Houston @ Kings Game Thread

[creAtivetfh]

I will now do something that I don't normally do, and re-state a question that I asked in the chat room for those of you here that don't join us:

Martin shot 4/7 tonight, but didn't not even attempt a field goal after the third quarter; do you blame Martin for not being aggressive, or do you blame his teammates for not getting him shots?

I was there tonight, well im still here, but i wouldnt put the blame on anybody but Kevin for him not shooting that much tonight. I dont know about anybody else but i am really tired of him passing up open shots for stupid pumpfakes. If you watch closely the does it basically everytime he touches the ball.

I also felt that we were never going to win this game and that is really sad. Even when artest hit the three to force overtime i knew we were going to lose.

this is depressing still.

 

[BMiller52]

I will now do something that I don't normally do, and re-state a question that I asked in the chat room for those of you here that don't join us:

Martin shot 4/7 tonight, but didn't not even attempt a field goal after the third quarter; do you blame Martin for not being aggressive, or do you blame his teammates for not getting him shots?

That's not the reason we lost. The reason we lost is because Mike Bibby took 9 3 pointers and didn't hit any of them. Also he made Rafer Alston look like an all star.

 

[GameBall]

I will now do something that I don't normally do, and re-state a question that I asked in the chat room for those of you here that don't join us:

Martin shot 4/7 tonight, but didn't not even attempt a field goal after the third quarter; do you blame Martin for not being aggressive, or do you blame his teammates for not getting him shots?

Remember, that is the exact same thing we used to say about Peja

 

[DaMan]

That's not the reason we lost. The reason we lost is because Mike Bibby took 9 3 pointers and didn't hit any of them. Also he made Rafer Alston look like an all star.

He is not asking way we lost he is asking who is to blame to the lack of shots Martin is getting.

 

[BMiller52]

He is not asking way we lost he is asking who is to blame to the lack of shots Martin is getting.

Then it's probably a little bit of both. Martin needs to be more agressive and his teammates need to look for him a little more.

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

I will now do something that I don't normally do, and re-state a question that I asked in the chat room for those of you here that don't join us:

Martin shot 4/7 tonight, but didn't not even attempt a field goal after the third quarter; do you blame Martin for not being aggressive, or do you blame his teammates for not getting him shots?

That's not the reason we lost. The reason we lost is because Mike Bibby took 9 3 pointers and didn't hit any of them. Also he made Rafer Alston look like an all star.

Nice straw man you've got there.

I didn't ask if anybody thought that we lost because Martin didn't take more shots, so your comment doesn't have any meat. What I ASKED was who's fault you thought it was that Martin didn't take more shots? His? Or his teammates/coach?

 

[DaMan]

Nice straw man you've got there.

I didn't ask if anybody thought that we lost because Martin didn't take more shots, so your comment doesn't have any meat. What I ASKED was who's fault you thought it was that Martin didn't take more shots? His? Or his teammates/coach?

I put it on the coach. He is the one who sets the plays and decides who gets ran a play. What really makes me anger is that Martin our best perimenter player and Sar our best post player are the ones who get least amount of shots but are the ones who are most likely to make the shot.

 

[Bricklayer]

Remember, that is the exact same thing we used to say about Peja

There is a reason for that -- as I have mentioned time and time again Kevin IS peja. The parallels are eerie. If he a slowfooted 6'9" Euro there wouldn't even be a debate.

The differences are that Kevin may have the athletic ability to escape and get open. But he still lacks the ball skills to beat a man himself. So when guys get up on him and squeeze him, he can be taken away. We could have maybe called more plays for him tonight -- if we strill had the old Princeton playbook -- but its another one of those nights where we scored more than enough points. That wasn't the deal. Ron and Corliss were great. Reef and Kevin were efficient, but the only guy that either could have taken shots from was Bibby. And Mike didn't take that many shots, and most of the ones he took were outside the offense.

 

[zo0mmike]

It's mostly Kevin's fault for not shooting the ball. He pumpfakes every touch he gets and then passes it to Bibby. That can be blamed on coaching too for not doing anything about it.

 

[supamari0]

I see the video montage got deleted.. hehe

Anyway, to the game itself. It seems like this team is still built for the princeton offense but Muss is trying to run some conventional offense that has no consistency. His substitutions completely confused me.

Nonetheless, to me it seems like this team needs that one star player to build the offense around. The beauty of the princeton is that it doesn't need that dominant player since the offense is predicated on motion and finding the open player, as opposed to the rockets offense which is basically give the ball to McGrady and everyone else feed off of him. (or conversely give it to Yao and everyone play off of that) It took a career night by Williamson and a good game by Artest to stay in this one and those won't happen every night.

This team desperately needs a franchise player.

But where was Kevin Martin? He needs to get aggressive, especially when a defensive turnstile like Rafer Alston gets stuck with him or when an undersized Luther Head is guarding him. On a team with limited offensive options, he needs to demand the ball and score or Muss needs to run some plays for him. In the future, Williamson won't be putting up 30 and Artest will start to miss those jump shots so Martin can't be quiet.

 

[Mr. S£im Citrus]

Nonetheless, to me it seems like this team needs that one star player to build the offense around. The beauty of the princeton is that it doesn't need that dominant player since the offense is predicated on motion and finding the open player, as opposed to the rockets offense which is basically give the ball to McGrady and everyone else feed off of him.

You don't actually think that we still run the Princeton, do you?

 

[supamari0]

You don't actually think that we still run the Princeton, do you?

No but you did until this year. That's the point. You have players built for a system that's no longer run

 

[SacTownKid]

No but you did until this year. That's the point. You have players built for a system that's no longer run

Of course! The moves haven't even begun yet but they will from the looks of things.

 

[nbrans]

Kevin did not get the ball where he needed in order to score in the fourth quarter. He wasn't set up for jumpers, and Artest and Corliss were clogging the lane so he couldn't drive. There may have been a lack of aggressiveness, but mostly I feel like Artest and Bibby were solely looking for their own shot, the ball wasn't moving, and Kevin wasn't really in a position where he could do anything.

 

[BMiller52]

Kevin did not get the ball where he needed in order to score in the fourth quarter. He wasn't set up for jumpers, and Artest and Corliss were clogging the lane so he couldn't drive. There may have been a lack of aggressiveness, but mostly I feel like Artest and Bibby were solely looking for their own shot, the ball wasn't moving, and Kevin wasn't really in a position where he could do anything.

Ron took over the game like a star player would. Kevin needs to be aggressive, plain and simple. He gets the ball and he pump fakes and passes. He needs to drive or dribble a bit and then shoot. His problem is his lack ball handling skills make it hard for him to do that IMO. Also they need to look for him a bit more, but why don't we run plays for him? So part of it is his aggressiveness and the other is the coach/team. So it's a little of both. But I don't really think you can blame Ron, Ron was destroying the entire Rockets team tonight.

 

[DaMan]

I see the video montage got deleted.. hehe

Anyway, to the game itself. It seems like this team is still built for the princeton offense but Muss is trying to run some conventional offense that has no consistency. His substitutions completely confused me.

Nonetheless, to me it seems like this team needs that one star player to build the offense around. The beauty of the princeton is that it doesn't need that dominant player since the offense is predicated on motion and finding the open player, as opposed to the rockets offense which is basically give the ball to McGrady and everyone else feed off of him. (or conversely give it to Yao and everyone play off of that) It took a career night by Williamson and a good game by Artest to stay in this one and those won't happen every night.

This team desperately needs a franchise player.

But where was Kevin Martin? He needs to get aggressive, especially when a defensive turnstile like Rafer Alston gets stuck with him or when an undersized Luther Head is guarding him. On a team with limited offensive options, he needs to demand the ball and score or Muss needs to run some plays for him. In the future, Williamson won't be putting up 30 and Artest will start to miss those jump shots so Martin can't be quiet.

If your trying to say that Martin could be a franchise player, i would have to disagree there. The kid is good but he is just not a franchise player. Just like Sar, Bibby, Brad and Artest he seems like a second or third opinition who would be great next to the franchise player.

 

[nbrans]

Ron took over the game like a star player would. Kevin needs to be aggressive, plain and simple. He gets the ball and he pump fakes and passes. He needs to drive or dribble a bit and then shoot. His problem is his lack ball handling skills make it hard for him to do that IMO. Also they need to look for him a bit more, but why don't we run plays for him? So part of it is his aggressiveness and the other is the coach/team. So it's a little of both. But I don't really think you can blame Ron, Ron was destroying the entire Rockets team tonight.

I'm not blaming Ron per se -- clearly the results speak for themselves, but when Ron has his offense going no one else touches the ball. The ball goes to Ron, dribble dribble dribble dribble dribble dribble shot. That's it.

Kevin has offensive limitations. I'm sure he'll continue to add facets to his game, but right now you have two moves -- the outside jump shot and the drive. He couldn't get his outside shot because he was guarded and they were just swinging the ball to him anyway, and he couldn't drive because bigs were clogging the lane in the high post. I'm not sure aggressiveness would have really changed that significantly.

I can really only think of one time when he got the ball and should have shot it. The rest of the time there was nothing there.

 

[Sluggah]

i would agree that 7 shots for Kevin is pretty unacceptable. i'm even unhappy with the 12/13 he seems to stop at lately.

i'm fully prepared to blame whatever the reason BEHIND this sudden lack of aggressiveness is.

whatever that may be?

 

[Bricklayer]

i would agree that 7 shots for Kevin is pretty unacceptable. i'm even unhappy with the 12/13 he seems to stop at lately.

i'm fully prepared to blame whatever the reason BEHIND this sudden lack of aggressiveness is.

whatever that may be?

The opposing team often.

Because Kevin's offense is not something he creates for himself with the ball in his hands, he is currently still vulnerable to being shut down by nothing more than attentive defense. Now I think if you had the right offense you could "help him" ala the Princeton with Peja or the old Indiana Reggie Miller sets. But if a guy does nothing more than faceguard Kevin and stay with him on his cuts, it automatically makes Kevin less "aggressive". Same thing as it was with Peja, only we no longer have those tremendous passers around to create with their vision. Right now Kevin's still at his best exploiting mistakes in the other team's defense -- they leave him open for a three, turn their head on a cut, do not get back in transtion, etc. If they don't leave him open, don't turn their head, get back...the easy shots go away, and he's just not comfortable at this point trying to create something from nothing. Maybe one day he will be, but today, he just passes the ball in that situation.

 

[nbrans]

^I don't totally agree, he did a pretty nice job taking the ball into the lane tonight and converting some more difficult shots with good defense. I think he's still getting used to defense keying on him, and to my eye he's looking more and more like a guy who can score no matter what the defense is giving him. It's not all there yet, but that drive into the lane for a pull up or a layup is something that he's increasingly getting against tougher defense.

The way to really stop Kevin is to just deny him the ball -- unless Brad is in the game his teammates don't pass to him and don't find him on cuts. But that's not really Kevin's fault.

Kevin does have bouts of passiveness, but I thought he looked pretty impressive tonight in the first half, and in the second half he just didn't have the ball much and they went away from him.

 

[Bricklayer]

^I don't totally agree, he did a pretty nice job taking the ball into the lane tonight and converting some more difficult shots with good defense. I think he's still getting used to defense keying on him, and to my eye he's looking more and more like a guy who can score no matter what the defense is giving him. It's not all there yet, but that drive into the lane for a pull up or a layup is something that he's increasingly getting against tougher defense.

The way to really stop Kevin is to just deny him the ball -- unless Brad is in the game his teammates don't pass to him and don't find him on cuts. But that's not really Kevin's fault.

Kevin does have bouts of passiveness, but I thought he looked pretty impressive tonight in the first half, and in the second half he just didn't have the ball much and they went away from him.

Actually I think the drive to the lane is like everything else -- he's far more effective when he's catching it on the move and already has the angle on the defender. It is his most impressive trait/move, but he rarely is going to create it from a set position with his defender watching him. Every once in a while he does -- and therein lies the hope for future growth. Wish I knew why/what he thinks he sees sometimes and not others. But normally its just a modified finish to a cut/slash.

 

[most_casual_observer]

I was there tonight, well im still here, but i wouldnt put the blame on anybody but Kevin for him not shooting that much tonight. I dont know about anybody else but i am really tired of him passing up open shots for stupid pumpfakes. If you watch closely the does it basically everytime he touches the ball.

I also felt that we were never going to win this game and that is really sad. Even when artest hit the three to force overtime i knew we were going to lose.

this is depressing still.

In the first half Kevin was having some success by driving in and executing his Flying Preying Mantis Floater. I don't see why he couldn't have done a few more of those after the break. I really think he needs more aggression, maybe that will come with more experience, but he needs to assert himself pretty soon. After all, there is a vacuum that needs filling.

 

[DocHolliday]

I was at this game and here's my assessment. In general the whole team hustled their butt's off. Bibby had an off night, that happens.

But down the stretch in regulation when we were down by 3 he ran down the flour and on a night when he was cold as could be jacked up a 3 ball for no reason.

He could have set the offense and let the team go for 2 and play for another possession, but no.

I think he jacked up a 3 in overtime down the stretch to, or was that Artest, can't remember. But, that is what lost this game.

Vival La Corliss. He's my favorite player on this team besides Kevin Martin. He's just got that likeable personality, and he ALWAYS hustles, and last night he got his.