Game 7 dissected
Monday, May 7th, 2007
by John
After the devastating loss in Game 7 Saturday night, I felt compelled to watch the game on my DVR and dissect every possession to really find out why the Rockets lost other than the obvious reasons.
There are some overall themes that we already know about that are backed up by an analysis of all the possessions. Bad defense, great play by Carlos Boozer and Deron Williams, and Mehmet Okur and Andrei Kirilenko surprising with some big, 4th quarter threes.
But there are some other themes I noticed by looking at each possession closely that you may not have realized:
* Chuck Hayes played terrible defense on about 7 possessions, which killed them. Hayes gets a lot of credit for hustle, but I didn’t see it in this game. Also, his lack of offensive production obviously means the Rockets are going to have to find a stud power forward. Can Rashard Lewis come back to Houston now? Hayes would make a worthy backup.
* Tracy McGrady disappearing in the game’s final minutes.
* Lucky bounces in the game’s final minute coming off of missed long jump shots by Utah. Defensive rebounding could have been better on those possessions, but doesn’t guarantee they would have grabbed those boards.
You may find other themes by looking at all the plays below. Feel free to comment on them at the end of the post.
One thing I should note before you read them. The first digits (like ‘11:45’) are the time remaining on the clock when the play occurred or sequence of plays took place. The second digits (‘2-0’) represent the score after the play or sequence was finished, with the Utah score being the first one before the dash (since they led most of the game).
Finally, I have marked most of the plays with either “GOOD” or “BAD” or other keywords so you can skim and pick out the good plays or bad ones much easier. I have also provided some comments for some of the entries to explain further what happened.
1st quarter
11:45 - BAD: McGrady started with a baseline jumper that missed. Great way to start…NOT.
11:05 – 2-0 – GOOD: Yao scores on a fadeaway near the elbow after reposting. McGrady dished it back to him.
After the devastating loss in Game 7 Saturday night, I felt compelled to watch the game on my DVR and dissect every possession to really find out why the Rockets lost other than the obvious reasons.
There are some overall themes that we already know about that are backed up by an analysis of all the possessions. Bad defense, great play by Carlos Boozer and Deron Williams, and Mehmet Okur and Andrei Kirilenko surprising with some big, 4th quarter threes.
But there are some other themes I noticed by looking at each possession closely that you may not have realized:
* Chuck Hayes played terrible defense on about 7 possessions, which killed them. Hayes gets a lot of credit for hustle, but I didn’t see it in this game. Also, his lack of offensive production obviously means the Rockets are going to have to find a stud power forward. Can Rashard Lewis come back to Houston now? Hayes would make a worthy backup.
* Tracy McGrady disappearing in the game’s final minutes.
* Lucky bounces in the game’s final minute coming off of missed long jump shots by Utah. Defensive rebounding could have been better on those possessions, but doesn’t guarantee they would have grabbed those boards.
You may find other themes by looking at all the plays below. Feel free to comment on them at the end of the post.
One thing I should note before you read them. The first digits (like ‘11:45’) are the time remaining on the clock when the play occurred or sequence of plays took place. The second digits (‘2-0’) represent the score after the play or sequence was finished, with the Utah score being the first one before the dash (since they led most of the game).
Finally, I have marked most of the plays with either “GOOD” or “BAD” or other keywords so you can skim and pick out the good plays or bad ones much easier. I have also provided some comments for some of the entries to explain further what happened.
1st quarter
11:45 - BAD: McGrady started with a baseline jumper that missed. Great way to start…NOT.
11:05 – 2-0 – GOOD: Yao scores on a fadeaway near the elbow after reposting. McGrady dished it back to him.
