MDA is an important part of the problem, but he is not the only one responsible for this defensive disaster. Harden, and his selfish way of understanding basketball, is equally responsible. Harden needs to assume his role as a leader and unite this team instead of believing himself at the center of the universe.
Gordon was awful defensively last night. He got blown by with ease multiple times in the second half. Tucker, Tyson Chandler, Danuel House and Austin Rivers were the guys doing a good job defensively against the Nets.
Didn’t see last night except for 4th qtr but 3 games I’ve seen this season he locks players down. Tucker has been blown by a lot this season. But it essentially comes down to help defense and inside presence which we don’t have
Really? There is always help defence. Why, just the other night I saw 6'3 Austin Rivers rolling around on rim protection duty and trying to block 6'10 Mo Wagner.... MDA: Hell yeah we worked on defence at practice. We spent a half hour on it
This is horeshit. I remember when we had one of the worst expected defenses in 2017-18, but an actual elite defense. “Tough” shots are not actually tough when they are the exact shots teams want to take. For instance Hardens step back in 18 and 19. Coaches actively decided to NOT let him have a “tough” shot and hope he misses. They shaded he he’ll out of his left hand. The Rockets don’t give up a lot of wide open shots but they don’t take anything away at all. That’s a key to an effective defense. There is never luck involved in stuff like this.
The leaders of this team... Harden and Westbrook have to start making defensive efforts in regards to the smaller detailed things like... closing out on wide open shooters, communicating on defense while your actually playing it (be the example) and taking on the harder assignment at times. This will set the tone for the rest of the guys and the team in general. It has to happen.
I havent seen much of season yet what about sefalosha? I thought he was defensive? Too slow for the 3? I presume as well once westbrook settles he should be a plus there too. And gordon? Last year he showed defensive. Whats so criminal about hartenstein tucker capela at same time for defense? Hartestein can hit the 3 right? The little i have seen of the season looks like too much small ball and only tucker defending anyone lol
We have too many matadors. We need some enforcers. Let Clark and Hart dish out some pain. The Rockets need a hatchet man or two!
I tend to agree with your assessment. (though your example about the 17-18 season Rockets would be more convincing had you cited the actual numbers) The fact that this expected-actual gap has been widening in the past three games is actually evidence that there’s a systemic bias in the measurement (I’d buy the story a bit more if we’d played the same team over three times and this happened - there is decent serial correlation / momentum in the same team to prevent making the probability of the event too small, for example Harden and Gordon’s ongoing shooting slump can happen to a single team in the opposite direction).
Yup Rockets were making defense great again! But those damn lucky Heats (&others) kept making incredible/unexpected shots! But really... at what point does this explanation become the opposite of encouraging?
