever got into Francis tonight I hope it stays in him for a long time. I think tonights game was a good example of how much this team needs both Yao and Francis to play well. Lets hope we see more of this.
I know Francis and Cassell are good buddies that partially own a clothing line they established. Perhaps it was inspiration to play against Cassell. Steve with a Cassell midrange and perimeter jumpshot would be fantastic
If only our backcourt could play like this EVERY night. Damn they were good. Our subs did a fantastic job too. Yao was incredible. It was great to see Stevie back to his old self, highlight reel.
He quit playing defense to focus on his offense, so his jumper was better but his turnovers were not reduced.
Steve is playing more team game recently. Now if he can take better care of ball and shoot better,Rockets should be in good shape.
I can understand this if Stevie had played against some scrub PG and got lit up. But Sam Cassell is arguably the best point guard in the west this year.
If he needs to play less defense to shoot jumpers, that's a compromise the team can live with. Maybe Van Gundy can use Mobley on the primary scoring guard from now on whether it is the point or the 2. Take the Mavericks for example. Steve would expend much less energy having to defend Finley who hangs around the 3 point line rather than trying to chase Nash around.
Not to put a little dirt on Francis's sparkling performance he was outplayed for awhile by backup PG Troy Hudson. Of course his heroics in the 4th more than made up for that.
I think Steve just wants to be better. Cassell outplayed him last game and he just wanted to measure himself again. I think he's finally realizing the power of the turnover and the power of passing to the MAN who takes less shots but has a higher scoring average. I've seen times when he gets on Yao to lead or ask for the ball or rebound the ball instead of poking it...so he seems to be encouraging teammates as well...
I would gladly give up steve francis' defense in order for him to score 20+ a game. We have Cato and Yao to clean up his mistakes.
Steve Francis has never been the problem. He's a really fantastic player who has been dealing with a tough situation. But I think the future can be bright with both Francis and Yao. Most of his career, Steve's been the guy on the hook, the "Franchise". Yao wasn't prepared to lead the "Dynasty" when he entered the league, and he's still not quite there yet although he's made pretty remarkable progress this past season. On top of that, the Rockets' organization and fans have been expecting the team to make the playoffs each of the past two seasons. So Steve has been struggling with his own (and the team's and fans') expectations of leading this team into the playoffs while everybody's been yelling at him to give Yao the ball. It'd have been easy for Francis if Yao started his rookie campaign the monster that he's become recently. But he didn't. He gave up lots of turnovers and he couldn't compete with the big boys on a regular basis for most of his NBA career. So Francis has been struggling to reconcile winning with developing Yao. That's a tough balance for anybody, and I think it's what's caused most of the perceptions about how Francis and Yao don't mix. Now that both Yao and Steve are prepared to have the ball in their hands at the end of games, we need to start measuring their development together going forward. As tough as it sounds, let's forget about the past and judge these guys starting today.
