This team is fine getting luc back will solve all our defensive issues. Ppl forget he was playing 23 mpg and in that time the DRTG was like 96. Just having that kind of defense for essential half the game makes the other half were the rating is prob 5-7 point higher not a big deal at all. Elite defense for half the game with avg defense for the other half will make you a top 5-8 defense. This team will get Back to playing stellar D I'm sure of it. We got all veterans and cp3 now defense will come back around. We just need to get healthy. This slide sucks but we've been missing cp3/Capela/luc for pretty much all of it and it's like some of you are forgetting that. We played pretty good ball against the clipper (1st half) okc and Boston. Those were winnable games against decent to great competition and we were missing cp3 in all of them and Capela in 2 of them. We should have won the Boston game. That one really hurt the team. Not to mention luc being out for the past 6-8 games or so. Now harden is out. Just got to get healthy we have plenty of data that shows this team is extreamly elite. A 6 game slump in late December is not unheard of. Especially when you factor in the injuries to starters and key rotation guys. Other than the wizzards game and even that one we cut it to 5 in the 3rd. We've had a chance in every game and that's playing hurt Tired and just not sharp.
We're going through a rough patch because we've sustained injuries to James Harden, Chris Paul, Clint Capela, Nene, and Luc Mbah A Moute. This is forcing players to play more minutes and in a role they are accustomed to playing. Now we can get better depth but I'm not sure it's necessary. On a game to game basis we can, when healthy, go at least 10 deep with cp, harden, trev, ryno, clint, gordon, luc, pj, nene, & now green. When healthy that's enough. Maybe we can look for more high-end talent but we have enough bodies. Y'all need to stop overreacting to every loss. It's a long season. We're losing games because we are injured, not because we aren't good enough.
With harden possibly being sidelined a bit hopefully Paul can get these guys to focus more on defense than creating more offense. I felt like Paul was starting to get like harden a bit there but with harden out I think he will hit the reset button and get these guys in line.
Maybe they just played a young, athletic PROFESSIONAL basketball team? Big picture is a win. Small picture, sure they have problems like every other team that’s ever played. Don’t need to be so hyperbolic about it.
I don't see how sports fandom can be purely objective and scientific. It's not scientific to root for a losing team. The most rational thing to do is being a fair-weather bandwagon fan. Sports is fun because there are human narratives. It's like reading a novel or watching a movie. You need to have good guys and bad guys and complex characters who can't be totally sorted out. If sports is just about numbers, then it's no difference from playing fantasy leagues.
But why do you have emotional attachment to a bunch of players you have never even met personally? I can understand rooting for the hometown team. But lots of people aren't living in Houston root for the Rockets. Why do you have emotional attachment to a fictional character in a movie? Anyway, what you are saying is not what I was responding to. The poster was saying that it's meaningless to assign moral characters to players because they are ill-defined. That's clearly not true. We root for players who play hard and do everything they can to help the team win. We despise players who are lazy and selfish. We hate players who are dirty. We hate floppers. We hate cheaters. We like gritty guys. We love players who don't quit even though they are going to lose. All those are moral characteristics. I think it's self-delusion to deny that there is moral identification in watching sports.
I think the return of Luc Mbah a Moute will cure a lot of our defensive ills, and that can't happen soon enough. His absence, in my opinion, has highlighted just how valuable he is to the Rockets.
Agree. He allows us to play that switch heavy defense that you need to play against the Western/Eastern conference elite.
Some of the players may have tuned out the coaches. Did you notice last night against the Lakers Tarik Black pushes Jeff Bzdelik out of the huddle when he tries to give some defensive instruction? It was very rude and disrespectful. You don’t treat a coach like that, especially coming from a 3rd-string player. He should have been called out and reprimanded.
