The Spurs will be drained too though. They're an older team and are also missing a key rotation player. And who knows what Kawhi's status will be? If the Rockets drop Game 6 at home and get eliminated, it won't be due to fatigue. It'll be because they played like crap. That being said, D'Antoni has to at least find some minutes for Dekker. Harrell I can understand being hesitant to throw in there. He didn't play a decent chunk of the season. He can't shoot the 3. And he's frankly looked pretty bad in garbage time in the postseason. But Dekker played every game until he broke his hand. He even got the start in place of Anderson at Memphis and had a career night. He can be trusted to give the team 5-10 minutes.
If Morey is going to hire a coach who refuses to play young players in the postseason, he should go ahead and ship all the young players out and replace them with vets. Luhnow did the same thing with the Astros. Brought in Beltran, McCann, Redick, and Aoki, and the manager not surprisingly inserted all of them into the starting lineup. The offseason should consist of chasing stars and loading the roster with reliable vets.
Sam Dekker would have made NO difference. In f act, As much as y'all say Rockets would have won with Samuel scrubby Dekker getting minutes, I'm going to say we wouldn't even have gone to overtime if this clown played. Spurs would have beaten us in regular time With Sam Dekker, you're playing 4 on 5 offense. He literally can't hit a shot. I don't care what others say about Lou or Rhyno or Ego when they ar e bricking but these players constantly demand the attention of a defender. With Dekker, they will just play off him and double team Harden The rotation was just fine. What failed the Rockets was execution down the stretch and in over time. Rockets resorted to McFail style iso ball with Harden just walking ball up and dribbling the shot clock out. If Rockets just played the way they had till that point, would have been a W in regular time. Nothing to do with Dekker getting minutes or not. I wouldn't play Dekker in the playoffs unless it's a blowout or severe foul trouble for some other guy and I'm glad Mike AntoniO agrees.
I struggle to see why Anderson at the 5 is preferable to Montrez at the 5. Could someone explain this to me?
I thought it was brilliant in real time. Go all-in for the game 5 victory with only your best players. It backfired but it was still better than Game 2 at their place. It almost worked. Game 6 will be a rout by the Rockets with everybody getting run.
With the news that we are not practicing before the next game because of the 7 man rotation, I doubt it.
Lmao. 100% blame shifting. We lost because of Harden's dumb azz turnovers. Don't pretend like it's because he was gassed given the fact those are the SAME turnovers he has a HISTORY of making in the playoffs and vs the Spurs in general. I can understand him turning the ball over while making a aggressive move to the rim. But him fartin around with the ball on the perimeter, letting Jonathan "No name" Simmons reach around him TWICE to steal the ball is unacceptable. That's something superstars shouldn't allow to happen For all the fake criticism and blame shifting MDA's getting, we were UP in overtime until Harden went full r****d
Honestly brah, what do you have against Dekker? He shot a better FG% than any perimeter player on the team, sure his 3 point shot isn't where it needs to be but he gives the team a lot of energy, a lot of hustle, a lot of verticle play and scrappy defense. He's far from being a scrub player that can't play. We are never going to win **** if we are judging players by if they can hit 3s or not.
Nothing really. He is just not good enough to make any sort of positive difference in the playoffs. Our system is based on spacing. Dekker not being able to hit the 3 point shot means we are literally playing 4 on 5 offense. Mike AntoniO doesn't trust him and I don't either. Corey Brewer also gave you energy, and hustle and scrappy defense. Dekker is not much better. There is no place for either of them in this system in the playoffs. Let him go work on getting a respectable outside shot this off season and then let's see. As of now, he is close to unplayable.
Oh the "We were still in the game" Excuse. We actually hit 3 big threes thanks to Harden's assisting in OT, we were still in the game despite his TOs...so don't blame Harden! The fact is, some of you want to put this ALL on Harden. None on MDA. Nothing on Lou and Gordon. Just put it all on Harden. If Lou and Gordon actually have their normal output we also win today. But yeah, blame the guy that's the reason we are in the game in the first place. We didn't lose for one sole reason, Harden played a big role in our losing but so too did MDA's coaching and how Lou and Ego both love to show up at the same time and disappear at the same time as well.
I don't think so, Brewer shot considerably worse. It's not even comparable to Dekker. Dekker is actually able to slash and finish, and for a rookie player he had a fantastic season. Pop is throwing guys in there that's barely played any time this season, started one of them. He's doing that for a reason, he has to keep his guys on fresh legs. He knows this, everyone knows this. I've not seen a single talking head say "Boy, that 7 man rotation sure is the thing to do." They are all saying quite the opposite.
His "regular minutes" don't typically include banging against 7 footers in the post. In fact no one's regular minutes include that in today's NBA. The Spurs are the only team that bothers to include posting up bigs as a focal point of offensive strategy.
Actually, James guarded PF's regularly all year....He was active on the boards all year....either way fatigue is a poor excuse. He has a habit of ISO ball in crunch time. It's nothing new, and it is not specific to this game, or even this year.
Harden will not reach the next step in his development until he is able to clean up his those mental errors. Can't not have successive turnovers in crucial times. That was Jeremy Lin like.
If he can find a way to use some of those guys who sit there warming the bench all night it could make the difference in winning or losing. Just a couple minutes here and there to give starters time to regroup, get coached, rest, refresh, and come back out with more energy.
He doesn't trust the rest of the bench; Pop does. He gave Kyle Anderson and David Lee minutes for God's sake
Considering the blowouts, the starters have been playing fewer minutes than usual this series and of course no back-to-backs.
