Ime Udoka on loss to OKC, not wanting Sengun to guard Chet

With Sullivan being involved, it’s more likely that Amen will work on his midrange shooting.

They will likely look for pet spots on the floor where he can shoot well - with his athleticism and length, he won’t have issues getting his shot off.

 

He commits more fouls and he is tired in part because he has to dance between the raindrops: stay on his man, or slide over to stop the opposing guard who just went around your boy Jalen Green's signpost defense?

OR​

 

Matchups are the Second factor but you gotta beat the first factor and build your basic team concept not too being overly one sided.....

 

You certainly need a team that cannot be defeated easily by adjustments. That has little to do with Sengun being miscast as a center though. The Rockets have lots of flaws and are not competing in the next 18 months - so they have time to see who improves and who does not. I do not expect the Rockets to make a jump like OKC did, because there is no Chet Holmgren joining the team…. But long term the Rockets will have to find a way to deal with and match up with Holmgren.

 

Exactly. With Chet and Wemby in our division, the Rockets will have to deal with them for years to come. They have to figure it out somehow or try to invest in or draft their own Chet, even if it’s a poor man’s version. Someway somehow they have to figure out how to guard those guys.

 

Right - especially in the playoffs where match ups are huge. We have great size long term with Amen if he can stick at the point, and Whitmore is fine at the 2. Jabari is long for a 3 and Sengun is a solid size for a 4… a 5 that can move and defend and hit open shots is crucial.

 

Ime needs to find a new slant. We didn't lose because of defense. We lost because we have a bottom tier offense. This goes for the media too. Quit asking about defense. Defense is fine especially against a team of Thunder's caliber. Offense was non existent in the 2nd half

 

Well since Sengun is getting double and even triple teamed, then the wise decision would be to kick it to open man and as a unit they haven't really shot well outside a couple players

All players are going to play their style while trying to fit it into the team format

If Sengun only had 5 touches then I can see your angle, but they run offense a lot through Sengun and even both R Charles and S Wonder can see Sengun is diff player the past month or so but was real consistent/all star level earlier

Green is what you see, inconsistent and needs to meet me in the gym so I could fix his shot in 28 days max

Any number one option only taking 5 shots is clearly on that player, especially if he touches the ball on a good portion of offensive plays

And the eye test suggests Sengun gets plenty more than 5 touches per game

Its why I wanted the Rockets to go get B Hield, a sniper they need who can play with either unit

Next year is going to be pivotal for both Green and Sengun....4th year graduation on deck

 

posted this in another thread, but the Rockets offense is basically unchanged since the beginning of the season when they were doing well.

The defense efficiency has gone from top 2 up till X-mas, to mediocre (15th in the league since).

 

NBA.com #s

Rockets Season
Off : 112.8
Def : 112.8

OKC game
Off : 105.8
Def : 119.4

League Worst
Off : 107.5
Def : 119.8

Offense and defense were both bad in OKC game.

 

@sirjesse does post "post of the day" regularly but this one is "post of the month".

It was as if reading Montaigne's Essays and mumbling about how much he stole your own ideas.

Rockets people (fans, team, coaches, FO, media) have focusing problem. They're little bit behind to analyse things. Turnovers and perimeter defence were problem in previous years but Rockets people were discussing lob threat-Alp's 3pt percentage type of problems.

Coaching is #1 problem this year. Have a look at last night encounter: OKC had the biggest plus at 3rd quarters last year and our coaches had no preparation/idea about it. Of course OKC killed us at the 3rd.No surprise.

Daigneault was doing mini rotation every possible situation and we are forcing Amen to make a hopeless 3pt attempt at the last two consecutive games.

OKC commentators were very surprised to see Thunder scoring at the end of quarters. We weren't. It's a Rockets routine. Let them to score freely. We even don't make fouls when opps need 3 points. Please, go ahead.

Offense is a problem but our poor coach focusing on defense. No surprise.

JGreen has to score, Alp has to assist, Jabari has to rebound. Jabari started to do his job but JGreen can't score and Alp doesn't assist (he can but likely barred), no problem. Alp finished last night game's first half with Zero assist, no problem.

Basically :No improvement.

 

That is where it gets tricky because I am not sure he can be a PF in Udoker's concept.

In certain matchups.....also I am not seeing Adams as a final solution either.

 

I am not going to get caught up what Sengun should be or what he is.

Adams is coming onboard and that will fundamentally change how the front court is defined.
My strategy is to wait and see how that evolves before deciding what needs to happen to Sengun.

 

Zooming out of Sengun defensive narrative and looking at the end result for the entire team. Folks know our team's off/def RTG and recent games intimately so let's look at it from OKC's perspective.

Thunder won their last five games. Their offense scored: 127, 127, 129, 147 (against Wiz), then 123 to beat us.

Other than the outlier of Wizards, 123 was on par (in fact lowest) in OKC's last five games, which also included supposed good defensive teams in Clippers and Magic.

Thunder's defense in those same five games allowed: 113, 113, 107, 106, 110 (HOU). Our team fell in the same range.

From their perspective, their beat down was about average with us. Rockets are normally better at home so even when this team loses, it's usually not a blowout.​

I don't blame fans feeling frustrated, and if people want to make it about Sengun I guess go ahead. But this high seeded Thunder handed the same L's to Paolo and Kawhi in the same month.

No doubt the players and coaches will always look for improvements, we're low/mid tier team in terms of records. But there's this season's losses and then there's Silas-era losses


And as far as the title to be made around Sengun, today I'll go half full. As imperfect as he is, a 3.5 mil player who's still actually out playing his rookie contract.

 

it's always about Sengun. reported.

 

Guarding 4s would just put him on the perimeter more, that would be a terrible decision

 

KAT can shoot

Sengun and Adams on the floor together would be a disaster

 

Deported.

 

How would you feel about approaching Utah in the offseason with a jalen Green for Walker Kessler offer? Would they include Taylor Hendricks as well?

I know Kessler isn't a modern day center but his rim protection would be very welcome on this team. There is very little interior defense on the team.

It would be a lot of bodies to have to find minutes for at the 4 and 5 but watching teams effortlessly beat the Rockets at the rim every night is frustrating.
We also need more pure shooting and this probably would hurt instead of help in that regard but it would at least address a glaring weakness that is rim protection.

 

At what point do we stop acting like head coaches have no idea what they are talking about when it comes to senguin. 2 head coaches now whose opinion of senguin we are questioning.