A quick poll of what you consider to be the main cause for our spectacular blowout losses in the playoffs: 1) Talent level is not enough 2) Coaching is nonexistent 3) Coaching is reactionary not proactive 4) Unfair reffing of the Rockets - allowing physical play on Dwight, not calling the arm swipes on Harden drives 5) Injury to key players - DMo & PatBev 6) Passive attitude of players of individual player 7) Lack of execution - players don't do what coaches tell them Last year against POR, I think the consensus was injured Bev, stupid play, reactionary coaching due to inexperience, and passive attitude of players (pretty much all of them except Dwight). This year, I think the biggest thing is injury: absences of DMo and Bev However, I feel that we are still dealing with reactionary coaching meaning that we look to see what the other team is doing and then make our move. The game 2 result was great and I felt we had 'woken up' and that we would adjust and build on the momentum. Instead we were passive, started out with the same philosophies with which we ended game 2 (Ariza on Blake etc), instead of trying something different to surprise the Clippers. Reffing is always going to be an issue for this Rockets team: Dwight gets fouled more than they call and so does James. It's just a fact and frustration with which Rockets fan have to live with. The only way it would change is if the organization publicly starts calling out refs and the NBA, just like Blake Griffin and Doc shamelessly and wrongfully did after Game 2
Talent level/Team chemistry. Not team chemistry in do they get along or not. More like team chemistry in "do these pieces fit well together". They don't.
Clippers are just a far more talented team. Jordan is a younger version of Dwight and better than he is now. Blake is superior to anything we have at the 4 or any inside guy we have for that matter. Chris Paul is freaking awesome even on one leg. And Crawford/Rivers/Reddick are clearly outplaying our backcourt. Barnes is outplaying Ariza and I'd say Barnes is the better player there too. I mean, Harden just isn't enough.
I think its a combination of many of these. Hard to select just one. In order of importance, I'd rank them as: Lack of execution - players don't do what coaches tell them Coaching is reactionary not proactive Talent level is not enough Passive attitude of players of individual player Injury to key players - DMo & PatBev
Would we be better balance as a team if we had DMo and Bev? Probably so, but I still feel that we have enough talent and good enough team balance of our active players in these 3 losses. The PF's have been doing fairly well in the wins, just have to remind them to play defense every game. Our PG's are of course not exactly where we need them to be on defense, but Terry played pretty well for Game 3. I've taken play harder in these 3 losses to mean, get your reflexive reaction speed up and start playing more keyed in defense. I feel our players get too focused on their matchup or the ball, but are not aware enough of both. This seems like a big difference to me compared to the season where DMo and PatBev have a more natural tendency to play defense in this fashion. Right now the four guys that do it are Dwight, Ariza, Smith and Prigioni but the problem is that Smith does it in spurts, and Prigioni is a bit too slow for him to have much effect on the perimeter. That sounds like passive play?
It's probably a combination of all of these. Talent level is not enough Coaching is nonexistent Coaching is reactionary not proactive Unfair reffing of the Rockets - physicality on Dwight/arm swipes on Harden drives Injury to key players - DMo & PatBev Passive attitude of players of individual player Lack of execution - players don't do what coaches tell them
Another option that could have been added to the poll is team offensive philosophy. The Rockets rely way to much on the three considering they don't have any pure shooters on the roster. When shots aren't falling not only does the offense struggle, but it puts added pressure on the defense with run outs and fast breaks. I'm not sure the threes and layups philosophy will work in the playoffs, much like the Oilers struggled in the playoffs with the Run and Shoot back in the day.
1. Talent level: can't have two grandpas as your starting pgs. Maybe one. 2. Nobody that will fight back or lead the team to fight back, like Ron Artest or even to a certain extent, Bev, whom should be considered a backup pg in a championship team. 3. No dead eye shooters. You have a system for 3 point shooters, but nobody who excels at it.
The Clippers do have 3 big names who are playing very well right now, and the Rockets had 2 going into this series, but I wouldn't say our talent level does not match up. The difference is our bench stepping up in the regular season but shying away for the losses. I think the reason for this is that our bench is full of defensive players who are successful offensively only when the team defense is clicking. So I feel that the heart of the problem lies in players not executing what the coaches are telling them to do on defense, and subsequently our offense goes into iso mode instead of having the ball "pop". I feel that Dwight/TJ/Smith/Capela are more than enough to hold the fort against DeAndre & Blake. The talent difference shows at the PG position most obviously - we basically need at least an 80% version of Terry's Game 1 Mavs performance, in many games, or Prigioni's 4th quarter performance a couple of nights back. Yeah, i agree with the order of the top 3 things on your list. Would we have the talent level needed to avoid blowouts if we had DMo & Bev? I don't mean losses in general, but blowouts in particular. ------- The 8th point that I meant to add in the poll is our style of offense: increasing variance is one of the favorite phrases adopted here to describe it; I do think that is a contributor to us not being able to build momentum when the team is cold. Seems much harder to stay invested in the game when open 3 after open 3, early or late in the shot clock, is clanking off the rim. Probably is, but some of those are bigger issues than others. I don't think this team is completely bogged down by problems. We have obviously won 5 of 8 playoff games because we're not bogged down. What's the main thing to work on for the remainder of the playoffs? I think our game preparation seems good enough, they're just not focused enough once the game gets going i.e. lack of execution comes into it. Of course, the huge run last night should not have been allowed, and that's definitely a mistake on McHale's part to hold back on the timeout.
Points 1 and 3, I agree with. I'm not on board with point 2 because we see Ariza and Dwight out there still giving their entire effort even when the game is not going their way. That counts as fighting for me, and I think there are other more influential factors contributing to blowouts Right, I forgot to add that as option 8. The only issue I have with the high volume of open 3's is that we don't have the dead eye shooters for the system. It's only natural that seeing a bunch of bricked 3's is demoralizing and energy-sapping for a team.
The Rockets at least competed last year. All the games were close vs. Portland. Hell, right before giving up that Lillard 30-footer, Chandler Parsons scored a clutch bucket with 0.9 second on the clock to put the Rockets ahead. This year, the losses have been much more decisive even with alleged veteran leaders added to the team. So, what does that say about the team? I am thinking the big factor may just be that the Clippers are a tougher opponent than Portland. Portland with Matthews and a fully healthy Aldridge was pretty good but still note quite a contender. The Clippers might well be a real contender.
That's why it says Main reason... Tell us what you think the multiple reasons are. I say not playing defense is the symptom, what's the cause?
What B-Bob said. A million times, what B-Bob said. We cannot defend them. We. Cannot. Defend. Them. Maybe you call that talent level or energy. But we can't stop them. And we know it. Hence, spectacular losses. It's demoralizing. They're the #1 offense in basketball, so it's not just us. But we're worse at it than most. Our D was a strawman this year. We're still not close to good enough on D. Certainly better with Bev and D-Mo, but probably still not good enough. We need to get a lot better on D.
we're out gunned im afraid, not enough scoring options. when one person shots arent falling for the clippers, another person picks up the slack. this is not the case with the rockets