Okay, I explained my reason in the post, and quoted again in the last post. Let me try again here. The Warriors won the game because we couldn't stop them even when we shot a better %. The reason was the fast pace of the game, and TMac/Sura/James all were quilty because they took quite a few quick shots in that game without looking for other better options. You cannot say TMac played great because he scored a lot of points, shot a high %, because you could use the same argument that since Yao shot a better %, TMac should always looks for him first.
Well, let's check out the performance of the man McGrady was responsible for guarding last night, shall we? SF M. Dunleavy: 36 Minutes, 3-10 FG, 1-5 3pts, 2-2 FT, 9 pts. So the man T-Mac was mainly responsible for guarding most night was off his game. Therefore, your point that "scoring a lot of points doesn't mean a thing if you cannot stop your opponents" is a faulty analysis. Basically, the SF matchup was completely, and utterly one-sided. However, we were heavily outplayed in the backcourt matchup, and to a lesser extent Murphy outplayed our PFs. The biggest damage was done to our backcourt: our starting guards combined for 23 points, while their backcourt (Davis, J Rich) combined for 60 points. So basically, our guards couldn't stop their guards, and couldn't knock down the open jumper when needed. I just don't understand what your exact problem with T-Mac's game last night was, considering that he was playing under the condition he was in. Heck, even if he was 100% healthy that would have still been an impressive performance. I am just asking you to enlighten us, and you come back with "just because you score a lot doesn't mean jack if you don't play defense"?!! I just debunked your faulty assertion by showing you how ineffective their starting SF was in his matchup with T-Mac. If you have some other 'problem' with his performance let me know, I am just curious, that's all.
WTH are you talking about?!!! So your only problem is that he didn't pass more to Yao so Yao can pad up his stats? What kind of reasoning is that?!!! Boy, your argument is weaker than I though it would be
QUOTE]WTH are you talking about?!!! So your only problem is that he didn't pass more to Yao so Yao can pad up his stats?[/QUOTE] I think what he meant was that taking quick shots early in the shot clock results in opposing teams getting easy transition buckets and undesired free throws opportunities.[
I haven't read the whole thread, but Yao currently plays - at best - 3/4 of the game. Plus he's regularly doubled, plus he regularly passes out, plus he has bad hands, plus he can't handle a front, plus, most important, he doesn't want the ball that bad. How many more reasons do you need to understand he's not the go-to guy yet? In his first and second seasons I desperately believed all we needed to do to win more was to put the ball in Yao's hands. Now I understand -- he doesn't want it. When he does, when he makes that transition, when he wants to be on the floor no matter what, when he demands the ball, he will have it. Do any of you think that if Yao asked for the ball as a rule, he'd be denied? I'd love for Yao to shoot more, but for that to happen he has to want it first. Neither McGrady nor Sura nor James nor JVG nor anyone else is holding him back. If he asks, the ball is his. And when he does, it will be.
...when you are not a true PG. Someone talked about SF, Cat not passing to Yao and now Sura and MJ not passing to Yao, therefore, it's Yao's faults (position, to, etc.) not the guards faults because all 4 players don't pass to him. Well, guess what? Those guys are combo guards, they cannot master the 'feeding the post' pass. It's hard and when you are not a pure PG, you can not do that consistantly. Court vision, hello? Mark Jackson knew how to pass to Yao but MJax was already too old when he was doing that. Finding a pure PG is the top priority the comming off season but pure PGs are much fewer than you think in this NBA. Everybody want to shoot because guards dominant in the games now aday. A lesser PG who can pass is what this team need. Lock him in a long term contract. Yao can make him the Jason Kidd in no time. Yao's not the 2nd most dominant 5 today for nothing. Right, we don't need JKidd. Kidd makes Jefferson look like Tim Duncan. Yao makes scrub look like Jason Kidd.
Hmmm... My understanding of him point is that the pace of the game was too fast for our defense. Low possession game will show the strength of JVG's defense scheme. Now when the game was on a fast pace, both team gave up on defense. It might be ok for the Warriors playing with no defense, Rockets need to have a good defense to win the game. Despite our guards' play, you shouldn't expect too much more than a 49% combined FG%. 49% is very good. However, JVG's defense scheme is help defense, rotation. Guarding your own assignment well did not meant that you did everything you were asked. In a fast paced game, JVG's defensive scheme collapsed.
There are 450+ players in the NBA. Yao ranks 40th in FGA's per 48 minutes. If he fouled less and had more stamina, he'd have more shots. EDIT: Yao also doesn't finish well (ie, dunk). Consequently, he is usually shooting 2 FTs instead of an "And 1". The former does not count as a FGA while the latter does. Yao ranks 13th in the league in FTA's per 48. I guess I'll just have to buy into the prevaling conspiracy theory that our perimeter players deliberately freeze Yao out.
if all of you haven't noticed, in the 4th quarter there were consecutive times down the court where Yao was in position and the person hesitated then didn't pass him the ball. In fact, for SEVERAL times during each of those sequences, he had position and didn't get the ball. It was so damn frustrating to watch. It happened like 3-4 times in a row in the offensive end, then I saw he simply just gave up for a bit.
I beg to differ. Although I am not a basketball guru, I DO know that bball game is not about 5 kids winning for a ball and who cries the loudest will get it. Yeah, he passes out, which means he doesn't want the ball. You know what, in my book, he doesn't want to force action. When he's doubled, and guards are open, he passes out back to the guards. What would he expect back then? When he fights through to get the position, he expects the ball, if he doesn't want it, why the hell does he waste all the energy to get in position? Basketball is supposed to be a game with flow, and played naturally. Same as all the other ball games, who's open, and who's getting the better opportunities, and who's hot, who WILL and SHOULD get the ball. As simple as that. Yes, Yao can't beat fronting alone. Tell me, who can? I don't remember Dream did. A combined team effort will beat the fronting by passing high-low and cutting. Tell me, how many high-low passes did you ever see Sura and James combined threw? I don't remember any of it. I saw TMac, MoT, Barry did. Yao has bad hands, of course he can't handle the balls as good as guards, of course he's no Dream, does that mean he doesn't want the ball? How many TO he averages? Combined with his shooting percentage, isn't that still much higher successful rate than 20-30% shooting? He's supposed to get deep positions, but how's it helping, that others launch a 3 in the first 10 secs in a possession? He wasted energy to get position, even without meaningful decoy effect. Long 3 causes long rebound, how's he supposed to get back on defense? I never believe there is any consipiracy against Yao. But I can't believe that some guys here don't even want to admit that our guards are combo guards, who are not very good at post-feeding and instead, blame all on Yao doesn't want the ball. Guards without a single high-low pass NOT considered weak in passing, now, that sounds more like consipiracy to me. Not our players, not the coach, not the media, but some "fair" observers.
Two times, Mike James hesitated when Yao was open for seconds. James likes take a shot not matter what. It is bad enough to see it.
The problem is, I don't understand exactly what you guys want to see: a high-tempo game with the Rockets running and gunning and making their shots, or a slow-tempo game that didn't serve us well earlier in the season (that was when teams regularly outscored us and we still played excellent defense, but couldn't hold them low enought to beat them). The slower tempo game made us lose early on, and it was only when JVG relaxed his "Knicks-style tempo" that this team took off. I vividly remember people complaining bitterly about JVG "turning the Rockets into the NY Knicks right before our eyes!" How many teams hwo we beat this year with an up-tempo, speedy game where we got more positions? I remember beating Dallas once playing that way, as well other teams. However, the Rockets usually tend to strike a happy medium (that is not playing completely up-tempo or slow-tempo game). I don't want to see the Rockets "slowing down the game" like earlier in the season and playing a limited-positions game, we all know what that resulted in. Just because you take earlier shots in the clock, it doesn't mean that you can't go back and play defense. If you want them to hold it and shoot it late with few ticks left on the clock, well, isn't that exactly JVG's system last season with SF and Cat running the show? I don't know about you, but that was some of the ugliest b-ball I ever watches, but we could still afford to play it because we had better defense than this year (for one thing we had Yao AND Cato clogging the middle, giving a lot of leverage for our guards to play aggressive defense because they know their big men are backing them up in the lane). I just don't think this "slowing down the game" would do any good, the Rockets lacked a bit on defense against the Warriors, but I think it was more of a case of B. Davis being on fire, and you know what happens when players are on fire: you can't stop them, period! (look at all the defense Utah threw at T-Mac when he was on, did it do any good?). So I think it is highly selective to take one game (versus the Warriors) and make a case for a slower-tempo game based on that. Just my two cents...
I agree with this and have been worried about it since the Spurs game when they killed us with ball movement to open shooters. Then I chalked it up to our perimeter players' tired legs but you might be right about JVG's defensive scheme being unable to adjust to crisp passing. It seems like JVG likes to send people at ball handlers to force them into bad passes or bad shots but when the ball is moving faster than defenders can keep up what happens then? Can our guards stick to their men and play straight up D or do we need to stick to help D? I wonder.
So you think it is either all offense game or all defense game? Well, some of us think that balance game will win more games in a long run. Warriors shot 48.8% FG and took 41 FT. And I don't think we can put all the blames on Wesly and James. It's a team effort and Rockets cannot CONTROL the tempo and setup defense properly because the pace of the game was too fast for their old legs.
I think you've got point there but given the injuries this team has suffered and our guards looking like they're slowing down now might be the time to make another adjustment.
tiger, you are wrong. The slow tempoed game didn't lose us games. We lost in the beginning because the team didn't gel at the time, and TMac didn't find his position in the team. Now, with him taking a leading role, roaster gelling well, we are winning more games. We are winning, because we have good defense, we have good shooter, and we have inside presense in Yao, of course, we have a super star in TMac, not to forget, we have a very good coach in JVG, all those win us games. NOT a fast, out-shooting-your-opponent-old-Dallas-light style. It doesn't matter how many points you score absolutely, it only matters that how many points you score MORE than your opponents. Atlanta Hawks always score in the 100, 110 range, but they hardly win games, why? No defense, and the opponents will just score more. When you launch a quick 3 in the first 10 seconds, you basically cancell Yao's effect at offensive end, and if the shot is not falling, with long rebounds, and fast-pushing by opponents, you cancell Yao at the defensive end. No matter how good or bad is at both end, you just can't afford to play 4 against 5. That's why there are so many fouls, because your defense didn't get a chance to set. People based that on a single game? NO. Look back every game thread, not too many people have problem with open shots, but not too many were happy with quick 3s either, and NONE of the commentators disagreed. Those shots can be had ALL the time, that's why you want better options, not necessary Yao, but better options. After a win, people would say what do you complain about after such a great win; after a loss, people would say that you are just irrational, fair-weather fan, who wants to turn the system after a single game. No, actually, the only complain is about shot selections. A missed shot is not a Turnover; however, a low percentage shot and missed on the end, has similar effect as a TO. Nobody wants to see a slow-tempo game for the sake of slow tempo, people want to see better shot selections. That's about it. Nothing more, nothing less.
The ideal solution would be 5 individual excellent defensive players stay in a zone But no team can afford that. All I can hope is that we adjust from team to team, and do a lot help defense.
May be you forgot that the only complain early on in the season was almost ALWAYS about how the Rockets were simply unable to score, and analysts like Kenny Smith and others were saying that this limited positions game was hurting the Rockets, and they were right on the money. When JVG changed his style a bit, our season took off. Yes, there were other factors of course, but I think that was the biggest one. The Rockets don't always fair well in a slow-it-down, grind-it-out game, I think striking a happy medium between both styles is the way to go, and making adjustments according to how opponents play. I did already mention that in my previous post, but may be you didn't see it:
You are right about they were unable to score. But you are wrong that I forgot about it. Sura isn't a shooter, JJ couldn't handle the ball and create for himself, Mo-T couldn't defend and of course he's no 3 pointer threat. TMac wasn't aggressive, so he didn't command double team, with the paint collaping on Yao. Tell me, how were they supposed to score? Tempo? That's the last thing I would worry about. What has changed since then? We had shooters in Wesley and Barry, opponents have to honor them, TMac played greatly, commandign double team all the time, he and Yao opened each other up. That's why we are winning. Tell me, with the same components, how would a slower game hurt us? When was the last time you see PJ's teams out-scoring opponents like crazy? Be is guards-oriented or Shaq-oriented. What's JVG's style? Push when there is chance, set for half-court offense, when the defense is set, and put defense in high priority. That's his style, and it's a successful model, provn by many many games, teams, and in different sports. All the great coaches do the same thing. Not sure if you watch soccer. Trappatoni's AC Milan was at its peak, with 50 something games unbeaten, when their style was defensive oriented, 1-0 model. Some people complain, but they won. Quick 3s in first 10 seconds, is never in any coach's book.
