Wright: They play better when he's (Francis) not out there

The good thing about Steve being out is that the Rockets know they cant take anybody or any team for granted. They seemed more focused on the task at hand.

 

i'm sure none of the offensive execution (we did only score 93 btw) had to do with the horrible defense we were playing?? i mean you could drive cars through some of the lanes they opened up. mooch did a fine job, wow like 3 good games in a row after 50 games of pure crap. keep up the great 5.7% contribution rate mooch. steve to the nbdl? i think so.

 

well said...... everyone steps up on the offensive end when they know Francis wun be there to score for them...... Francis do pass the ball to open man, though not all the time....... sometimes this team just can't hit those open shots..... Griffin? Posey? Those are the starters that are ought to get open since the players guarding them will be helping the others on D....... but Grffin and Posey seems to be the worse shooters in the Rockets team......

Griffin shots looks bad...... though Posey shooting seems okay... just can't go through.....

 

Lorenzen Wright was neither wrong nor right, because that implies he actually meant what he said. No sane person could think that this team is better with its best player out, and Moochie running the point.

The more reasonable explanation is that Lorenzen Wright is upset that his team got beat soundly by a team missing its best player and invented an excuse to make up for it.

"Lorenzen, the Rockets were without their best player, yet y'all got dominated, what happened?"

"uh .. . they, uh . . .play better when Francis isn't there"

 

This does not make sense. With Steve, this team lost to all the sub .500 teams. How can these guys take any team for granted with Steve playing?

 

He's saying that the supporting cast gets overconfident with Steve playing against sub .500 teams. Thus, they lose.

And with Steve not playing they can't afford to take teams, any team, lightly. Thus, they win.

It's just JameC's theory. He makes sense, though.

 

there might be something to everyone steps up w/o steve (although i still say the horrible interior D is what it was all about) but then that wouldn't be steve's fault that everyone doesn't come to play when he's in. again, though, horrible D plus some decent shooting makes anyone look good. moochie against any real D ain't gonna cut it, as it usually doesn't for the 8 minutes he gets every game.

 

Cuz Francis hogs the ball and shoots anyways.

 

That was my point exactly.

 

Its understandable for the first 2 or 3 games, but when you look at it and you keep losing to .500 teams, at some point you have to wake and realize that you cant underestimate any teams.

 

We know...Tell Rudy...

 

Lorenzen is hardly a bench-warming scrub with averages of 11 points and 7 rebounds a game.

He is a good player for a scrub team, though.

 

11 points and 7 rebounds is good?

 

LOL, ya its not like this is the first time Mooch has played the point??? Just the first time he was passing the ball and his teammates were actually hitting the shots

 

I don't think any true Rockets fan hate Steve. They may get frustrated at times and understand that if he would trust his teammates more, both he and the team would benefit.

If anybody thinks we can win consistently without Francis, theyre crazy.

However, Steve will have to adjust his game if we ever want to become a real contender.

He is a very good player that can be great.

 

They managed to beat the Suns when Steve had only 5 points and 2 assists. Meanwhile, Cat had 7 assists and Moochie 3 in 26 minutes. Maybe the answer is as black and white as you make it. It isn't about Steve vs Moochie...it's about how they play as a team.

 

that is close to a double-double. If Cato had come close to averaging that the last couple of seasons, people would be jumping up and down here.

The point is that 11 PPG and 7 RPG is hardly scrub-like numbers...2 PPG and 2 RPG are more like it.

 

Exactly. According to the best stat service I have found, there are 84 players this year who have logged time at the 5. Wright's numbers are only surpassed by Shaq, Dirk, Ilgauskas, Brad Miller, Yao, Cliff Robinson and Olawakandi. He's 8th out of 84. Not an All Star but way above scrub status. And he's far from the Grizz's "go to" guy playing alongside Pau, Gooden, Person and JDubb.

 

Get off of Francis' nuts please.

He's been asked to carry the team with his offense for years now, he's adjusting to the idea that there's other people on the team that can score now.

 

I don't know. He gets an awful lot of extra rebounds playing for a team like Memphis, doesn't he?