JB Bickerstaff's strong words after the Pelicans game

Sounds like he's calling out whoever I've already determined is the main problem with the team.

 

Bev's quote is interesting for sure.

 

TRILL!!!

 

yea i think he's calling out dwight - he also was sloppy in recovering on the last anthony davis score.

dwight was also conspicuously absent in the feigen piece.

 

who does Bev consider as part of the core? Obviously himself and then H+H. Who else? Jones and DMO and Ariza most likely and Capella? Brew????
That leaves probably Lawson and Thorton. So according to Bev the problem is one of those two being selfish and not playing to win..?

 

Too many players this season got what they wanted in the offseason. Harden $200M, Bev and Brewer new deals, Lawson escaped Nuggets etc.
Then we have a few players like Jones and Thornton and Dwight in contract or opt out years. When they play a good opponent they come together and play as one. When they play a crap team they go back to their selfish play and stop relying on each other because they think they don't have to.

Need to play Dmo more. Our key play is the pocket pass to the 4. Jones never passes after receiving it. Get Dmo in there and get the ball moving. It creates good vibes.

 

Maybe he should actually play our best PF instead of giving him 7 minutes a game.

The only reason the D-mo part bothers me as much is because he is one of the few players on this team who I think will be part of the team moving forward, Bickerstaff won't be. This is a mediocre team, with mediocre coaching. Just get this season over with.

That Spurs win never fooled me.

 

Bev is pretty cool with most of the team. But I noticed him, Harden, and Ariza have great chemistry together.

 

Sounds like it could be thorton or harden.

Could be harden for sure. He makes the team play stale when he's constantky ball hogging and etc. Could be a legit reason why lawson can't donwhat he does

To me harden is the only one who makes sense. Doing it for personal gain and stats and that only qualifies to harden.

 

ok we might have something here:

Marcus Thornton is becoming frustrated with limited role
By Jonathan Feigen on December 26, 2015 at 9:29 PM

Rockets guard Marcus Thornton went from not playing at all Friday against the Spurs to playing 11 minutes off the bench, most in the fourth quarter, on Saturday in New Orleans. He had nine points on 3 of 5 shooting, but said his uncertain role is “frustrating.”

“It’s very difficult,” Thornton said. “I have to keep myself in the game, see what’s going on from afar from the bench. When I get in, keep doing what I’ve been doing my whole life, put the ball in the basket. I have no reason at all. That’s the frustrating part. You don’t know. You have to go with whatever is going on and be ready.”

Thornton, a native of Baton Rouge who played at LSU, said he was happy his family saw him play, but that it did not make up for taking a loss.

“I could have been in there earlier to help my team earlier than the fourth quarter,” he said.

 

Hmmmm..

"James Harden made that field goal, a 3-pointer, but with 30.8 seconds left, his drive was blocked with the Rockets screaming for a foul. But the problems seemed larger than late-game misses.

"Individually, guys are doing their own thing right now," Harden said. "We're not together all the time. Offensively, defensively, whatever is going on in their head, it's not for the team.

"Guys have to be willing to listen and do what it takes. I'm focused on winning. That's the most important thing."

 

The Rockets are really bumming me out...

I want to go back to last season, or even back in August, where we were so full of hope..

 

so thornton the new goat?

there are many problems going on, it so seems. but when are we gonna acknowledge it all starts w/ #13, james harden?

 

so thornton is already publicly complaining. Maybe Bev at least was referring to him but I don't think the coach was referring to him.

 

This is directly JB's fault and he needs to call out himself. He inexpicably plays Corey Sewer game after game and when they are in trouble he tries to put Thornton in to bail them out it's silly. He clearly favors his friend.

 

exactly.

how can the main problem be that 9th, 10th guy on the bench?

we've been there b4. it was tjones, then lawson, then brewer, then dwight, then ariza, etc. but ~30 games have passed us by, we're still a .500 team...

 

First of all that has zero to do with my post. I was responding to the statement that Harden shouldn't continue to shoot threes. I'm not sure how passing is relevant to whether or not he should shoot 3s.

Since you brought it up, exactly how many times per game do you think that happens where Harden passes late in the shot clock to a shooter who isn't open? I'm assuming that you are referring to players who aren't open since an open jumper with 3 seconds on the clock is a good shot. Anyway, how often do you think this is happening?

I realize that there's popular perceptions about what is happening but a large number of those are inaccurate. Harden dominates the ball more than anyone in the league, right? Yet he's only #15 in time of possession. Kind of interesting since we hear so many complaints about how long it takes Harden to get the ball into the frontcourt but he's middle of the pack out of all the primary ball handlers in the league.

How about the idea that Harden holds the ball and runs out the clock? We hear that all the time, yet he's #27 in the league in average seconds per touch. That's toward the bottom of all the primary ball handlers in the league.

Harden also dribbles the air out of the ball before he does anything, that's what we hear, right? But Harden is #42 in the league in average number of dribbles per touch. In fact, Harden is even behind Lawson in this category.

Those are just a few samples to illustrate that perception and reality aren't necessarily the same. BTW those rankings I just mentioned are based on players who play at least 20 minutes per game.

I'll bet that the scenario you described happens much less frequently than you're thinking it does. Additionally, I'll bet that frequency is small enough to be insignificant in the course of a game.

 

Agreed. For every good thing Corey does on the court right now, there are 2-3 bad things that come along with it

 

yes. If a simple role player is a team cancer they are usually marginalised and quickly shipped off asap. Even if we need his permission if he was creating problems with chemistry I think he would also want to get traded.
I don't think that the coach out of all he found only a player who played 11 minutes to talk about. And who often lately doesn't even get minutes.

 

i never cared about those fancy "stats" such as "average seconds per touch" (what is that, btw? if one grabs a rebound and then passes it off to a teammate, does that count as a "touch"?) or "average number of dribbles per touch" (didnt even know there's such a stat, haha).

but you do have a point. perceptions could be far from reality.

i guess next time i watch a rockets game, i will personally count the number of times where he dribbles the ball until the last few ticks b4 one of his teammates has to force up a shot. and i will report back in, say, 10-12 games...