They ARE bad shots if he knows he's been missing and continues to shoot them. If he's wide open and is shooting bad that game...then penetrate to break down the defense. Calling him mike james when he's launching shots isn't exactly a stretch.
Missing open jumper are Missed Shots.....Not bad shots, but you do not like Rafer's game and nothing that anyone says will change that. I would love to see what you post if he went down with an injury and Luther ran 70% of the offense. You would have a nervous breakdown...promise lol
What Luther does is try to work a pick. Sometimes he shoots it. Sometimes he passes to the roller. Sometimes he passes to a guy that has nothing to do with the play. Lol. More often, when he's dribbling around the court, he's trying to work around to Yao or T-mac.
That's true I don't like rafer's game, but you don't think he should do something else if he's missing shots? So what your saying is if that luther was shooting 0-16 and he took every open shot he had it wouldn't be a bad shot?
I think that coach should pull them (Luther, rafer...who ever) and find someone who's shooting better, but in this offense....you have to shoot the wide open shot. It's only a bad shot when you shoot it when you're not wide open or taking shots when you're double team lol I understand your vice; I just think that TOO much blame is being shifted rafer's way. I believe the attention should be directed towards every wing player on the team that's not shooting a decent percentage from the field....which is the whole team (except Luther). Hold the wing players accountable, because we wouldn't be having this discussion if the Rockets were shooting a better percentage.
O na. I was talking about Luther. Yeah I agree with you then. People hate Rafer but atleast he always seems to hit big shots. He's the best true "point guard" on our roster. He's not great but no one else could do a better job bring it up except for maybe tmac.
So the blame is shift back to Jeff. Lol. I agree, Jeff should pull players for not playing well, but I think he's hoping they would play better...the trust factor. Yeah your right, all the shooters should be blamed.
luther head , rafer,.their sizze are a weakness for them..maybe because they don't have the quickness like barbosa has..rafer does have speed but he's either has a slow firs step or is a slow thinker...both on off and defense
I can't agree more. BTW, I do think that Head does better in defense than Alston. I could be wrong about it. Can someone back me up?
Yeah, I noticed that too. If Luther isn't shooting a spot up 3 pointer, then he's basically useless on offense. I don't mind him starting if McGrady is the one handling the ball and making the passes. Otherwise, no.
JVG: Asked if the Rockets took too many 3s, Van Gundy said, "depends if you're making or not. "That's what some of our guys do. If they're open and they don't shoot, I'm not sure what else they would do. We're not a great finishing team." http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/bk/bkn/4371342.html
I couldn't agree more! I think rafer could bring in some hustle off the bench with novak and bonzi eventually. i think head is an upgrade on defense though. more physical and better team team defender. DaDakota - somehow when you post the idea, people agree! when i post it, I'm a r****d! a few thousand more posts and i should have that kind of influence...
The 'problem' w/ our starting lineup is we've got two great hustle players, Battier and Hayes. They get most of their points off hustle plays, that's basically it. Yao and Tmac are our two superstars, so they get the majority of the shots. So that leaves Alston as the third option. And because Battier and Hayes rarely take shots that leaves Alston taking up the rest of the attempts, which would otherwise be a little more evenly distrubted on other teams. I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I'd like to see Battier get more involved in the offense and become a little more proactive. He's capable of averaging 10-15 points a game, which will go a long way in spreading the defense and help avoid relying on streaky shooting. I love what Hayes and Battier bring, but I think Battier could bring even more. As for Head over Alston? I'm usually last in line on giving up on guys, for better or worse (and many times it's usually worse). But I've seen some convincing points in this thread. For the time being I don't mind Alston taking some of his jumpers. If you're wide open, pull the trigger. But enough is enough. If he's awful that day and knows it, he should drive and pass/layup/get fouled, and please stop going for the teardrop shot he makes MAYBE once a game.
I supported the idea because at this point of time, Tmac is better play maker and head is better defender and 3 pt shooter. Alston can still contribute as a backup. We can't afford to give up anybody now. The depth is just not there.
One thing puzzles me the most is that Battier shoot better, but he does not shoot as many. Alston does not shoot well, but he keeps shooting. Is it JVG's responsibility to tell Battier to shoot more and Alston to shoot less?
There is just soo much more than telling one player to shoot more, and to tell another player to shoot less. Other teams scout the rockets and know what each players strengths and weaknesses are. They know what players have a tendency to do what. For example, let's take a look at our 3 starting role players: battier, hayes, and rafer. Battier loves to shoot the 3 from the corner, he also rarely puts the ball on the floor and is more than likely going to shoot than drive it. From watching Rockets games, there seems to be zero plays designed to set him up for easy shots. Most of his shots are from reversing the ball and swinging the ball around. Chuck Hayes will not shoot the ball if he is further than 5 ft away from the basket. Is definitely not an option. Rafer, a good dribble penetrator with a very inconsistent 3 pt shot. shoots around 37% from behind the arc. Also, when he dribbles, he goes to the left more than he goes to the right. These are my scouting reports on these 3 players. Of course, teams in the nba have statistical breakdown of these players, and the percentage of times they do certain things. So from these kind of scouting reports, the other team can adjust the way they guard the rockets in these situations. So, when they throw the ball down in the post to yao, and yao is forced to throw the ball back out, the defense is adjust accordingly. The double team will most likely be chuck hayes man, Battier's man will most likely stay on him, and rafer's man will collapse in the paint. This leaves rafer as the only open player, and yao will be forced to pass it to rafer. Rafer will appear open and will shoot it because he can't reverse the ball to battier, because battier's man never left him. It's just defenses scout the rockets and expose their biggest weakness. It's not rafer's fault, its just that JVG needs to adjust the offense to create more movement from the other players when yao has the ball.
I would be very intrigued to see T-mac runs point, maybe just for one game, as an experiment. JVG has experimented with Shane and Novak before. Why not try it out on T-mac? Steve Nash can dish out 10 plus assists a game and score 20 or so points per game, why can't T-mac do the same? He's much younger than Nash by the way. Nash has got better footwork, but T-mac is taller and has better vision of the court. It's also easier to pass over the top. JVC is not great at improvising during games, but he's very creative between games. I like the experiment he's done with some players, like Kato, Chuck, even Ryan Bowen during the Dallas series. His experiment with Shane and Novak doesn't pay dividends, but he shouldn't be deterred from trying more. So when are we actually going to see T-mac as our piont guard, maybe next game?
