Bricklayer
Don't Make Me Use The Bat
Barnes ( C+ ) -- Matt tried and hustled tonight. Good energy, but results were modest. Along with Mobley, had no luck at all at trying to stop or even slow down McGrady. Reminiscient for me of his attemtps to guard Kobe. Big enough. Athletic enough. Can stay with the guy. But in the end, just not close to being good enough.
Webber ( A ) -- looked much much better tonight than last night. For the most part played a smooth in control game scoring inside and out. Even when he went through an extended dry spell during the late second/early third, never really started forcing, and still played some good defense on Yao and made some great passes. Made a couple of excellent hustle plays along the sidelines/baselines, one of which he turned into a great outlet pass to a streaking Bibby. On the flip side the Rockets attacked him with Scott Padgett in the second half, and we...well, that's the other part of our shaky defense, we are embarrassingly stupid sometimes at recognizing opposing players strengths. Scott Padgett does ONE thing, and one thing only. And that's shoot threes. And he only does that if he's wide open. And so we left him open. Again. And again. And again. And he was the only thing that kept the Rockets close in the late third/early 4th. We were in severe danger of losing but then Webb stepped up and hit ANOTHER gigantic clutch three for us to send it into OT, and followed it up with clutch play down the stretch of OT to helped seal the win. What a turnaround for a guy who's early career was defined by the legendary phantom timeout choke in the Final Four.
Miller ( A- ) -- very very efficient once again -- ever since that rough patch he had earlier in the month, he's just been scorching. Everything he shoots, falls. Combined with Webber to do a nice job on Yao as well and generally did a solid job on the defensive glass controlling balls which came his way. Not a dominant effort, but an incredibly efficient one once again. Made some dumb and shaky plays in OT -- the stupid arguing/reaction foul, a blown layup off a perfect Webb feed, and gave Yao a 3pt play with 20 seconds to go with a weak touch foul on his head. Made this into a minus. But still a very good game overall.
Mobley ( B+ ) --was having a decent return to Houston, but it was a pretty quiet 16 on offense during regulation. And on defense, just never had much impact. Dominated nobody, and he and Barnes kept on switching off on McGrady and having no effect whatsoever. Came up with a couple of huge OT threes to hold off the Padgett reign of terror.
Bibby ( A ) -- strong and steady throughout (although he did get a little wild and throw up some ugly shots down the stretch). Not only with the shot, where he really wasn't consistent with the shot but drew foul after foul, but also by running the offense to perfection at times. We had problems on defense (not Mike's fault for once), but except for the early 4th quarter we carved them up on offense. Came up big down the stretch of OT.
Martin ( C ) -- another quiet effort from Kevin, but without the hustle/defensive impact he had against the Spurs. Grabbed a few good boards, but not much else going on. Just kind of out there. For a guy who draws so many fouls, still has an odd tendency to just badly brick the occassional free throw.
Songaila ( B ) -- seemed like Darius had more boards than he was credited for this game. In any case, hit his shots, which was huge for our big men tonight, and played steady defense, even against Yao a couple of times despite the verticality problem.
House ( B- ) -- much like Bobby, one of those guys who's a hero when his shots are falling, but messes up your offense when they're not. In the first half tonight they were, and he gave us a nice boost. In the second, didn't do much and only got a couple of minutes.
Adelman ( A- ) -- In many ways there was not much for Rick to do tonight -- injuries shortened the bench, and the remaining main guns clearly were our stars. No bench player really made a case for minutes over any of our main guys. So it was play the big guns until we either won, or fell short. Only real extra possibility would have been to play Tag on Yao or Deke. But as logical as that seems, tonight it really was neither necessary nor the right move. Both Webb and Brad were doing excellent work on Yao for most of the game, and an absolute key for us was our big men's ability to hit the open jumper. I know Rick's play call decision to tie it in regulation would have come under intense scutiny if it did not work, but you know what? It did. And it has before this year. At some point here we've got to recognize that we've got a clutch superstar level player on the team, and just about any coach is going to draw up the last second play for such a player. Biggest complaint: our defensive rotations to three point shooters were just AWFUL tonight. And that damn near lost the game for us. But I can't really blame it on Rick, unless his game plan specifically said "leave uber-scrub Scott Padgett so wide open that even his sorry white can't dribble can't drive I average 2.8pts per game on 38% shooting garbagetime *** can beat us."
Webber ( A ) -- looked much much better tonight than last night. For the most part played a smooth in control game scoring inside and out. Even when he went through an extended dry spell during the late second/early third, never really started forcing, and still played some good defense on Yao and made some great passes. Made a couple of excellent hustle plays along the sidelines/baselines, one of which he turned into a great outlet pass to a streaking Bibby. On the flip side the Rockets attacked him with Scott Padgett in the second half, and we...well, that's the other part of our shaky defense, we are embarrassingly stupid sometimes at recognizing opposing players strengths. Scott Padgett does ONE thing, and one thing only. And that's shoot threes. And he only does that if he's wide open. And so we left him open. Again. And again. And again. And he was the only thing that kept the Rockets close in the late third/early 4th. We were in severe danger of losing but then Webb stepped up and hit ANOTHER gigantic clutch three for us to send it into OT, and followed it up with clutch play down the stretch of OT to helped seal the win. What a turnaround for a guy who's early career was defined by the legendary phantom timeout choke in the Final Four.
Miller ( A- ) -- very very efficient once again -- ever since that rough patch he had earlier in the month, he's just been scorching. Everything he shoots, falls. Combined with Webber to do a nice job on Yao as well and generally did a solid job on the defensive glass controlling balls which came his way. Not a dominant effort, but an incredibly efficient one once again. Made some dumb and shaky plays in OT -- the stupid arguing/reaction foul, a blown layup off a perfect Webb feed, and gave Yao a 3pt play with 20 seconds to go with a weak touch foul on his head. Made this into a minus. But still a very good game overall.
Mobley ( B+ ) --was having a decent return to Houston, but it was a pretty quiet 16 on offense during regulation. And on defense, just never had much impact. Dominated nobody, and he and Barnes kept on switching off on McGrady and having no effect whatsoever. Came up with a couple of huge OT threes to hold off the Padgett reign of terror.
Bibby ( A ) -- strong and steady throughout (although he did get a little wild and throw up some ugly shots down the stretch). Not only with the shot, where he really wasn't consistent with the shot but drew foul after foul, but also by running the offense to perfection at times. We had problems on defense (not Mike's fault for once), but except for the early 4th quarter we carved them up on offense. Came up big down the stretch of OT.
Martin ( C ) -- another quiet effort from Kevin, but without the hustle/defensive impact he had against the Spurs. Grabbed a few good boards, but not much else going on. Just kind of out there. For a guy who draws so many fouls, still has an odd tendency to just badly brick the occassional free throw.
Songaila ( B ) -- seemed like Darius had more boards than he was credited for this game. In any case, hit his shots, which was huge for our big men tonight, and played steady defense, even against Yao a couple of times despite the verticality problem.
House ( B- ) -- much like Bobby, one of those guys who's a hero when his shots are falling, but messes up your offense when they're not. In the first half tonight they were, and he gave us a nice boost. In the second, didn't do much and only got a couple of minutes.
Adelman ( A- ) -- In many ways there was not much for Rick to do tonight -- injuries shortened the bench, and the remaining main guns clearly were our stars. No bench player really made a case for minutes over any of our main guys. So it was play the big guns until we either won, or fell short. Only real extra possibility would have been to play Tag on Yao or Deke. But as logical as that seems, tonight it really was neither necessary nor the right move. Both Webb and Brad were doing excellent work on Yao for most of the game, and an absolute key for us was our big men's ability to hit the open jumper. I know Rick's play call decision to tie it in regulation would have come under intense scutiny if it did not work, but you know what? It did. And it has before this year. At some point here we've got to recognize that we've got a clutch superstar level player on the team, and just about any coach is going to draw up the last second play for such a player. Biggest complaint: our defensive rotations to three point shooters were just AWFUL tonight. And that damn near lost the game for us. But I can't really blame it on Rick, unless his game plan specifically said "leave uber-scrub Scott Padgett so wide open that even his sorry white can't dribble can't drive I average 2.8pts per game on 38% shooting garbagetime *** can beat us."
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