The only guard I can think of that Steve will torch consistently is D.Fisher. He blew by him like Fisher is nobody. Defense is not Steve's forte, I know. But if his offense is not helping, his defensive liability is magnified. Why is he beat by the opponent guard so easily. Jason Terry, Tony Parker, Raul Lopez ... Can some expert poster explain?
Let's face it, Francis is not known for his defensive prowess. He always seems to have trouble satying with the smaller (not so much height, but stature), quick guys (Nash, Parker, Terry, Boykins ). But remember, he gets more than his share of blowing by opposing guards as well. He does get a good share of his steals by playing the passing lanes and gambling some.....which perhaps makes his defense seem even more suspect on the ball.
Did somebody say expert poster? Oh, in that case I'll give my 0.02 cents. Steve got his money locked up, there's no motivation. He only gets up to play the Lakers.
Steve has very little lateral quickness, he is more of an athlete than a quick player. Quicker guys get by him with no problem. EE
Every time when I see Steve shaken by his man, Ming is exposed, my heart wrentches, it hurts. Steve used to be able to get back to the SOB on next plays pretty easily, but not anymore. Layup wont go, jumper is too short. It hurts. Talking about defense, I still think we should've re-signed James Posey at 5 mil. He is longer than JJ, our back court size problems exposed our defense.
PANDORA'S BOX HAS BEEN RE-OPENED!! At any rate, I agree wholeheartedly. Posey was always a good fit for the rockets...tall, athletic, hustles, could run the break...basically everything the current roster is not.
That's BS...Steve plays hard every night. He's just having a horrible season. He just doesn't look comfortable out there, he doesn't look like he's happy and having fun in the games at all. The system that Van Gundy seems to be running is wasting Steve's strengths. He is basically being used as the person who brings the ball up the court and jacks up a shot as the clock expires b/c no one else got a good look. Steve's strength is to score and then that opens it up for others. I don't think it's entirely van gundy's system but his system does have something to do with it. I mean, look at the Knicks team that he coached, they had the exact same problems the Rockets do now except for they were tougher mentally. I remember the Knicks would look unstopable on offense for 5 minutes and then couldn't hit a shot for 8-9 mins. That's the exact same thing we have here....
No kidding. JP is the man of Griz now. He's giving everything to the griz, leadership, defensive power, range, slashing. Take him out of the Griz roster, Griz would've lost several games they had won closely. When JJ go against Dirk, Sheed, Kobe likes, I felt sorry for him, 'cause he's got no chance to guard them. By the way, what happened to Cato? Putting Taylor on Duncan was insane, and made Taylor's head spin for the whole game. One observation was Cato kept ignoring his assignment, kept shooting the ball. That gotta be the reason.
man....look at the numbers fromlast night. how the hell can you say he was torched by Parker? oh wait...you have an agenda...you can say whatever you want...damn the facts
JP is playing well for the Grizzlies, true. Comparitively, Jim Jackson is putting up much better numbers as a Rocket than Posey did as a Rocket. Posey just fits and gels better with that team - chalk it up, move on, let it go, spilled milk. Comparitively, how do you think Posey did against the likes of Nowitzki, Wallace and Kobe? Who DOES have a chance to guard those guys well?
R2K, I know you are on a defensive roll here, so I dont want to agitate you. But ..., Steve made Parker an all-star last night. Parker blew by him like Steve is a CBA baller. Parker did miss some jumpers, pretty badly, bu how many was due Steve's defensive play???
Parker had 7TO, and shot the same percentage as Francis. If Steve had 7 assists and 7 TO like Francis, he would have been riped for too many turnovers.
I do think Griz's playing style fit JP better, maybe. But, you gotta admit JP is a better defender, and competent scorer at the 3 spot compare with JJ. What I am upset about is why JP is doing so much better on the damn Griz team than on Rox.
One thing from last night that was good to see, was steve's aggressiveness going to the hole and rebounding over bigger players. I can't remember a game this season in which he took it to the basket as hard and as often as he did last night, it was good to see and its exactly what he needs to do, especially when his j is off. Also, our defense for a large part of the game did a great job on the pick and roll, the big men came out numerous times to stop the guard from turning the corner, but our back side rotation was a bit slow it seemed last night.
This post is mainly about Steve's lack of defensive prowess, not why he's not scoring. Defense is about effort and hustle. You can't use the "he's having a bad season" on the defensive end of the argument.
As soon as we lose, someone would automatically blame the loss on Steve without even watching the game. The reasons for our loss, our PFs shot 3-17 and our leading rebounder was SF.
