It's a combination of shots falling for opponents now and playing better offensive teams and several things BUT the defensive intensity isn't the same as early, we aren't contesting every shot hard like we started the year
One reason that it seems hasn't been really talked about much is that the Rockets are a terrible transition defense team. We give up a lot of fast break points. This is exacerbated with higher pace and trying to play more like last year than this year's Harden-centric offense. So as the pace went up, our defense went down.
When Howard came back from his injury the team started playing lazy on defense. They started reaching more instead of moving their feet. They started back ball watching instead of watching their man. The mentality I think was since we have Howard back we don't have to play with the same intensity we were playing with while he was out. Players started getting frustrated and pointing fingers. They are not communicating with one another on defense when playing elite teams.
lol Also early in the season it was said that they had been practicing defense 80% of the time so they were hyped to play that way. We also had the 2nd softest schedule earlier in the season before Howard came back. Not long ago they brought in a couple of new players and let Black go who was really a good role playing defense man. Black was scared of no player no matter how elite they were. He could play a lot of tough defense without getting into foul trouble. Now we have gotten Dwight out...finally and Dmo who I have been assured is a top 5 rim protector and a great defender to boot playing so we should easily roll over Lakers and with his elite post game I have also been assured he will score a lot of points efficiently so we should be resting Harden the 2nd half easily. If we are lucky Dwert may be out for a long period and if that is so we should be able to recover our elite standing.
Yup. Fast-paced games suit our offense, but they are terrible for our defense as of late. They keep talking about transition defense as the focus of recent practices -- if they're spending a lot of time on it, it certainly isn't translating that well.
Well that and Dwight was just playing poorly. They expected a lot from him, and he just couldn't deliver, probably because of injury. I think he should stay out as long as it takes for him to get to feeling better. We need "best center in the NBA" Dwight, not the "shell of his former self" Dwight that we've had the last few weeks.
This. Especially Dwight. If he's playing through injuries, he should rest and heal. Just come back whenever you are 100% healthy.
