This is the consistency, or lack thereof, that I have been pining/talking about all season. How is it that you walk onto the Spurs home court, a place so hostile I don’t think we have ever won in, and take a game from the defending champs; then casually stroll onto the less hostile Rockets home court, where they are missing their best (arguably) player in McGrady, and lose a game to a team you already beat this season?
I will try to keep this somewhat short and sweet, so I will only talk about a couple things that bothered me this game:
1. Jamario Moon
How is it that I am hating on the prodigal son? Let me count the ways: 21 minutes, 12 shots, 5 baskets, 11 points and only 3 rebounds. Is this what we want out of this guy? How is it that he is able to put up 12 shots in 21 minutes? He jacked a shot every 57 seconds being on the court, and only got 11 points, horrible. I can’t stress this enough, Jamario should only shoot when a) he has a wide open jumper, and there is no chance for a better shot from swinging it or b) he has a wide open lane, and can dunk it. There is no reason for this guy to be taking jumpers when there are much more prolific shooters/scorers on the team.
Also, his shot blocking ability is really hampering his defense. He lets guys penetrate deep into the Raptors zone, with the hopes of swatting them into the first row. Now, this looks on the highlight reels, but you really only get 1 or 2 blocks a game, what about all the other times the guy gets deep into your zone, and something good comes out of it for the opposition?
2. Defense
This is really about consistency, but bare with me. I thought that Bargnani did a pretty good job defending Yao in the first half. He did a good job of not giving Yao easy looks, and not letting Yao go baseline when he wanted. One thing that really helped was that every time Yao got the ball, the Raptors would send a guy or two running at him, swarming him (much they did to Duncan). This strategy worked great in the first half, Yao had a couple boards and like 8 points.
For some reason, the Raptors come out of the half, and decided to play him straight up. That didn’t work. Yao went off for 17, and a few more boards, which opened up the perimeter for their shooters to hit some shots, and that was that.
3. The Game Plan
I really need to know what Smitch’s strategy is come the 4th quarter, when both Bosh and Calderon are sitting for about half of it. Does he really think not having those two in the game, especially when the Raptors are down, is a sound game plan? Does he really think his bench is that good, that they can win a game without a full quarter contribution from Bosh/Calderon?
Last night against the Spurs, we saw Bosh sit the entire 4th quarter (or most of it), because the game was reasonable under control, and we suspected Mitchell was trying to keep Bosh fresh for tonights game. Yet Bosh only played 35 minutes, and sat for 6:20 of the 4th while the game was still winnable.
Aside from the substitutions, what is Smitch’s strategy when the shots aren’t falling? Is it a reasonable/acceptable to continue to shoot, and hope the rhythm comes back? Or is it a better idea to figure out another way to score, that can build up some confidence, and have your shot come back naturally? Or, how about a strategy that doesn’t require you to fall to Plan B, where you come at your opponent with a mixed-balanced attack, that keeps them guessing as to what you plan on doing, and doesn’t allow them to anicipate your moves? How does that sound for an idea? I think it is pretty good, and I know a couple coaches around the league think so too.
Technorati Tags: Andrea Bargnani, Chris Bosh, Houston Rockets, Jamario Moon, Jose Calderon, Sam Mitchell, San Antonio Spurs, Tim Duncan, Toronto Raptors, Tracy McGrady, Yao Ming
December 30th, 2007 at 11:49 am
If last night was any indication, Jamario shouldn’t even be shooting jumpers when he’s wide open. Defenders are letting him take any J he wants because they his tendencies aren’t a mystery anymore. And for some reason he can’t even take it to the hole anymore - everytime he drives he either gets stripped or the ball flies out of his hands. The only points he’s been scoring lately have been on putbacks and alley oops.
December 30th, 2007 at 12:18 pm
I didn’t catch the game last night; only the last 3 minutes. All I heard was Swirsky say that Bosh looks gassed. So how could he be gassed if he only played 35 minutes and didn’t play the 4th of Friday nights game? It seems I hear this a lot from Swirsky with respect to Bosh. He needs to be in better shape; or the raptors need to fire their conditioning coach.
December 30th, 2007 at 2:51 pm
totally agreed. 23 year olds, who have been playing for only 4 years, and who play about 35 minutes a game, shouldn’t be gassed, especially after a mini break.
bosh’s conditioning always seems to be a problem, definitely something that has be to looked into further.
as for moon, he is really pissing me off. he is there to play defense, grab boards, and be the guy who cleans up the messes under the boards, with humphries. anything else, and he is really over extending himself.
December 30th, 2007 at 8:17 pm
Watched the game from my laptop in Montreal…..I got a Houston Feed on NBA LIVE…. I love watching these games with American Announcers. Everything bad that happened against the home team was an awful call by the refs and every point that Houston got, I heard…and this is not an exaggeration: “Yes”, “Yay” , “This is the best team ever” “Houston is rock solid” …… I almost wanted to call Houston and say ” your team has a worse record then the Raptors, calm down!!!!
Regarding the game. It was bad. Obviously the offense was the worst I’ve seen the Raptors play this year. I have a feeling that as this teams focus on defence increases, they have trouble multi-tasking and getting both the defensive schemes and offensive schemes working at the same time.
Andrea looks lost and I heard the Houston announcer says “this guy sucks, wasn’t he a first round pick?” The guy working with him responded: “Ya, and Colangelo is happy with his development.” The guy responded back “Are you serious, what is happy with? This guy is a first round pick and he sucks… You can’t get this kind of production from a first round pick, and say your happy with it… He’s a first round pick!” I was offended and laughing at the same time…. If you watch Andrea play now, it’s kind of true…..
Anyways, regarding Jamario Moon, please don’t stop taking it to the hole. I think it’s a matter of confidence, he’ll get it. The guy hasn’t been doing it at all in the year, so when he starts he’ll look a little shitty.
Anthony Parker should take it more to the hole as well. We cannot depend on Bosh to take it to the hole for the team…
Ok… that’s I’m done!!
December 30th, 2007 at 11:07 pm
Passing up on Aldridge and Roy is starting to look like a bad move. I like Andrea; I really hope he turns things around.
December 30th, 2007 at 11:22 pm
taking an oden or durrant is a not brainer. the real skill is when you have the # 1 pick, in a year with no clear cut favourite, and a bunch of really really good players, picking talent gets that much harder.
something that really sticks out for me from before that draft is how much swirsky really bigged up aldridge. how the bulls got a great deal in the curry trade. colangelo comes on board, the raptors win the lottery, and he never talked about him again.
i don’t care who we draft/sign/trade for personally. i am sick of soft pussies who don’t show up every game with the same consistency.
December 31st, 2007 at 2:44 pm
THE ROCKETS purposedly left Moon open ….coz his jumpshot sucks.
Yesssir . Blocks are spectacular but hardly the right measurement of a good
defense. Moon ‘gambled’ too much by letting Bonzi get to the basket to and block his layup.Unless it’s a ‘helpside’ swat , blocks are last line of defense .
December 31st, 2007 at 2:51 pm
exactly the point i have been trying to make. bonzi had like 3 or 4 dunks, compared to 1 block. what would you rather have?
January 1st, 2008 at 9:22 am
Moon has gambled on just “tryng to block” Bonzi’s shots instead of playing straghtup D. And Moon’s J is a lil streaky… On some nights it looks great on some it sucks…
January 4th, 2008 at 2:00 pm
Make a post you lazy bastard!