Rockets Get Time Off

Rcokets Get Time Off

The Rockets finally get some time off after being on a 5 game road trip that lasted much of the week. When I mean "time off", I mean time off from games. This team has a lot of work to do after losing 4 of its 5 games on the road trip.

There are several key items that have contributed to these losses. First, Tthe Rockets have of late not been playing team basketball. Having a total of 8 assists as a team will not win you many games. In a few games you could see glimses of the offensive teamwork when they started moving the ball, then when that happened the Rockets could not make their jump shots. Second, I have noticed is that when this team gets down, Francis and Mobley tend to get in that isolation mode where they think they must take their defender one-on-one and throw up a shot at the rim. Instead of doing the isolation game they should run their offense by feeding the ball to Yao in the post and let him go to work. If he gets doubled then you have 4 other players who are ready to step up and take a shot. When this team doesn't make shots I notice the defensive energy that this team has goes down and they get laxed on defense. When we get laxed on defense, other teams score and we are a team that cannot allow a team to score 90+ points a game. If another team can score that then they will most likely win because our offense is designed to score in the high 80's.

This team of late just has not been clicking like they were in the pre-season and during the first games of the regular season. Now it seems that we are playing in zones. One night our defense will be on while our offensive teamwork will be off and on another night it will be the total opposite. The Rockets need to get clicking on all cylinders if they want to be a contender late in the season.

The next game is Wednesday at home against the Jazz. The Rockets really need to win this game to help get some positive momentum back.