Since we have the best defensive team thus far... Steve- PG that use to dominate Steve are looking very average against us this year. Cat- He has some of the toughest defensive assignments on the team and is doing better than holding his own. JJ- Looks a little like Doug Christie out there, rotating, hustling and changing shots. Who would have thought he would pay such dividends. Cato- Blocks, rebounds. If Yao is the Green Hornet, Cato has certainly been "Cato" to him. Yao- Double-doubles, shot blocks, changed shots. I hate to gush but in lieu of transitions on and off the court. Yao is pretty amazing.
For defensive PoY on our own team, you'd have to go with Mobley or Yao. Yao probably has the bigger impact, overall... but Mobley is better man-on-man. I don't think any of our individual players is really a great candidate for the overall award, though. Yao isn't really a great 1-on-1 defender and mistimes his jumps, too much. Mobley is great on-the-ball, but doesn't always play passing lanes, etc all that well. All of our front court players can be a little late in rotation.
I would vote for Jim jackson. I just remember him shutting down Carmelo Anthony in the beginning of the year.
There is too much year left.... but for now it has to be JJ since he was the only variable other than the rules, Cato at starting PF and JVG..... (yea, I actually credit JVG - HERE! )
In the future, Yao will be a candidate every year. He changes the whole game just by his presence. When he blocks at least 2 shots we have a great record.
I would agree. The only cases I'd give it to one player would be in the case of maybe Mobley or JJ with Cato a distant 3rd. The way this team is playing now is eerily similar to the way the championship Rockets played. No, they're not on that level yet, but what I mean is that you can see the beginnings of a unit. To borrow a Star Trek phrase, the entire team has been assimilated into a defensive collective. Van Gundy preached the one goal/one team philosophy earlier in the season and you can see it start to form somewhat now. On the defensive side of things, I no longer watch individual players. It's more fun watching a guy rotate to help someone on d than it is to watch the defender himself now. It's like an ant colony where 2 or 3 ants have one ant's back. Our initial defense with the likes of Steve Francis and others isn't exactly great, but others always invariably rotate over to help anyone that sees daylight in the paint. The opposing offense drives, gets near the paint, gets stopped, backs out, regroups and tries again. All the while, the shot clock is running down to the point where they can no longer set up any time-consuming play and it turns into either a hurried shot or just helter skelter basketball. The other thing I've noticed about the Rockets is that there aren't as many let downs or lapses on defense like there were during the early parts of the season. Sure they'd play great d in the 1st and 2nd, but then it would fall apart later. Or maybe they'd play great in the 1st, but lose it in the 2nd and 3rd and try to play catch up in the 4th. Nowadays you see the effort from the beginning to the end for the most part. Like I said earlier in the season, no matter how low scoring the basketball game, the game can be fun to watch if it's your team and your team is winning. I've enjoyed watching the Rockets play the past few games... hopefully they won't let me down too often the rest of the season.
Mango! Calling Mango! That was a nice post, DoD, kidding aside. The sum greater than the parts. If they can get consistent on the offensive end...
Nice post DoD. I've also noticed that they gain momentum defensively. Last year when out fo games they would try to shoot themselves back into games, this year they are defending themselves back into games and usually Steve leads that charge.
The Rockets defensive success this season is a result of their team defensive rotations, not the defensive contributions of individuals. If you had to single a player out, it would have to be Yao or Yao/Cato because that is the core of the Rockets team defense.
