It’s a combination of a lack of size/rim protection without Capela, lazy offense leading to transition buckets for the opponent, and a lack of effort/focus.
OKC is now becoming a championship caliber team, whether one likes it or not. Every team knows it's easy to come back against the Rockets, no matter what the lead is. They have got to practice a lot more on defensive execution and rebound as a group. Faried and Harden are our best rebounders. Chris, Eric, Austin have got to be our secondary closers. It's not easy to defend Harden's stepback 3, but the opponents know what is coming down the stretch every time, and they can plan for it. I hope Shumpert will pick up his game, we need him to be a consistent contributor in a bad way. House can help too. His athleticism and size/ toughness is missing.
Everything is true except the last part. Coaches have weak areas to improve on just like players. Milkhair's biggest downfall as a coach is that he doesn't call plays. He developed that philosophy when he played on the Celtics completely surrounded by Hall of Fame caliber players. A Normal team doesn't have a bunch of hall of famers. A normal team needs plays called to get good looks and easy baskets. Milkhair is an awful coach... Well he is a GREAT tanking coach because he's good at losing but he also does give all his players minutes to play and try to develop, but he's an awful winning coach. Dantoni is just about one of the worst coaches I've seen at calling time outs. He needs to take a look at himself. It's funny you mentioned Pops.. Dantoni needs to religiously watch how Pop calls timeouts in the games he coaches. Pops does it properly. Pops will let his guys play through with no timeout if they are getting good looks but missing shots, however if its an effort issues on defense-- even if it's a minute in the quarter Pops calls an immediate time out and nips that in the @$$ pronto. Defense is key and you do not allow sheer laziness. That isn't something you 'let play out'
LOL, show me the plays where Schroder torched CP, he got a few good buckers but most of them were either on someone else or a fast break....you are a just a straight idiot.
Need Capela and House back, and we probably need to play Shumpert even more sadly. Capela/House will help a lot with rebounding, but the team needs to emphasize preventing 2nd chance points. It killed us in the OKC game. Unfortunately a team with D'Antoni as the head coach is the last team I'd think would be focused on the defensive end.
Last year D'Antoni bought into the defense first concept, but now he thinks Harden can shoot us to victory against anyone. It's not possible to do that despite his brilliance. Hakeem always used to establish the defensive tone of the team from the very first minute to the end. That was why we became back to back NBA Champions. I'm not blaming James for this, he has improved on defense to the best extent possible, but you're right on the money.
Decided to bumb this thread again and say that maybe Hartenstein needs to play over Faried, I love his energy and he’s good on offense but my god that defense is horrid. I don’t even know if I want him running back up for us.
Doesn't help when our second tallest starter is 6'5". Everyone knows we switch on everything. Simple pick and roll and switch our center on perimeter and their big will roll to the basket with someone not taller than 6'5" guarding them.
I think Faried or not, given Hartenstein's almost passable performance earlier in the season and his dramatic improvement in the G League recently, he deserves some minutes right now. He is looking more fluid, thinking quicker and somehow seems to be moving better. He can be getting 10 minutes right now, 10 minutes a game is doing nothing for Nene's fitness so if Nene is going to play in the playoffs, keep him on the treadmill till later in the season.
All good points, the only thing THE ONLY thing that should concern anybody about Harty is if he gets isolated on defense. And honestly, he cant be that much worse than Faried, so they have no reason not to play him.
The thing is, it is possible he would try harder than Faried and not do better. In which case, I would much rather have Faried on offense and as a rebounder. The only player Hartenstein might be able to replace right now full time is Nene. But if we're being prudent, then when we're without Capela we should be giving Hart minutes if for no other reason than to prepare him for next season. At least.
I donno man, so far besides rebounding, Faried has been terrible in all aspects defensively. Hartenstein(not that this means much at all, im just telling you) actually has the highest defensive on/off on our team LOL. I dont know what that means but I guess we could give it a shot no? But maybe once Clint comes back he'll be a great spark off the bench. Also for reference, Nene is second after Harty in that rating, granted neither of those guys have significant minutes so take it as you will.
When Capela went out, we we're 26th in defensive rating. Him coming back alone won't solve anything. Issues are far deeper than that.
Whenever Harden turns over the ball, it's a guaranteed 2 points for the other team or 2 fts. Whenever Harden is resting on defense like he was last night, his man always has an open 3 which seemed to go in every-time. No interior presence at all and somehow we're double-teaming bigs at the 3pt line. Terrible defensive planning. Like D'antoni says, we rarely have practices. P&R kills us every time. Capela coming back will help this but not the other 2 problems.
