Francis does not make consistantly good court decisions. One example that lead to one of his six turnovers. 1. towards the end of the first half Steve dribbles into the paint. The hole closes and he stops and turns his back to the basket. He looks at Eddie all alone at the top of the arc with no one with in ten feet. He looks like he is going to pass and then hesitates, he then turns around to face the basket like he wants to shoot the ball but instead gets the ball stripped and the Rockets loose a possesion. If the Hornets would have scored that would have been a 4 point turn around. Don't get me wrong everyone has turnovers but not like that. A bad pass or getting stripped from behind is one thing but to consitantly make plays like the one mention above is very difficult for a team to over come night in and night out. Tonight Steve had 6 turnovers and that is not good for your point guard. Maybe Steve will improve but you would think that there would have been some improvement over the course of the last three years and there has not. Every night we see opposing teams point guards have career nights against us and you don't see them making the same kinds of mistakes. We never saw Baron Davis look indisesive tonight and loose the ball while he was trying to decide what to do.
Teams make runs; it's the nature of the game. The Rockets have played one, 8 minute stretch of bad basketball in their last 2 games with Moochie Norris, who I think has become increasingly horrid at running at a halfcourt set, at the helm. That's it. If you can't see that they're decision-making is improving with increased time together on the court (look at the fact that Mobley pump-faked his man, as opposed to the fadeaway he usually would have taken in that situation, at the end of regulation), then you're letting your presuppositions get in the way of the truth. As far as sharing the ball, I'll agree with you in the fact that in theory it's better to get the ball back in position to take a better shot, but in reality, passing the ball to Morris, Torres, etc., isn't going to result in a better shot for the primary scorers on this team. Those players need to have shots created for them, and I think the Rockets do a great job of: A. Making Cato look like a competent offensive player B. Getting Oscar his kind of shots, when he plays (Please start him over Morris, who is terrible right now). With Morris, there's only so much a team can do, sans getting him point-blank layups, to make a player like Morris an efficent player on the offensive end. Next year, I'd be more for the communist-style team scoring approach you're advocating. Why? Because they'd have all their weapons back. Players who are capable of making such an offense efficient.
