Teams are going to dare Westbrook to open jumpers whenever he is playing off the ball next to Harden whether he has 10 working appendages or not. Shooting open jump shots is the least effective part of Westbrook’s game and something the Rockets need to minimize as much as they can. Before tonight, Westbrook had been the Rockets’ best player over the first five games, so this is not me criticizing his play, either. He really has done a good job of improving his shot selection and trying to set others up as a Rocket.
Sad part is there’s not really a lot they can do to improve the personnel because Gordon can’t be moved this season. Probably need to move Capela and House or Capela and Tucker.
Harden will never be an off ball scorer. It’s not a sexy game and will make very few highlights. He doesn’t care what is best for the team.
I highly suspect that our team is collectively out of shape right now, and Miami’s legendary training staff has those guys looking like beasts right out of the gate. Mental mistakes of this nature go hand in hand with fatigue. From Tillman, to Morey, to D’Antoni, down to the training staff, I wonder If we have not been demanding enough when it comes to physical condition. Hearing about James Johnson and Dion Waiters this offseason has me thinking that we got punked tonight by Riley/Spo early season discipline.
Luckily we have MEM and GSW on deck. Hopefully that buys us some time to get into better physical shape and get some rhythm. We need to get to Dec 14 so Morey has some contracts to play with for trades...
Perhaps we have the least practice in NBA. Can you believe EG keep bricking 6 games in a row? Where is our shooting practice?
This is most likely what’s happening. I expect after the back to back (tomorrow night) we’ll start rounding the corner on our conditioning. Every shot we take is short for a reason. The trip to Japan probably played a major part in conditioning as well.
I can actually see the Rockets lose tommorrow...not against Golden State though, that would be really really bad, like, basically losing against a G-League team.
I would posit that every game has been a bad game in which he has been dreadful on defense and hurts our spacing on offense. No, the stats don't always show it but that's been the thing with Westbrook his whole career. He's Marbury on steroids. He'll never be a winner until he goes to China.
Yet, he has historically one of the highest +- of any player that has ever played, regular season and playoffs. The stats truly “don’t always show it”...
Every damn shot has been short, and the lack of communication is 100000000% a factor of fatigue. Disappointing to say the least. MJ and Scottie would never allow guys to come into camp out of shape. You gotta wonder If Beard and company were too busy chasing dollars, and not running bleachers like they should have been.
We should beat GSW even in the state we are in... But Memphis is a young athletic team that plays hard. Wouldn't be surprised if we lose tomorrow night. I always thought we would split these games, just didn't see us losing this badly against the Heat.
Missing that many shots in a row is fatigue. EG has laser accuracy in an open gym, but game conditioned shots are an entirely different matter. It’s too bad we didn’t bring in a Thibs type this offseason to put a boot in ass...
I am OK with Harden handling the ball, but he has to play smart. When his step back three is not falling, he needs to take some mid range shots! **** Morey ball!
I think alot of it is the pace has went up this year, and the team collectively isn't in shape to play that fast. Harden's definitely not in game shape & as a result he's forcing up bad shots making things worse. But the biggest blame should go to Daryl Morey. He has a bad tendency in getting undersized guys, or getting to many guys at one position like PG/SG. The team needs energy & unfortunately they let our biggest energy guy walk Kenneth Faried
