I'm far more depressed about Harden's defense. Adding Chris Paul to the team hasn't made -- and, as I should have realized, won't make -- a lick of difference to Harden's fundamentally bad footwork. It's like all of Harden's talent depends on knowing what's going to happen next with the ball, because he's the one holding it.
This is what was pissing me off all game, I'm not a fan of Anderson, but stupid switches killed us way worse then Anderson tonight. Hubie Brown called it "you want a good shot, just cut and you got any mismatch you want". Seeing us switch our guards on to Gasol over and over was infuriating. Paul is a 5'11 175 pound 32 year old man in his 14th NBA season, I don't want him taking ****ing elbows and knees from 260 7ft Marc Gasol in a damn preseason game, why put his health at risk like that? We should never game plan to switch Paul onto giant bigs like that.
I feel like it's got it's pro's and cons , but the cons outweigh the the pros and it's not close unless we are playing full tilt balls to the walls effort . I saw us double in the post ... But can't do that to a passer like gasol . Even if the guy isn't a scoring threat a big on a wing will usually give up a decent look from three and ... The big will be under the basket with a smaller player on him and can easily get the board . The only time I'd use this switching is when facing GS or a team you really can't give and inch of space on the perimeter to . Also good point about health
I have accepted that Harden will be poor on defense. It was the same with Barkley when he was with the Suns. Both poor defenders yet both elite offensively. What we need to do is surround Harden with good defenders to mask his deficiency. Having someone like Anderson playing alongside him is suicidal on defense.
Well it's definitely a compound problem.... D antoni isn't exactly a defensive coach, Harden isn't helping, and Ryan Anderson also doesn't know where to atleast position himself. Heck even after watching the first preseason game, you could see Melo at least putting a body on the opposing player or even positioning himself properly. I really hope Morey is still busy trying to fix our problems up in the front court.
thought he battled hard on defence today, but him not being athletic or having a big jump on him hurts him
[QUOTE="Will, post: 11353846, member: 62"]I'm far more depressed about Harden's defense. Adding Chris Paul to the team hasn't made -- and, as I should have realized, won't make -- a lick of difference to Harden's fundamentally bad footwork. It's like all of Harden's talent depends on knowing what's going to happen next with the ball, because he's the one holding it.[/QUOTE] he would have contested nearly the most threes tonight.....but heck it is just preseason, lets go nuts about it
The Rockets have oddly been making a point to basically win all the games too, it's weird that we have been playing all of our starters late in the 4th against scrubs in our 3 NBA games. I care about the players health/rest way more then wins in the preseason, I guess the coaching staff really wants the team to get some in game practice in.
I'm not that concerned about Anderson this year, unlike last year when we had to put up with him no matter what this year we have 2 guys who can replace him on the lineup, Tucker and esp. Luc. So when Anderson can't hit a shot or w/e MDA can just bench his ass, in fact you can see it in these preseason games Anderson just played 20 mins tonight and was the starter with the least amount of mins...he is clearly on a short leash this season. And on the nights were Anderson is filling it he's like our 3rd/4rth star, he had a couple of game saving performances last year where his shooting just offsets everything negative he does. My problem with Anderson is really his contract, having guys like Tucker and esp. Luc have shown Anderson that while Anderson is a decent player in a vacuum, you can get someone around his overall level at the MLE which is probably why no other team wants him. It'll be interesting to see what happens in the deadline and offseason.
Preseason we only have games every 3+ days so I'm not worried at all, I mean 30 mins for the starters every 3 days that's not exactly a big load. These are basically the mins they will be playing in the real season anyway so I don't really see any issues.
Not entirely. They will up their minutes to 36-38 mpg ( For Harden and others 37-40 mpg) Yull C Now they are at 32-36 minutes which is still too much for preseason. The thing is MDA isn't developing any young talents for the roster, he will continue with his 7-8 man rotation. Mbah Moute is at least average at scoring but Tucker is a complete dud on Offense with most likely rare corner 3. Others are scrubs that dun get too much PT. We will be lucky to have Anderson score his usual 13-14 ppg.
First of all, you gotta stop it with the preseason minutes. It doesn't matter how many minutes CP3 and Harden plays because like I said preseason has a lot of breaks, for example they have 2 days of rest until Spurs game and then 4 days of rest till the season starts. That's a lot of rest for players. So even if Harden and Cp3 play 40 mins for the last preseason left they will still be fresh for season opener. Secondly MDA can't have just 7 guys because the core rotation is already: Harden, Cp3, Capela, nene, Anderson, 3Za, Gordon, Tucker, Luc That is already 8 guys even if they get huge minutes it's already gonna max at 36 MPG which is still acceptable IMHO. The only young talent on the roster worth developing is Joe Chee, the rest of young guys we have are just canon fodder (Taylor, Black, Troy Williams???) and are projected to be career subs. We are built to win now so I can agree with MDA trying to win even the preseason games. The only concern i have is we only have garbage mamba as the 1st pg off the bench, this means in must win games or in an event of injury Harden/Cp3/Gordon will have to play tons of minutes because you really can't depend on garbage mamba. However apart from the pg situation the rest of the spots have multiple players able to sub them thanks to Ariza, Tucker and Luc.
