I re-watched and slo-motioned close plays and calls. The Rockets set defense was actually pretty good. Don't blame the refs. Now, before the penalty, I didn't re-watch that yet, so getting the first 4 team fouls early might have been a ref problem, but once in the penalty, the calls weren't awful at all. The set defense only had 3 bad breakdowns during the last 6 minutes. The problems were: -Brewer fouling on a rebound (he did unnecessarily) -Howard 3 terrible turnovers -Josh Smith 1 terrible turnover -Terry missing 2 open 3's leading to fast breaks Transition defense and missing good shots and turnovers were the problem. In the set half court, they were actually ok on D.
And Harden turnovers. Basically, it was the offense and the problems created in transition by stalled ball movement and missed easy shots that caused the downfall.
It was the coach not calling at timeout to stop the momentum. It could have been a 6 or 8 point run instead of 20 or whatever it was.
When the refs don't call anything out of 6-8 drives, of course he's going to turn it over. Just 3,4 calls would have been fine.
Rockets didn't get many calls and that produced turnovers. Would be nice to see replays on Harden's drives.
Which drive? I'll go through it again. In the last 6 minutes, I only saw 3 Harden drives: -1 terrible turnover forced drive as they were up 6 trying to break the run -1 bad drive where he flew into a 2nd defender with bad offensive spacing -1 drive actually fouled I'll go back further. There might have been missed calls before that. Anyhow, the Rockets ran half great plays, then half bad plays. The problem was the great plays ended up in misses, and then they lost fockass!!!
At least 2 of Harden's turnovers were possible fouls. Can't say for sure because no replay was shown. Harden almost has to get calls to be fully effective because even when he gets LEGITAMATELY fouled with no call, the ball goes haywire. Ball might go out of bounds or might go to the opponent.
From my memory: Terry missed a couple of wide open 3s he normally would make. Howard several bad turnovers. Most of those resulted in fastbreaks at the other end.
Howard was fouled several times on the offensive glass. They never spotlight it on the telecast, but he is in position to offensive rebound and suddenly he just gets pushed/pulled under the backboard. It happened at least three times that I noticed during their run.
Put Ariza in for Brew, we could have avoided at least several points in that run. That turned out to be the difference.
Do you remember the play in which Howard has the clear rebound, Livingston is BEHIND him, we have another Rocket in the vicinity, and somehow it's a foul on Howard? Give me a break. Good that we're looking back at that stretch... the refs were not calling for the Rockets what they were giving to the Warriors on the other end. At least 7 plays in a row. The smallest things called on one end. Absolutely nothing on the other. Then Dwight starts complaining, then that worsens the situation. Harden was complaining as well when game clock was stopped.
During halftime, I watched the run again, and then slo-mo replayed the close ones to see if there were missed calls. This is the 2nd time I'm watching the reply. This time, it's slo-mo and no sound. 6:37 49-35 Festus Ezeli makes 4-foot two point shot (Stephen Curry assists) good defense by Josh, contested shot 6:28 Josh Smith bad pass 49-35 unforced turnover, missed chance for 2 easy points 6:18 49-35 Harrison Barnes misses three point jumper open shot, bad D by Josh, no contest, got lucky on the miss 6:18 Corey Brewer loose ball foul (Shaun Livingston draws the foul, makes 2 fts) 49-37 completely unnecessary push in the back by Brewer bc Howard had inside position for the rebound, just a brain fart 6:07 Klay Thompson blocks James Harden 's 7-foot 2-pt jumper 49-37 good attack by Harden, clearly no foul, Rockets retain ball 6:01 James Harden makes 19-foot two point shot (Jason Terry assists) beautiful stepback51-37 5:54 James Harden personal foul (Shaun Livingston draws the foul, makes 2 fts) 51-39 completely unnecessary foul by Harden on the reach around steal attempt. Livingston got by Harden at the 3pt line, but still there was Howard at the paint. 5:39 Dwight Howard lost ball turnover (Klay Thompson steals) 51-39 hard to tell if there is a foul here. If this happened to GS, I wouldn't want the foul called either. Dwight post up, spins baseline goes nowhere, comes back and by then Thompson is double teaming. Dwight needs to jump to pass it out, but he might have no lift now bc of his knee 5:33 51-41 Shaun Livingston makes two point shot (Klay Thompson assists) 3 on 2 fast break due to the turnover 5:31 Rockets Full timeout So at this point, it's gone from a 16 points lead to a 10 point lead bc of 2 needless fouls and 2 bad turnovers (Josh and Dwight) 5:16 James Harden misses jumper 51-41 great move, ez shot, just a miss 5:16 Dwight Howard misses rebound tip shot 51-41 something is wrong w/ Dwight. He looks to the refs for a loose ball foul, and everyone has arms touching everyone, but there's no grab on his jump. Green grabbed him as the shot was in the air down low, but that was tough to see from the refs angle and quickly let go. Dwight has no lift. Vs Mavs and Clippers, that would have been a put back 2 handed dunk. Hell, that happened earlier in this game. His lift is gone. 5:09 51-41 Klay Thompson misses 25-foot three point pullup jump shot transition 3, good contest by Harden 5:07 51-41 Draymond Green offensive rebound Josh Smith misses a box out 4:56 51-41 Harrison Barnes misses 24-foot three point jumper good GS offensive ball mvmt, open shot, Harden w/ a decent contest effort 4:54 Dwight Howard defensive rebound 51-41 4:35 Jason Terry misses three point pullup jump shot 51-41 wide open corner 3 catch n shoot, no contest by Curry, ez shot, just missed 4:26 51-43 Klay Thompson makes driving layup fast break, dwight still getting back, Smith at the 3pt line guarding his man, Thompson just drives by Terry and only Brew is left at the hoop 4:07 Dwight Howard lost ball turnover (Shaun Livingston steals) 51-43 great play by Brew, Dwight is just tired or sore or has hands of stone, bumbling a dunk chance 4:01 51-45 Shaun Livingston makes driving layup fast break again 3:42 James Harden misses 11-foot jumper 51-45 terrible drive by Harden, he bumps Klay early in the drive, then drives when there is no spacing and there are 4 other players in the paint...there was just no space and there was no reach-in foul either 3:30 51-47 Shaun Livingston makes two point shot (Klay Thompson assists) just good offense taking advantage of a Rockets switch w/ Josh on Klay, and Klay drove 3:12 Dwight Howard offensive foul (Draymond Green draws the foul) 51-47 not a blatant offensive foul, definite embellishment by Green, but at this point, I have no faith in injured Dwight being able to do anything positive on offense 3:12 Clint Capela enters the game for Dwight Howard 51-47 3:12 Terrence Jones enters the game for Josh Smith 51-47 3:03 Trevor Ariza enters the game for Corey Brewer 51-47 2:56 51-47 Stephen Curry misses 22-foot jumper great D contest by Capela 2:55 51-47 Shaun Livingston offensive rebound TJ doesn't box out the PG, smh 2:50 51-47 Klay Thompson misses jumper drives by a screen, Terry doesn't pick him up, smh 2:49 51-47 Draymond Green offensive rebound 2:49 51-49 Draymond Green makes 2-foot two point shot Harden had to contest the shot and TJ didn't get the board, not really his fault here bc everyone was scrambling, but it was his fault this extra possession happened in the first place 2:41 Clint Capela makes two point shot (James Harden assists) 53-49 beautiful alley-oop 2:15 53-51 Harrison Barnes makes two point shot (Draymond Green assists) really good D, contested shot over TJ and Capela 2:08 Jason Terry misses three point jumper 53-51 wide open catch n shoot from the corner again, smh 1:53 53-53 Klay Thompson makes driving layup (Stephen Curry assists) Klay just beat Trevor off the dribble here, floor was spread, no bucket protection 1:42 James Harden lost ball turnover (Draymond Green steals) 53-53 Missed foul on the reach-in by Green, should be FT's for Harden 1:36 53-53 Stephen Curry misses 26-foot three point pullup jump shot great transition defense contest 1:20 55-53 Klay Thompson shooting foul (James Harden draws the foul, makes 2 fts) good drive by James 1:00 55-56 Harrison Barnes makes 25-foot three pointer (Draymond Green assists) ok defense, TJ gets sucked in by a Green drive on Capela, maybe he should let Green make a tough driving layup instead of leaving to help, Harrison makes an open elbow 3 0:45 James Harden misses 25-foot three point jumper 55-56 tough shot, too early in the clock, Iggy had a good contest 0:34 55-56 Harrison Barnes misses 26-foot three point pullup jump shot good contest 0:10 Terrence Jones misses 29-foot three point jumper 55-56 terrible offensive possession, no movement no anything 0:10 Rockets offensive team rebound 55-56 0:09 shot clock turnover 55-56 0:01 55-58 Stephen Curry makes 20-foot two point shot great defense by Capela, just a great shot by Curry 0:00 End of the 2nd Quarter
We would've won this game if we could've just stopped that one big run. It's frustrating as hell because it was completely our fault: 1) Everyone knows Dwight sucks in the post and yet the Rockets still run those plays, even though they might be worse than midrange jumpers that we hate so much 2) McHale should've called a timeout earlier
In the last 6 minutes: On offense: 6 turnovers (1 missed call but did not lead to GS points, but did cost Harden 2 fts) 2 of 6 on open shots (4 total possessions, bc 1 was a tip attempt, 0/2 on 3's, 1 alleyoop and 1 great move step back) 2 fts 0-4 contested shots On defense: GS 5-11 on contested shots 4 fts (gift by Rockets) 6-7 on open shots mental mistakes (turnovers, bad fouls, missed block outs) lead to GS scoring 10 pts only 3 defensive breakdowns in the halfcourt Only 1 timeout called by McHale, but it wasn't that the defense was awful. The offense was putrid though. Edit: again, I didn't replay before the run, so it's possible the Rockets got screwed early by the refs to get in the penalty, but that only costs them 4 fts that they brain farted to commit. And on offense, they got screwed by 1 missed call. Not good, but that stuff happens. Edit2: -So the point of all this detail is to show that their set defense was pretty damn good. Even in the midst of this run, it was good. They did needlessly foul once and missed a couple of assignments and missed a couple of rebounds. They can improve there. -But the most improvement was needed on offense. Terrible turnovers (many self-inflicted turnovers), bad possessions that lead to bad shots, and of course just missing open shots that could have stemmed the tide (especially the 1st Terry 3 which could have pushed it back to 13 and stopped a fast break, but it's a make or miss league, and the Rockets were missing their easy shots and putting themselves in too many tough shots). Better offensive execution leads to less fast breaks.
Good job on the breakdown. I think a major mistake was leaving Dwight in for as long they did in the 2nd quarter. His play got progressively more sluggish and sloppy as it became more clear this was a performance-altering injury. He should have been taken out much earlier. Some of his turnovers were ones he wouldn't normally make, and his missing hops hurt us. Smith needs someone to pass to if he's to be effective. Without Dwight as that person, he does stupid things. This same M.O. hurt us when we super small at the end of the game. Josh goes into scoring heroball mode, which doesn't turn out so well. Put Capela in there (Capela 4-4 shooting on the night), and Smith has someone to assist, where he shines. In summary: Dwight should have sat himself or been sat, because he clearly wasn't okay. Capela is the real deal. PLAY HIM. Smith always needs another big he can pass to so he doesn't getting into creating for himself. Capela is that. Hobbled Dwight isn't. And worse than a Dwight in a wheelchair at converting assists is... Terrence Jones. Send him home before the next game. Construct a rig that gives him a electrical shock every time he either puts the ball on the floor or chooses a layup instead of a dunk. Throw him 1000 passes a day near the basket with said rig in place. Also, rebounding practice. Every missed or ineffective box out earns him 10 minutes in the Non-Box-Out box, which I would fill with non-poisonous snakes. "You want OUT of the BOX, Terrence? BOX OUT." He'll be a completely different player by the time the games switch to Houston.
Howard gotta be smart enough to know he's ineffective and take himself out the game versus fumbling the basketball over and over again like he did giving the ball back to the Warriors which sparked their run in the 2nd period
Of Dwight's 3 turnovers and Josh's 1, I think 2 could have been prevented if Dwight had lift. He could have jumped over the double team to pass and he may have been able to jump and catch Josh's pass...maybe. Let's make it 1.5. The other turnovers were just stone hands syndrome. The biggest concern I saw in addition to the turnovers was the missed offensive rebound tip. He battled for position, go it, and then did a terrible no-lift jump tip attempt. It is really sad to see in slo-mo. Healthy Dwight tip jams that for sure.
