Am I the only one who finds the current system unwatchable?

All of America finds it unwatchable. The Rockets are truly despised. If you are not a fan of this team by geography, it's "trashketball."

 

I also dislike it and there’s a legitimate reason why most non Rockets fans dislike it as well. That shouldn’t bother them, but yes it definitely is far from entertaining and I love watching teams play who actually move and pass it around. I cannot wait for this era to end to be honest, it’s just so far off from team ball.

To your point, the Warriors can easier beat teams because they have a variety of ways indeed and it’s definitely hard to push this iso ball into hyperdrive and go crazy. That has absolutely zero to do with heart though, that’s all about will and effort.

 

Pretty much everyone finds it unwatchable. Even a lot of die hard fans admit they would hate it if it wasn’t the rockets.

 

I love rockets, Harden, CP and Tucker. I always liked pringels(im old enough to remember when suns were cooking us). I HATE the way we play both on offense and defense. It's to the point i much rather watch another Tmac/Yao failure over dallas from lack of talent than watch another frustrating choke job of current era because of lack of effort

 

i dont find the system unwatchable - when our guys are on and hitting shots, it's extremely fun. but if guys aren't hitting shots / harden isn't in MVP mode, we have no backup plan. the reliance on 1 or 2 players playing great is just unsustainable and doesn't maximize the collective output of the team.

MDA and Morey saw the Warriors' success and somehow concluded all they needed to do to replicate it was emphasize volume 3s. Rather than acknowledge the effort the W's put in to execution, the strategy of getting all their players involved on offense and defense and the advantages of moving without the ball, the Rockets were tantalized by Harden's incredible scoring efficiency and decided that rather than build a cohesive offense that utilized the whole team's talents, they'd just roll with Harden being the system (and once we got cp3, hope he could fill the void when Harden sits). and as others have pointed out, cp3 and harden have generally coexisted well (despite cp3's personal decline this year), but they never really made each other better and there didn't seem to be any synergy from having them on the court at the same time.

before we got cp3, the rockets seemed to be trying to answer 'who can we get to help harden', rather than 'how we can make the team better'. it's clear you can't just focus on getting better talent - you have to be improving your plan and system and we never did that. and thanks to KD being out, we no longer have the excuse that the Warriors just had unfair talent - we should've been able to take this series but our flawed approach got exposed just as much as our flawed personnel.

 

it may be unwatchable when we do this against all other teams, but the warriors take everything else away with switching defense. offball screens don't work. the warriors defense reduces your offense to 1:1 play.

its ugly but its the only thing that works against the warriors. we proved it last year, and this year even in a 6 game series loss we never lost by more than 6 points. no other team will stay as close for a whole series. it works. we just didn't have enough talent to compete.

 

When they're on, they're fun as hell to watch. When they play a team that knows how to defend them, it can be a slog. When they decide to abandon any offensive precepts and turn 10 minutes or more into a dribble dribble dribble (maybe pass) jack up a 3....

It's not my kind of basketball. I know why they do what they do, and if they had a bit more talent and imaginative coaching it would work quite well, but as it stands the only reason I could stomach a good portion of these 11 playoff games was the word "Houston" on the jersey.

ETA: I will say that I loved watching them play defense for a good part of this series. They had their lapses that eventually killed them (4Q game 5), but when they were really getting after it, it was a thing to behold. I respect the effort.

 

Adding just one particular freakishly athletic talent would change the way we play and make it fun. But some decided that ending the season this sorry way was better than trying for Zion (actually, many on this board and we can look this up).

 

Hilarious how this type of thread pops up when we lose.

Such a hot take. Where was this thread when we had success at every other point in the season or last season?

 

I agree we iso is an option it should not be the only option. We need a championship culture and philosophy

 

OP makes a good point. It’s known that players play harder when they’re on a team where everyone touches the ball.

That really could explain the hustle difference between the two teams last night.

 

They took it too far, part of using data effectively is knowing when to insert it and when to play to players strengths....if they had a similar philosophy but added more variety, Post up, midrange, they would be much more effective overall.

DD

 

Hard to watch. Hard to root for. Not entertaining. I started similar thread.

Also fails over and over in big games.

 

ISO ball is not going to beat teams that are good defensively. Golden State knew what we wanted to de every time down the court and when we slow it down we play right into their hands. I just hope management sees that and they have to get younger and more athletic.

 

I do miss the old days playing the inside-outside game with Olajuwon dominating the middle. This offense is a far cry from that.

 

If we had a Jokic I’d love to work out of the post.

If we had more quality mid range shooters I’d be fine if we shot more.

We don’t currently.

I’m glad we play to our strengths.

 

Can’t wait for the era to pass.