As another post discussed, JVG is definitely not the coach of the year, not even close. I am always sick of his postgame quote. This one after the loss to Suns made me angry. He had used six or so "inexcusables", hardly one is for himself. What was the main reason that we lost? Simple. Because we could not break the half court trap. Why we cannot break it? Because the floor spacing of front court players were bad, so the guards were worried about turnovers and were too conservative (as Yao said after the game" in pushing the ball up to the front court. Anyone noticed that JVG did not timeout much as he usually does during the second quarter when Suns were making a run, he simply did not know what to call to the players. Remember he usually calls every play (which kills creative players). Damn he critisize the players after the loss. Someone tell him to shut up critisizing attitute, mental letdown, overlook, bla bla bla... and really watch up improving his bball coaching skills. Yes. Defense win championship. But you have to have decent offense first. Remember the Rox-Spur games this season? Our offense was awful. JVG likes to call every play, but he does not know how to play offense. Now, CAN WE HAVE AN ASSISTANT COACH FOR OFFENSE? Don Nelson is offense-oriented, so he hired somebody to take care the defense. Should we learn from them and hire somebody for offense? I like to hear yours.
POSTGAME QUOTES MARCH 15, 2004 http://www.nba.com/rockets/news/quotes040315.html -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ROCKETS COACH JEFF VAN GUNDY On why the Suns halfcourt trap was so disruptive: "I don’t know; it shouldn’t be." On how damaging it is to lose a 21-point lead at home: "We were ready to play, we got off to a good start, it’s a long game. Let’s face it, we played awful. After the first quarter, we played awful. We played awful at the end when we needed our best. It’s inexcusable up five, it’s just inexcusable what happened. You know, I’ve got to do a better job of coaching so we play every night and every minute. It’s just frustrating that we re-visit turnovers." On the defense on Joe Johnson on the game-winning shot: "We didn’t get that stop, we didn’t get the stop before on the little drop-off pass. You have to be able to be tough and make those plays. The ball’s loose, but the game was lost so many places. It was lost in the second quarter, it was lost in the third quarter with our horrendous third quarter. We get up one in the overtime; you can name probably 10 times where the game was lost, so I don’t want to put it onto any one thing." On Yao Ming’s fourth quarter performance: "We’re trying to segment into one guy, or this guy or that guy. When you lose, it doesn’t matter, nothing matters. We’ve got to get away from individual play. It’s do you do enough to help your team win and we had chances to finish a game. Up five, then miss a shot, we don’t rebound, touch foul, could have been a three-point play which is inexcusable. Then we miss, bad possession and then we were up, we throw an out of bounds pass away. I mean, you could go with a litany of reasons again. "So I don’t want to single anyone out because we can all do more, and we need to do more and that is just a bad loss. You can get all these quotes, but it’s just an awful loss. It was poorly played after the first quarter and we have to try … not try, we have to … not let it have a hangover and come back. We’ve got 11 of 16 on the road and that’s why this game was so crucial. Unfortunately, we didn’t treat it that way after the first quarter." On what this game says about the team: "I’m not trying to make a statement; I’m just saying it’s inexcusable. I mean, it is. It’s inexcusable to coach that way and have your team so utterly just obviously not where they should be. I mean not to have them be able to even guard a defensive-supposed team with a defense-supposed coach. Not to have a guy or me to be able to get us to stop three-point shots. That’s inexcusable from a coaching standpoint. It’s inexcusable."
Some of you guys are really reaching. It was one freakin' loss! It happens to the best of teams. It happened to the world champs a few nights ago. Last time I checked, this loss didn't eliminate us from the playoffs. From reading the GARM the last few days, you would think it did...
Damn that "inexcusable" thing got old fast, he used it like 20 times. We get it, it was inexcusable get over it! I think he puts down his team more than hypes them up. Rudy T would only hype them up & JVG only putts them down, we need some middle ground damit. I remember when he said we were playing w/ no heart and that pissed of steve/cat/Mo T. ect. pretty bad, now that to me is "inexcusable"
We haven't made the playoffs in 5 years, we are 7th this season, we constantly lose to teams we shouldn't and our longest win streak in the past 4+ years is five games. Why should they be hyped up again? The loss against the Suns was inexcusable - I'm sure he said it so many times to ensure he wasn't going to hear any excuses at practice the next day and to get the team to oevnetually realize they have to play harder and better all the time.
A good coach knows that you need to both build up and tear down, one without the other is useless. The great coaches know when it is the right time to do either one.
Is it me, or does JVG talk funny? Maybe it doesn't translate well to the written word because I haven't noticed him sounding like a complete moron when he's being interviewed live......but then again, I haven't really heard him much, and I never paid much attention to him between coaching jobs. But it sure sounds like he has a strange way of speaking when he's frustrated. While we're "reaching," I wonder if this affects his ability to communicate with players.
JVG tells it like it is. When we lose a game we shoulda won, he's upset. When we win a game by sheer luck, he talks about our need to improve. When we execute and play well, he points it out. I respect his straight-forward approach.
Thanks for pointing that out. I think that pretty much invalidates the point of this thread, which is JVG only blames players and not himself. UNTRUE!
I'm right with you, Toast. Bottom line, the Rox took a collective **** the other night. He didn't say that it was the end of the world. But let's face it, weak efforts and mindless play like that will make very little noise in the playoffs. It is in fact inexcuseable for a team to constantly beat itself. I'm sure JVG would own up to a team just beating us, but I tend to think that more often than not, the Rox make mistakes to give away games. Even against the powerhouses of the NBA, our team can hold it's own and go tit-for-tat with it all boiling down to whether we're commiting turnovers or not passing the ball. What praise could honestly be offered after a performance like that? The TC crowd felt it, Coach felt it, and all of us fans felt it ... The sentiment nowadays is not a feeling of us just not having a good enough team to win ... It's more of a "WTF, why is such a good team playing so terribly?" type of feeling. Alas, hopefully it was just a blip on the radar. On to the next game. Let's go Rox.
He is a horrible interview, but has great speaking skills. I was actullay very impressed with his commentating ability when he was broadcasting NBA games (TNT?)
