Game 34: @ Chicago Bulls 700pm ROOT!

[pr0wler]

Smith got trigger happy towards the end cause he made a couple shots during the game. No idea why D-Mo didn't get more time on the court, he was killing it out there.

Why did Brewer play only 18 minutes? He's been doing way better than Ariza, who has been absolutely horrendous the past couple months. I wasn't expecting him to average 14 PPG on good percentages like last year, but is it unreasonable to get something like 12-13 PPG on 40/35?

Here are his stats month by month...

October (2 games): 18 PPG on 60/60
November (15 games): 13 PPG on 36/32
December (14 games): 13.4 PPG on 33/28

Definitely a steady downward trend...

[panarama]

And what's up with Ariza? He looks like the worst shooter in the NBA. He just continues to brick. What has he shot after his first 6ish odd games of the season? I literally wouldn't be surprised if it was sub 30's in both FG% and 3PT%. I bet half my posts in 09-10 were Ariza hating posts....I didn't think there's anyway he would shoot worse this time around. He's a very good defender, no doubt...but man, we can't win w/ this guy shooting this poorly.

Ariza's first 5 games:
29 of 50 attempts for 58% fg shooting
21 of 35 3pt attempts for 60% 3pt fg shooting

Ariza's last 29 games including tonight vs Bulls:
116 of 359 attempts for 32% fg shooting
57 on 215 3 pt attempts for 18% 3 pt fg shooting

Come back Chandler Parsons!

Yeah, I remember Ariza in NY.
We thought we had next Allan Houston during his early part of the stay but it went all down hill from there.

[flat_eric]

We won that. I don't give a damn what the scoreboard said.

[texasholdem]

correction: Ariza's 3 pt percentage since first 5 games is 27% not 18%. It just feels like 18% lol. sorry

he plays well when his contract is up.

[TMACFORMVP]

correction: Ariza's 3 pt percentage since first 5 games is 27% not 18%. It just feels like 18% lol. sorry

he plays well when his contract is up.

The sad thing is...I didn't even doubt it. And then got surprised it was over 25%...

[rocketsballin]

a big factor is that he plays way too much. look at his gamelog, for most of november and all of december he's basically averaging 40mpg as a role player. adding brewer was supposed to solve that problem. if brewr and kostas can get burn instead of just brewr, ariza's shooting will improve. since the last two or three games mchale just replaced kostas with brewer. rockets need both of them to give harden and ariza the rest they need. sticking kostas to the bench will hurt this team bad down the road in march and feb. and how u gonna trade him, 4.8m rotting on the bench, everyone will look at him like he's a pure scrub. he's a solid wing off the bench, thre's no reason to turn him into a spot mintue player cuz he's not a good shooter when u got ariza making 2/10 threes a game.

whats more shocking to me now is that this is barely being mentioned by the rockets annoucners and mchale. he's been doing this all season long and they're acting like its something new. htis is a big problem, he's averaging 12 shots a game at 35fg%, rivaling josh smith's horrible shooting numbers in detroit

cmon rockets, just put a little thought into ariza and you'll see that papa needs to get back into the rotation

[dzero]

DMO was the only one to have + as he had +5. While Josh had worst -19. I know this does not always tell you all about the single player impact but cmon. Was Josh playing last minutes of the game instead of DMO haven't seen the game

[Darknemo2000]

Well if houston really wanted to win, they should have played D-mo more over Josh Smith. Cant say that Smith was playing badly though, but D-mo looked superior last night.

[Revived]

Can a Rockets can help me understand something? Didn't Woj report that when Houston was trying to convince J-Smoobe to sign with the Rockets, that Houston promised him a starting job?

Hasnt Motiejunas been starting lately?

[jc23]

Butler could be MIP and MVP in the same year. He's a Houston kid too so it's good to see him go from last pick in the first round (#30) to being an All-Star.

Tomball

[Nebula1]

Ariza will be fine and he's still a nice defender. I imagine Brewer puts some pressure on him and once he finds his comfort zone again, all will be well.

[jwise44]

Butler could be MIP and MVP in the same year. He's a Houston kid too so it's good to see him go from last pick in the first round (#30) to being an All-Star.

Tomball

Ya...which is Houston

It's in the metropolitan area

[texasholdem]

Can a Rockets can help me understand something? Didn't Woj report that when Houston was trying to convince J-Smoobe to sign with the Rockets, that Houston promised him a starting job?

Hasnt Motiejunas been starting lately?

Motie started the past 2 games. During the game last night the announcers said Smith went to the coaches and asked to be removed from the starting lineup. Whether that is true or not we'll probably never know. In any case, Smith doesn't have any leverage to enforce such a promise anyway.

[MaxRider]

Smith got trigger happy towards the end cause he made a couple shots during the game. No idea why D-Mo didn't get more time on the court, he was killing it out there.

Why did Brewer play only 18 minutes? He's been doing way better than Ariza, who has been absolutely horrendous the past couple months. I wasn't expecting him to average 14 PPG on good percentages like last year, but is it unreasonable to get something like 12-13 PPG on 40/35?

Here are his stats month by month...

October (2 games): 18 PPG on 60/60
November (15 games): 13 PPG on 36/32
December (14 games): 13.4 PPG on 33/28

Definitely a steady downward trend...

this one is on mchale again
i thought he finally realize this lineup howard/smith/ariza/harden/beverley don't work so he put dmo back in the starting lineup
for some stupid reason he thought it is a good idea to let howard/smith/ariza/harden/beverley to finish the game
i missed rudy t
he always let the best lineup of the night finish the game

[Mr. E]

Butler could be MIP and MVP in the same year. He's a Houston kid too so it's good to see him go from last pick in the first round (#30) to being an All-Star.

Tomball

Ya...which is Houston

It's in the metropolitan area

I'm actually going to be driving through there later today.

[000001]

Smith got trigger happy towards the end cause he made a couple shots during the game. No idea why D-Mo didn't get more time on the court, he was killing it out there.

Why did Brewer play only 18 minutes? He's been doing way better than Ariza, who has been absolutely horrendous the past couple months. I wasn't expecting him to average 14 PPG on good percentages like last year, but is it unreasonable to get something like 12-13 PPG on 40/35?

Here are his stats month by month...

October (2 games): 18 PPG on 60/60
November (15 games): 13 PPG on 36/32
December (14 games): 13.4 PPG on 33/28

Definitely a steady downward trend...

this one is on mchale again
i thought he finally realize this lineup howard/smith/ariza/harden/beverley don't work so he put dmo back in the starting lineup
for some stupid reason he thought it is a good idea to let howard/smith/ariza/harden/beverley to finish the game
i missed rudy t
he always let the best lineup of the night finish the game

i dont think smith finishing the game was the reason why the rockets loss the game
yes i agree dmo should be finishing games and not smith because his decision making is not good but this had nothing to do with last night game result ...btw i think they like to put smith at the end because his a great rebounder and dmo is a bad rebounder for a 7ft player

it was a game of runs ... bulls went on a run then rockets went on a run then bulls then rockets all game long..this types of game usually comes down to the best player from each team ...the player that plays better in the final minutes that team wins the game..and butler played better than harden

im ok with this loss vs a very good team on the road the bulls have a great chance to be in this years finals .. at least the rockets competed hard not like other games were they just gave up

next the cavaliers that are playing very bad

could be a trap game

[cold_cowboy]

i dont think smith finishing the game was the reason why the rockets loss the game
yes i agree dmo should be finishing games and not smith because his decision making is not good but this had nothing to do with last night game result ...btw i think they like to put smith at the end because his a great rebounder and dmo is a bad rebounder for a 7ft player

it was a game of runs ... bulls went on a run then rockets went on a run then bulls then rockets all game long..this types of game usually comes down to the best player from each team ...the player that plays better in the final minutes that team wins the game..and butler played better than harden

im ok with this loss vs a very good team on the road the bulls have a great chance to be in this years finals .. at least the rockets competed hard not like other games were they just gave up

next the cavaliers that are playing very bad

could be a trap game

while dmo doesn't rebound as well as he should, he does the things that get the team rebound which i think is equally important. i haven't been watching lately, but the first two games vs the grizz and spurs, the highest rebounded games for smith as a rocket, he was simply taking down easy boards that would otherwise fall to a guy like harden who could easily start the fast break game. dmo's contribution to the team rebound is usually taking out the opposing team's inside player by boxing him out. i don't see smith being a much better rebounder than dmo - only in the sense that smith seems to constantly like to have the ball in his hands otherwise he might become even more inefficient.

smith for all the good things that he does, he does not know when to stop, which has been his biggest problem throughout his career, which inevitably negates all his work that he did in the first place!! he has to COMPREHEND RATIONALLY that his offense is not his strength and that he should defer to higher probability shot makers, especially in close game scenarios. him jacking up a 3 with an early shot clock just because he made the previous one is an extremely extremely dumb thing to do considering he's shooting under 30%, but apparently a 1 shot make justifies a heat-check for josh smith.

the 4th quarter 3 dmo jacked up was also idiotic, no reason for it.

[rocketsballin]

there's always two or emore guys going after rebounds. why cant they just let one get it? if someone has good position and can easily get it why the **** do they keep fighting for it, risking a (Please Use More Appropriate Word) turnover. frustrating to watch. **** your stats just run down the court