The Houston Rockets’ switching defense has made them more active in the passing lanes and could elevate them to a top 10 defense post-All-Star break. https://spacecityscoop.com/2020/02/14/houston-rockets-small-ball-elevate-defense/ Rockets do not just need more switch everything 3-D players, they need better ones than they already have. Rockets best switch defenders are Covington and Tucker. In 2017-2018 Rockets employed 3 elite switch everything defenders with Ariza-Luc-Tucker. But without a true 5 (Capela) Rockets need not just one more elite switch everything 3-D player but TWO. Neither House nor McLemore are elite switch defenders not because they lack willingness or effort but because they are physically limited - McLemore is 6'3 and 6'6 House has a very short wingspan of 6'8. Longer reach is essential to attack passing lanes, recover when beaten, rebound and rim protect. Generating disruptive plays on defense is key to new Rockets defensive focus. Preferably linebacker sized because these THICC players are strong enough to dislodge opposing bigs in post while also smothering smaller players on perimeter. Opposing coaches for the last 3 seasons have consistently complained about how strong our wings are.
https://www.cbssports.com/nba/news/...-are-going-small-and-thinking-big-on-defense/ via the Houston Chronicle's Jonathan Feigen. That's Pretty Interesting: With Robert Covington, radical Rockets are going small and thinking big on defense
https://stats.nba.com/leaders/?Season=2019-20&SeasonType=Regular Season&StatCategory=STL Rockets have THREE players in top 15 in steals. Roco-Beard-Brodie. Only 4 players averaging at least 1 steal and at least 1 block. TWO of the 4 are Rockets. Andre Drummond Robert Covington James Harden Anthony Davis To maximize Smallball defense, Rockets need to add more DISRUPTORS.
How do u start a topic about small ball then u trash the defense of house. House got more steals by himself than what the entire jazz team generated in sunday's loss against Utah.
Two more wings or one three point shooting big would really lighten the load on our undersized team. It clearly works but for how long? Also, starting Hartenstein on Westbrook’s rest days is probably helpful. I’m sure MDmA is considering it.
I really need to Knicks to buy out Moe Harkless. But I think we can survive with roco and pj and use Bruno situationally
Paul Pierce seems to think we'll wear down other teams, not wear ourselves down. He thinks our switching saves us:
(dun't wanna be a wet blanket, just give more thought on it) like what we witnessing, small ball did elevate our D and other things in past 4-6 games. all this team are working on might be theoretically right in regular season. but, scenarios might change a lot in playoff, i.e. even if we rostered the kinda buyout players we coveting, also we clinch 3rd seed as we planned and we came all the way to face off LAL in WCF, then MIL in final. all those teams w/ lengthy star players gonna do 4 things: * playing far more intensified D * slowing down tempo of the game or bring us into their tempo * allowing us more 2pt shot other than 3pt that we heavily relying on, or bring the game into a MEAT GRINDER to wear our 3pt volume scorers out * forcing our key players into foul troubles esp in last 3-5min of 4th qrt (say LBJ or AD bring ball to the paint to crunch down our THIICK players) either we prove that we are 20% (quote blow) better than opp, or we got countermeasure (plan b), otherwise it gonna be tough. @Gray_Jay http://bbs.clutchfans.net/index.php?threads/2-seed-is-beyond-possible-or-not.303859/
Right... “yeah we need another big “ (checks rgv roster) “We also need a couple more 3pt shooters, anyone overseas we can get?”
Hardly. The point really is we are not a contender because finding a 3&D rotational player is extremely difficult. Luc was probably the greatest find in that category and a shame that injury took him out. I still believe that if he and CP3 were healthy that year, this team would have won a championship and that trade for westbrook would have never happened.
The injury to Luc and Paul did us in. We would have wiped GS from existence if we were healthy. The reason we sucked so much last year was because we lost our top 2 defenders and our 3rd(CP3) looked his age.
I’m going to have to respectfully disagree with the legendary D-rock here. This is total conjecture here but after the 2017-18 season and the consequences of the 0-27. It seems to me that the Rockets, more importantly Morey, have gone full in on offense over defense. That is to say that, all else being equal, having more offense is better than more defense.
I have to go with D-Rock here. We never changed our defensive scheme with Capela. That left him isolated on the 3 point line against a fast guard with nobody protecting the paint. Terrible strategy unless you have some combination of Ariza, Tucker, Luc, and CP3 our there to clean up the mess. With Capela gone, we will have somebody on the 3 point line who at least has a chance to stop the offensive player. Still nobody protecting the paint though. If we had kept Capela, we needed to change our defense away from switch everything and for whatever reason we didn’t do it. So we might as well commit to protecting the paint by protecting the perimeter in the first place. On offense, Capela was only good for pick and roll. If he wasn’t being used like that, his defender could sag way off him without consequence because he can’t shoot. Worst case, foul him and he can’t make a damn free throw either. TLDR: Buh Bye Capela. He was a bad fit for this era. He is a poor man’s Dwight Howard and will follow Dwight’s career trajectory downhill unless he learns how to shoot the ball and make free throws. And the switch everything defense will IMPROVE without him. I would love to have an Ibaka type player though. A big who can shoot would be awesome.
