Why can't the Rockets shoot?

Not only do they struggle against the zones but when individual defenders have a hand in their faces they miss easily too. I think the mental pressure of making shots gets to them and they start taking wild shots and stop moving the ball.

 

My 2 cents.....

Number of Rox FGA'S vs POR = 70
Number of Rox FGM's vs POR = 30

Best FG% in the NBA = Kings @ 47.1%
47.1% * 70 FGA's = 33 FGM's

Rox are 3 FG's from the Kings FG%.

A missed Cato dunk...a missed Boki point blank drive...a Mobley blocked shot by Qyntel Woods...any possession ending in one of 17 TO's...6 for 18 from the arc...

Not many road teams can hold Randolph and Wallace to a combined 10-33.

It was a winnable game. Correct the charge call on Mobley and the whole complexion of the game changes.

 

I didn't watch the game. But I heard we had the best first quarter of the season and were winning by 13.

Piatkowski! Come back!

We need to beat some good teams...and adjust...consistency

 

This is what I've said with Cato on the court, no spacing. Cato needs to be around basket to be effective, but with Yao commanding the ball down low, Cato has to move above FT line to create some space. Unfortunitely, 15' jump is not Cato's strength.

The other thing is the Rockets needs quicker decision making from the guards. I've noticed several times, when Francis & Mobley & Moochie got the ball passed out of inside, they waited for the defender to come over before made their move. This really confuses me. Can't they just catch & shoot, or catch & drive by your defender? It serves no purpose to wait for the defender comes, then dribble away from the defender.


--daoshi

 

Saw the game tonight and this is what I noticed, Yao's team mate STANDING way on the OTHER side of the court WATCHING him being double teamed. There's no one even close to him for him to pass it to.

 

We have Scott Padgett picking his nose, clipping his finger nails, scratching his butt, licking his fingers, and playing with John Amaechi on the bench. Why give the guy some minutes? He's shooting 54.5% from 3-point land.

 

Ugh, no edit. I meant to say "why not give the guy some minutes."

 

1. I think Piakowski could be a buster for opponent team's zone defense(double/triple team, or whatever you wanna call those) on Yao. It's natural that when Yao gets surrounded nearly each time he touches the ball, a shooter is out there beyond the arc to punish the opponent. The Rockets' perimeter shooters are just not being consistent, as Van Gundy had said about Rockets not being a good perimeter team.

When Shaq gets surrounded, he tosses the ball to folks like Derek Fisher. The next thing is a 3-point basket in the opponent's expense.

2. Francis needs to work on his penentration on the offensive end. Sometimes when Francis drives to the basket, goes 1-on-1, he gets a bit too wild to attempt for a homerun and failed. This is what distinguishes Francis from a point guard. Marbury does the samilar moves, the only difference is that, he dishes the ball to Amare Stoudmire for the dunk, instead of trying to hit a tough homerun in face of the defender. I swear I saw Yao open under the basket. A backdoor pass needs to be established.

 

Why does everyone think Pike is a better shooter than Mobs and JJ, the truth is Mobs and JJ is just as good shooters, play better defense. The problems with the Rockets is they don't know how to play against the zone. Having Yaoming in the deep post is such a waste against the zone because he's been smothered by 4 defenders and essentially force outside shooters to take bad shots. The problem is two fold, Rockets have essentially poor spacing in their offense against the zone, and somehow cato is taking the shot all the time. I think Sean Elliot mentioned it in Mavericks game that Houston play the same inside out offense against the zone and suggested that Rockets need to have specific offensive sets against the zone. You can say Houston is in a mini shooting slump but that slump has been 12 games in the season and Rocket offense just seem to be out of sync for 2-3 quarters in a games. Second, SF need to make better decisions on the court. He's not a natural pg and you can get away with it when there's no zone defense last years. The new rule change essentially forces teams to play more discipiline basketball, and premium for a true pg will be much more in the future. I think only team in the league with less pts than Rockets is Raptors, that's just pathetic.

 

Yes. I get it. Cato is a temorrary solution. We will get a "Griffin replacement."

 

Just because you have players that can shoot doesnt automatically translate into a lot points. Just look at the Timberwolves. Teams need time to gel and develop chemistry.

 

Our offense isn't producing high scoring for a number of reasons.

1.) We have streaky offensive players. An example of this is Jim Jackson last night. In the first quarter he lead all scorers with something like 14 points and was draining almost everything. But for the rest of the game he was receiving the same good open looks but was just clanging them off the rim. The same goes for Yao, Steve, Cat, and MoT in their game.

2.) We don't convert fastbreak opportunities well. We run the fastbreak terribly. I've seen throughout the season the Rockets have opportunities to get easy points in 3 on 2 or 2 on 1 fastbreaks where we blow it. There's atleast 6 to 8 points everynight that we could tack onto our score if we even converted most of our fastbreak opportunities. More often then not one of our players will go 1 on 2 or 1 on 1 and ignore his other teammates and fail to score. Or the guy leading the fastbreak will dish the ball too soon or too late giving the defender the opportunity to either deflect the ball or take the charge. Or the guy with a potential fastbreak opportunity will slow the ball down and run in a half court set when he should of converted a fastbreak opportunity.

3.) JVG style of dictating the game effects how we run the offense. We eat up a lot of the clock in a half court set and cause our opponents to eat up a lot the clock because of our defense, giving us less time to create more FG opportunities. I forget which ESPN analyst last night said it, but the Rockets average something like 30 FG opportunities a night whereas the league average is around 40, and it's all attributed to the fact that we eat up so much of the shot clock on every FG opportunity and we force our opponents to eat up a lot of the clock as well. It's a big reason why it's so important we convert our fastbreak opportunities and it's a big reason why so many fans on this board get frustrated when one of our players takes forced bad shots. There just aren't enough FG opportunities to go around to waste on a few prayers every night. It's a big reason why so many people on this board get frustrated when they watch players like Cuttino or Francis jacking prayers that are ill-advised. (Note: It's not merely Cuttino or Francis that only take bad shots. Yao takes bad shots when he chooses to go for a lay up that could rim out instead of going for a dunk. It's a bad shot anytime Cato attempts to shoot. It's a bad shot when MoT ISOs up his opponent and takes 4 or 5 consecutive shots everytime down the court despite missing them like in the 2nd quarter in the Portland game.)

4.) Turnovers are another reason. We average something like 17 turnovers a game, which are 17 field goal opportunities we could potentially convert on. While a team like Dallas is full of offensive firepower, last year they lead the league in fewest turnovers a game, and thus had more field goal opportunities to create more points. While it's not realistic to expect this team to not turnover the ball over everynight, if the Rockets could even limit it to 10 turnovers a night, that's 7 more FG opportunities for this team to convert on.

5.) We lack a true go to guy. It's a big reason why Steve at the PG position is a bad idea. Even when he's fulfilling the role of a point guard distributing the ball well, his offensive game isn't being fully utlized. It's a double edged sword since the Rockets need him to distribute the ball at the PG position but at the same time it goes against them as well since they can't fully take advantage of his offensive abilities. And while Yao will be a great center for a long time as long as he stays healthy, he hasn't adopted the role of a true go to guy. He's improving every night though as is evidence since he's been averaging 20 and 10 for the past 3 games. But he still becomes non existent for long stretches in the game. Whether you want to argue it's because of the guards ignoring him or not, I don't care. The plain fact of the matter is he becomes a non factor for too long during games.

6.) We don't hit the FT line enough. I don't know where this team ranks in FT attempts a game, but I don't think we hit the line enough. Not only does it create fouls, in addition to giving 2 good open looks at the FT line, but it stops the clock. It gives the Rockets more time to use the clock to create more FG opportunities. Actually lately we haven't been making our FTs too well either. If we just hit our FTs that would lead to more points.

7.) We don't attack the zone well. It may be because our perimiter shooting has cooled off, but we just struggle against it. Piatkowski may help beat the zone once he gets off the IR, but as it stands he's still in street clothes on the bench, and until he comes off, we're going to have to rely on our guys right now to make their buckets. (Must be a Clipper syndrome getting injured so much. Look at MoT, Piatkowski, Kandi last season, and Brand pretty much since he came to the Clippers.)

8.) We don't exploit matchups well. I hate to keep coming back to a team like Dallas since I don't like them at all, but they exploit matchups extremely well. Granted we don't have a scorer at every position to exploit a match up the way they do, we do have a good number of players that could create mismatches on offense that we could take advantages of. I felt we didn't take advantage of Damon Stoudamire's height at all by letting Steve post up on him. I feel that when Yao's shot is on, he creates a mismatch everynight we should exploit. I feel that when we have a player on the court that's hot and just can't seem to miss that we don't go take advantage of it enough. Back to 1.) while we may have streaky shooters who go through cold spells, that also means we have shooters who go through spells where they just can't seem to miss. I don't think we take advantage of that enough. All this reverts towards playing smart basketball though, and I think most everyone on this board knows how I feel about some our players and their lack of doing that.


That's what I see anyways.

 

Besides when they are on a streak, when have the Rockets ever been accused of being shooters?

 

They have only scored consistently when they play defense.

 

Defense can make offense easier as you have pointed out Bullard's Ghost. In fact it's essential for us to get back to to the basics otherwise we won't have a chance on this road trip.

 

I'm afraid that Pike, like all other Rockers acquisitions, will not be able to continue shooting the same way he did with the Clippers.

Everytime we get someone, it seems they get worse when they join us.