TMACFORMVP wrote:It's weird, we've always generally been a poor home team and one of the better road teams in the league. It's been the opposite this season, the chances of winning away from Houston? We've yet to see it with this roster, if we play with the same defensive dedication that we've had in the past couple of games, and continue to push the tempo, I'd expect a better showing than what we've shown on the road the first 2/3's the season.
I agreed with Kenny in a sense that McGrady makes our team have a greater potential, but not sure towards the fact as of now in the regular season, he'd make us a better team.
Two reason for our road woes IMO...
The first being McGrady. He and Battier IMO are the only two players who actually play the same on the road as they do at home..if not better. I think everyone else...Yao, Scola etc play drastically better at home. And now with youth at the PG spot and Wafer playing big minutes....thats just more guys that just play a lot better at home. I know you remember when a healthy McGrady carried us on the road more often than not.
The second reason is the way we defend the pick and roll. Under JVG we were so good on the road b/c we defended well. A big chunk of that defense was pick and roll defense which was easily one of best in the league during JVG's time. He had Yao showing to prevent the jumper. He had Alston fighting to get under picks. He had rotations down to a science when a guy got off cleanly and turned the corner heading to the hoop. We don't do that anymore. There was a big deal made about how much we kept JVG's defensive principles last season. Well that was one of them. This season thats no more.
When we get on the road we don't defend the PnR well. Teams get open shots. And because of our guys playing drastically worst on the road we never have the offense needed to keep the pressure on teams to execute or at least to a point where we can hit a good defensive stretch. We often find ourselves down early and having to play catch up on the road. Thats just not the way to win road games.