They did a good job on him, but they committed extra defenders on him. Obviously we're struggling right now with our perimeter shooting, and we didn't make them pay as much as we'd hoped to for their committing multiple defenders to McGrady. So we've got to do that a little bit better. |
They dominated us. They just out-competed us. |
They have great point guard play in Parker, obviously. They share (the ball) well, they've got tremendous depth, they're very good defensively, they rebounded well, don't turn it over and have a great coach. They've got every base covered. |
They lead the league in field-goal defense, so you have to give them credit. They made it harder on our best players. |
They really showed our other guys absolutely no regard. I've never seen a team just leave small guys wide open behind the three-point line, but that proved effective. |
They turned it up in the second half, and we had no response. You've got to give them credit for that. They play well, and they're well-coached. |
They whipped us. Once the whipping started, I don't think we competed as hard as I would've liked to have seen us - but that was after the whipping started. |
This is not a year that we should take a mulligan on from blame, from the coaching perspective, from the team-building perspective. This is not a year of injuries. It's a year where we could have, despite the injuries, still been in the playoff hunt. |
This isn't new. It's the same old, same old. We have to put in young guys to compete, so it starts with competing hard. As we compete hard, we make far too many mistakes and that's why we have the record we have. We're a mistake-laden, inconsistently competitive team. |
Tracy got going pretty well after a while, but the first half his back was quite bothersome. Obviously, Yao had some fatigue problems. He never could quite get going in the fourth quarter. |
Tracy's obviously struggled and I thought tonight he had a little bit more of a bounce to his step. I thought he drove it and made some nice plays. I thought he looked better. |
Trying to judge a big guy too early is a mistake. If he wants to be an NBA player, he has to stick with it. You never know ? he may get an opportunity here. |
Turnovers are a skill thing and a responsibility issue. |
We came out ready to play in the third quarter. We were fortunate that they had a couple second-chance opportunities at the beginning of the quarter that they missed. Sometimes it's that simple - make or miss - and we made a good percentage tonight. |
We can expect much better from (Yao) defensively and on the boards. He had one rebound in the second half, and he was not active defensively. He's been playing great on offense, really great, and he's not been as good on the boards or defensively in the last three games. |