To all the Skip 2 my Lou HATERS.....right now Rafer is telling all the Rockets fans that wanted him out of Houstan AND the Rockets "Tell me how my A** taste" with this perfomance in the ECF with HIS TEAM 2 games out of the NBA Finals......I really hope he gets there and prove everbody wrong!!!!!
watching Rafer play with Orlando...the one thing that goes through my mind... Thank god he's no longer a Rocket.
FLASH21, are you being serious? Rafer has had streaky games like this all the time. It's just Rafer being Rafer. He'll go 3-14 the next game. But still... He's having a really good game tonight.
Coming into this game, he was shooting 11-for-30 in this series including a complete Derek Fisher-esque stinker in Game 2. I'd say it has more to do with the team he plays for than anything he's done as an individual. Anthony Johnson has outplayed him on a number of occasions. Crediting the Magic's success to Rafer is like blaming McGrady for every single postseason failure in his career. It's a team sport in both cases. The McGrady argument actually has slighlty more significance since he has usually been the go to player on his teams. Rafer is the 5th option in that starting lineup. Howard, Hedo and Lewis are the ones carrying the weight. If anything, Rafer has helped seal a hole with Jameer out of action. With Jameer, the Magic would be much more dangerous. As far as this individual performance, Rafer bricked a 3 in off the backboard then barely grazed the rim on his next shot. Every dog has his day. Rafer's numbers in this series and while with the Magic, in general, are right in line with his career norms. His success has everything to do with his teammates and little to do with him. He is a serviceable replacement and that is all.
The thing that killed us in the Laker's series was turnovers. Rafer takes care of the ball and I would have loved to have him during that series. I think we made a mistake with that trade.
Rafer's team can overcome Raferness and his 38% shooting. Kudos to those guys. Howard is the best center. no one else comes close.
Any PG playing for Rockets has to be a shooter first because Rockets has no offensive weapons. Rafer, is not a good shooter. Thus he is not a good PG for Rockets.
Rafer Alston 2007-2008 playoffs: @ Utah 8-14FG, 4-8 3G, 5 assists, 1to, 20 points. Houston wins 94-92 vUtah (at home) 5-9FG, 4-7 3G, 6assists, 1to, 2 steals, 14 points. Houston wins 95-69 Not QUITE as good - but pretty good games for us nonetheless. I'm glad Rafer and his incosistent shot is gone, but we would've advanced out of the first round last season if he'd played all the playoff games.
i do agree that we would have won if rafer played all of last series v. utah. but man, 15 points in a quarter where the magic desperately needed points, and was ON FIRE??? he's their best player right now.
If Rockets had Rafer instead of Lowry during Lakers series...I guarantee we would have gotten past the Lakers..TURNOVERS & POOR BALL MOVEMENT KILLED US....look how Rafer is finding the open man...Brooks is good..but his passing & decision making is poor..Lowry gave us nothing versus the Lakers...Brooks & Rafer would've been a killer combo vs Lakers..o well...watch the game makse me miss him even more...look how fast Orlando get into their offensive...Rafer is pushing the ball up quickly and Magic are getting easy shots...this just goes to show...Experience does matter..
The TO problem with Brooks is a huge exaggeration. At least in terms of true TOs. Brooks = 1.56 TO over 25 mpg this season (right on par with his career) Alston = 1.83 TO over 33.1 mpg as a Rocket season (right on par with his career) Per 48 min, Brooks actually turns the ball over less than Lowry, Kidd, Rose and many others. He's only slightly worse than Rafer. Turnovers per 48 minutes 08-09 You'll also notice that the elite PGs tend to turn the ball over a lot. Among the most turnover prone PGs are Paul, Williams, Nash and Parker. I'm not saying Brooks doesn't make a lot of bad decisions are that he is good at running a team but he is not nearly as turnover prone as a lot of people say. Of course, if you consider bad possessions that result from his poor decision-making, he does effectively have more TOs than the standard numbers will show.
These guarantees on things we can't test mean nothing. Ball movement would've improved but we still lacked offense in the Lakers series so Rafer and his one good game every 4 games wouldn't cut it.
Some people feel we were better without Rafer..I actually thing we were worse...ever since Rafer left we had trouble getting the ball the Yao...and the offense would get stagnet with alot of dribbling...Rafers leadership was sorely missed...even when Yao went down I feel we would have benifted from having Rafer..he succeeds in a free flowing up and down offense..
