[Game 36] Houston Rockets vs New York Knicks Game Thread

[nyk_buc]

rafer is playing like a BEAST. i hope EVERYBODY can maintain this type of aggressiveness when tmac returns. then we will go to another level.

yao was just ridiculously dominant tonight. this was by far his best offensive game of the season.

a sign of a great team is when a team can survive without its best player - CHECK

that team has scoring options other than its stars - CHECK (for now)

so we're headed in the right direction

im really excited about the rest of the season

[King Roosk]

I hate to boast and say I told ya so, but....I friggin told you so. Me, tharock, Max, Vator, Jove, and Moofs were the only ones on this board defending Alston day in and day out during the offseason (I'm not trying to turn this into a "us vs everyone else" type of deal, just giving credit to the posters who were there backing Alston up).

If someone would like to go dig up my posts please do (I'm too lazy to go through them all). I continuously said that Adelman's system would bring out the best in Alston, and it seems like that's proving true. I was critical of Adelman early in the season, but his system is really starting to show and I'm loving it. Hopefully we can sustain a high level of performance when Mac comes back.

[Crackfool]

Yao must love playing the Knicks. And to think that Curry bragged about how he could take on Yao last year.

[nyk_buc]

I hate to boast and say I told ya so, but....I friggin told you so. Me, tharock, Max, Vator, Jove, and Moofs were the only ones on this board defending Alston day in and day out during the offseason (I'm not trying to turn this into a "us vs everyone else" type of deal, just giving credit to the posters who were there backing Alston up).

If someone would like to go dig up my posts please do (I'm too lazy to go through them all). I continuously said that Adelman's system would bring out the best in Alston, and it seems like that's proving true. I was critical of Adelman early in the season, but his system is really starting to show and I'm loving it. Hopefully we can sustain a high level of performance when Mac comes back.

defend what? rafer was very below average last year. he was pathetic to start the first month and a half of this year.

he has just had a great 2 week stretch when tmac went down. he stepped up. that's great.

but u have to do it for longer stretches and against consistently great competition.

i applaud rafer for stepping up BIG TIME but let's be real, it ain't like the first month everybody thought he was playing like GARBAGE.

rafer's the king of inconsistency. he had a great 10-15 game stretch last yr when he avg 15ppg.

he's having one of those great stretches now. why do i know that? A LOT OF HIS FLOATERS HAVE GONE IN.

[King Roosk]

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defend what? rafer was very below average last year. he was pathetic to start the first month and a half of this year.

he has just had a great 2 week stretch when tmac went down. he stepped up. that's great.

but u have to do it for longer stretches and against consistently great competition.

i applaud rafer for stepping up BIG TIME but let's be real, it ain't like the first month everybody thought he was playing like GARBAGE.

rafer's the king of inconsistency. he had a great 10-15 game stretch last yr when he avg 15ppg.

he's having one of those great stretches now. why do i know that? A LOT OF HIS FLOATERS HAVE GONE IN.

Does "TRADE ALSTON, START FRANCIS!" ring a bell?

Speaking of which...where's Mcgrady2Head been lately?

[rockybalboa11]

can we get a .gif of that yao half way alley oop windmill off the pivot dunk on the three knicks on the baseline in the 2nd quarter

[moofs]

Heh, buc, he's been shooting 50% from inside the arc, ALL YEAR (actually, early on it was closer to 55-65%), which at this point is damn near half of it. The ONLY reason his fg% has looked low all year is because he was shooting the 3ball like crap early on and takes 50% of his shots from there. Rafer wasn't "very below average" last year. He was "very below top-tier", and actually stood fairly close to average, if not slightly above.

Right now he's shooting 30%3p, 40%FG. You can basically take whatever the difference is between those two and add it to his FG% to get his 2p% at any given point.

This great 2 week stretch you're talking about has been on 3 pointers, where he's shot almost 40%, not on his floater.

Last year his 3p shot was about where it's at now, but he was shooting a lot lower % from inside. (again, 41%). There are a LOT of guards in the NBA (though usually not top tier, but not uncommonly starters) that shoot 39-42% fg, but not all of them can effectively distribute AND defend as well as Rafer.

[moofs]

Does "TRADE ALSTON, START FRANCIS!" ring a bell?

Speaking of which...where's Mcgrady2Head been lately?

Soaking mournfully in the lament-driven pond of bile that followed the realization of his error.

[King Roosk]

Hey, I just noticed that we have the 8th best road record in the NBA. That aint too shabby for a 9th place team, eh?

[King Roosk]

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Soaking mournfully in the lament-driven pond of bile that followed the realization of his error.

[taipan9999]

Yao must love playing the Knicks. And to think that Curry bragged about how he could take on Yao last year.

So you are saying Yao likes CURRY?
Curry chicken or curry beef??
Sounds YUMMY!!

[Secret Lover14]

were only 1 game back out of the playoffs

[nyk_buc]

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Does "TRADE ALSTON, START FRANCIS!" ring a bell?

Speaking of which...where's Mcgrady2Head been lately?

rafer SUCKED major for the first month. and francis never played. what's the natural reaction? START FRANCIS.

then we saw francis sucked too so we went back to more of alston and he has stepped up.

[nyk_buc]

Heh, buc, he's been shooting 50% from inside the arc, ALL YEAR (actually, early on it was closer to 55-65%), which at this point is damn near half of it. The ONLY reason his fg% has looked low all year is because he was shooting the 3ball like crap early on and takes 50% of his shots from there. Rafer wasn't "very below average" last year. He was "very below top-tier", and actually stood fairly close to average, if not slightly above.

Right now he's shooting 30%3p, 40%FG. You can basically take whatever the difference is between those two and add it to his FG% to get his 2p% at any given point.

This great 2 week stretch you're talking about has been on 3 pointers, where he's shot almost 40%, not on his floater.

Last year his 3p shot was about where it's at now, but he was shooting a lot lower % from inside. (again, 41%). There are a LOT of guards in the NBA (though usually not top tier, but not uncommonly starters) that shoot 39-42% fg, but not all of them can effectively distribute AND defend as well as Rafer.

again, if u read my posts throughout the past few weeks, i have been raining praises on rafer and he def. deserves it. without him, we would not be playing this well without tmac. i would say him and yao have had the same effect b/c he has led this team very well offensively from a PG's standpoint.

what i am saying is rafer SUCKED earlier in the season regardless of what his fg% is. he was just awful. again, he has to KEEP doing this on a consistent basis when tmac returns.

right now he's in a good rhythm. but he'll hit a slump soon like every role player but i hope he'll have the confidence to keep playing aggressively even when his shots don't fall.

we need rafer if we want to succeed.

[King Roosk]

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rafer SUCKED major for the first month. and francis never played. what's the natural reaction? START FRANCIS.

then we saw francis sucked too so we went back to more of alston and he has stepped up.

Wrong. Rafer's SHOOTING sucked major for the first month. As has always been the reaction to poor perimeter shooting on this board, everyone wanted him benched. However, since the preseason, Rafer has clearly been the best PG for this team. Yes, he was shooting 22% from 3 at the beginning of the season (he's upped it 8% since then), but he was still the best PG for this team.

[nyk_buc]

were only 1 game back out of the playoffs

we'll make the playoffs. what we need to do is make sure we face the nuggets in the playoffs (which is around a 5th seed b/c they will win their division and get a 4th seed).

our schedule for the rest of the season is VERY VERY manageable. when tmac returns, we should roll to some pretty long winning streaks.

[nyk_buc]

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Wrong. Rafer's SHOOTING sucked major for the first month. As has always been the reaction to poor perimeter shooting on this board, everyone wanted him benched. However, since the preseason, Rafer has clearly been the best PG for this team. Yes, he was shooting 22% from 3 at the beginning of the season (he's upped it 8% since then), but he was still the best PG for this team.

so?? that was a good thing?? we wanted to try something new at the time. rafer was BAD. i don't care how u slice it. he was god awful.

we experimented with james and francis and they turned out even worse. so yes he was the best PG at the time too (but our PG position at the time was arguably the worst in the L).

now rafer is playing superb. he's stepping up. i don't mind that at all.

i just want him to keep it up for the rest of the season AND playoffs.

hopefully brooks will emerge to be a major player for this team even more as the season progresses

[moofs]

My personal reaction was "eh, let's try playing Francis and/or Brooks". There were unexpected results for a few games before the expected Francis results kicked right back in. I don't know how anyone required "seeing him play" to know what he was going to do on average. As I said repeatedly during the offseason, we've SEEN him play.

Rafer's shooting sucked for the first month, but he was also getting some pretty decent assist tallys with only 2 games of more than 2 turnovers.

It always should have been more in favor of benching James.

[moofs]

I don't know how he looked this game, but Brooks has looked pretty good in the others.

[Yao21]

Man, Yao absolutely pummeled the Knicks today. With their current roster, the Knicks have officially become Yao's personal punching bag