Now we're 1-3, with a 3 losing streak (especially 2 loss to weak teams at home). Everybody struggling at shooting (including normally high-percentage Yao). Plus, we lose TMac for unsure time (maybe as long as we finish the toughet schedule of the season). Holly Shxx! Yet, we Rockets fans have every reason to still be optimistic. We stay optimistic cuz we do have various reasons. Let's revaluate the team's situation for now. 1.roster It doesn't work well for now. For one, we lost our biggest and master piece, TMac, which is the most capable of creating his own shots in this time. Besides, he draws doubleteam a lot as well as can easily shooting from the outside to spread the spacing. And all this attributes r what we deadly needed during the clutch time, since for the 3 losing streak, we all frozen at the 4th quarter. We defend well yet could not score. That being said, with the return of TMac, we'r sure to handle a lotta better during crunch time. Remeber, our D is still elite this season. The other is the chemistry. New players haven't mesh well with the team & JVG system, which ruins our chemistry hardly especially on the O end. Let's be noted that, since TMac is injured, we get 3 FRESH PLAYER OUTTA 5 STARTERS in the losing streak. It's a whole lotta change, and even the players who's familiar with JVG system had to make BIG adjustment. So, it leads to the situation we see is that, when Yao is enerised, he dominates in first 3 quarters, and with the help of role players, we catch up (or even surpass) our oppenent. During that period of each game, we do c bad chemistry (eg.a lotta turnovers, ill shooting selection...), we r manage to keep up. However, when 4th quarter is coming, things r much different, they double or triple teamed Yao each time, jammed the paint and forced Yao to make fadeaways. Cuz they know we have only a deadly weapon, and the bad chemistry hinders us from passing the ball to the right players in right position. Hence, our last quarter suffocation is partially due to a lack of chemistry, which will improved a lot after 20-30 teams. The rest problem leads to a poor shooting, which could be partialy explained by chemistry which i mentioned above. However, in the past 3 games, we loss a lotta open shots as well. Missing the open shots is not curable by a good chemistry. It's mainly the ablility problem. So far as i can c, we don't have a pure shooter at all. Barry can't be a consistant one due to his age and type (mostly the latter one i suppose). DA ain't the type. The worst and the deadly to us is Wesley lost his shot. I believe JVG planned to use Wesley to shoot 3's to knock off inside's pressure, and stop quick yet small perimeter guards. Now that seems wesley lose both of the capability. The lack of outside shooting just make the opponent tripleteam Yao aggressively without pressure. For this weakness, I'm afraid we have to do sth to our roster. Even with TMac back, we still need an outside shooter, a consistent one, which prevent the opponent from just solely double-team our 2 all-stars. 2. the head coach, JVG Since he's professional while i'm not, i'm going to say "he should this, he should that". I just wanna say that he's a good one, sorry not an elite one due to his lack of creativity. And last year's Carlisle could be a teacher for him on how to win without ur all-star player, even SVG did better than him. Afterall, losing 3 game in a row in A SIMILAR PATTERN is not wise enough. 3. other factor to be optimistic Don't lose ur confidence on stro, at least for now. He actually had a slow start, stupid fouls, lack of rebounding, dumb at learning the JVG system. Surely we all admit. But pls be noted that JVG is a coach who's over-cautious on new players. Anyone under his coaching will find it hard to adjust, we all know how TMac struggled in his early games last season. Wow, even our mighty TMac did. So, let's just be patient, and Stro will show us he deserve every cents we paid him. 4. yet we have to be serious on our problem In the bloody west conference, we have to keep from falling too quickly and deeply. sb in the GM bbs suggest it may goes 1-9 for us. If so, it must be very horrible i admit. Cuz the feeling of left far behind will add extra pressure to us every game. 5. solution We must do sth, prior to TMac's return. Do sth to our open shooting. Help Wesley to recover or we have to trade him early for a pure shooting guard. Use Yao wiser. We all knew Yao couldn't carry the team all by himself through last 3 games. Thus, JVG must design some tactic to let others involved. Can we play some pick 'n' roll between Yao & DA? Can we just let Yao stay outside to make mid-range jumper (which he's capable and at least better than those constant fade-aways), to draw inside defender out, and let DA and Stro to rush inside for board. Hoping JVG will do that! Still, let's be optimistic, we can bounce back like last year's denver! well, it's my first post in justbball, it's a honor. I come from Beijing, thus hoping my post could be understandable to u native english speakers.
I watched tonite's game, and for me, I watched it in the morning as I, along with the two guys above, am from China. It was about 10 or 11 am, and I was about to have dinner. Yet my appetite for it was gradually ruined by our poor open shots, and I was starting to worry about how Rox fans out there in the states had to struggle to fall asleep trying to take it easy and let it go. Yao did a good job tonight I have to say, except the stamina problem in the fourth quarter as being criticized for a long time. Nevertheless, he still seemed to be the only one could find the hole. Everytime he got the ball, there would be at least 2 or 3 defenders came to him, and he passed the ball to his teammates who were left widely open but they just couldn't make most of them. Heats without Shaq could beat Rox without Tracy. It's not all Yao's fault. Look at the others of the team: shoot--couldn't make it fall; shoot again--rejected by the rim....--- shoot still--Bingo! But how many attempts had they had made before that? Stats can tell. The other day when i was talking about our recent games with Dan, he predicted that we probably would loss the game to de Heats. Still, he would like to wait and see until Yao and Tracy bring us the a level that only Drexler and Olajuwon had done in the past fifteen years. Its becuz we want it too much too soon, we sometimes tend to go depressed but when the chemistry happens and the whole team are forging ahead toward the goal, we will find it all worthy.
First off, welcome to JBB, MixtureITW. I don't qualify as 100% Chinese but I can speak Mandarin and I have relatives in Beijing. I think that Rockets fans right now should look on the bright side. Yes, we did lose two games at home to mediocre teams, and also one on the road, but it's not as if we got blown out in all three games. We were missing our best player and we still managed to push a stronger Miami team down to the last second of the game and never let up, even in a hostile arena. However, that being said, we shouldn't surefiredly predict a strong push towards the end of the season. While I'm sure we're certainly able to make such a push, we can't take it for granted. Games still have to be won and we as a team still have to make as much an effort as we did last night. When TMac comes back, it's not alright to say for sure that we'll go at a .800 winning clip the rest of the way.
