The problem is defense identity. There is no scheme. It's just 5 guys out there trying to stop their man and trying to cheat to help their teammate that is beat. There is nothing else going on out there. #2 in offense, #5 in rebounding, #8 in assists, and dead last in defense. We are only keeping these games close with our offense. We cannot stop anybody. I don't care that we have hit 5 good teams. It doesn't matter. When you hit the playoffs, you hit these teams. They can all score the ball and they can all defend and have a defensive scheme. If nothing changes about our defense, we may still win 50 but we will get blown up in the playoffs by teams that can play D and still score the ball. We have no defensive scheme or identity. Our perimeter D is non-existent and it leaves our paint defense atrocious. We are being forced to play Shane just to have some semblance of resistance on the perimeter. I'm sorry, but the backcourt combo of Brooks, Martin is never going to work. Unfortunately, Brooks is the odd man out. His offense is simply not as efficient as Martin's and we need more defense on the floor. He is giving us a meager 5 assists a game, something that is easily replaceable and will likely increase if either Lowry or Ish is on the floor. I don't care if we rattle off 10 wins in a row, we still need a trade that upgrades the point and SF positions that will net us more defense and the same offensive efficiency if not better offensive efficiency.
hate to be negative but this team looks poor on defense and has no leader on offense. the rockets have played well at times, but never long enough to win a game. this team seems like a bunch of dudes who are trying to play for a contract. thanks morey.
It's not gonna be more obvious that the defense of AB and KM is the problem. But wait for getting blasted by some a-hole AB apologists here.
Don't care about that. I have liked AB. He was an upgrade to Rafer. Rafer flat out lost us games with his combo of poor shooting and poor finishing ability. Rafer could distribute and play a little D. Brooks can shoot. But he is not an effective finisher (although much improved this season), he is not a distributor, and he can't play a lick of D. And frankly, Brooks' shooting is not good enough to override all the other factors. Last in defense, last in defense, last in defense, last in defense. This only gets magnified down the stretch. Especially against better teams. What is going to happen is the total cave-in effect. Our offense will finally slow down as our players that can't play buSt their a.. to try to play D in a schemeless defensive system, then their shooting percentages will drop as they settle for the long distance bombs off of flat legs instead of moving and driving to the rim. THE DEFENSE HAS TO GET FIXED OR WE ARE GOING TO MISS THE PLAYOFFS!
i can't believe a team like this would ever lose its defensive identity (esp. with battier and hayes and yao as holdovers from the JVG era). this is one of the worst defensive teams i've seen, and we do have athletes to be a capable defensive team. what happened seriously?
The problem is not just defense....im sick of seeing this team constantly giving up 2nd chance shots to the opponents...and where the hell is Dampier....why isnt he playing
Since you don't seem to realize it, Dampier for all the bad rep that he gets on CF, is a very solid defender and smart rotator, certainly much better than old man Miller. We cannot play Dampier though, until we dump JT and opposed to simply waiving him, Rockets are trying to trade him and get something in return.
The Rockets still play the same basic defensive concepts from when Van Gundy was here. They are just doing it against 5 playoff bound teams after they went to China, after Scola spent a summer at the World's and with players who basically are new to the team. How about we wait until mid-January before we write off the Team D?
as i said in the game thread last night, it's not really even defense. it's desire. there is no desire in this team no will to win. we saw a little bit of desire late in the game, but we are sure not getting it from our starters. how many times did you see the spurs collectively fly for loose balls as scola, martin, et al stood around and waited for someone else to make a play?
Agreed with OP. Brooks and Martin is the reason we are 0-5. They give us good offense but zero defense. You can't win with 2 black holes on Defense every game. Brooks: zero defense Martin: zero defense Battier: declining defense but still good Scola: poor defense Yao:defensive presence but still not all the way back 3/5 of the starting lineup sucks at defense. No wonder we are 0-5.
While I complained about Van Gundy's offense incessantly and his unwillingness to take risk to get us some easy buckets, to think that we are actually playing Van Gundy style defense is a farce. JVG's defensive scheme was to make sure they challenged every shot and deny the paint from the perimeter. All most of our perimeter players are doing now is gambling, denying the shot first, and letting their man get by them and right into the paint where they can smoke all our bigs with quickness. The other thing that Van Gundy did religiously was force all five guys to maintain offensive balance to deny as many runouts as possible. He always preached to have someone at the top getting back and forcing the dribbler to give the ball up. He always preached getting back in transition and forcing the opponent to have to set up. Everybody and their brother is jamming it down our throats in transition. To add to that, Battier is losing a step. We're just posturing that we are playing Van Gundy style defense. Van Gundy would bench Brooks in a heartbeat. And Van Gundy would make sure the big playing alongside Scola was defensive-minded.
True dat, though the first two took their fair share of ripping while they were here. Heck I was all for dropping Ron, I'm not a fan of the guy at all; but he might be the spark that a team like this needs.
Agree with the first part. He'd play Rafer over Brooks. Scola? He'd be benched for Hayes b/c Scola's D is worse than Brooks/Martin. What I'm surprised about is that you made a post that didn't start or end with a trade proposal for Ricky Rubio (or any other player).
I have been saying the same thing, that the players are not running a consistent scheme.... I am sure the coaches are saying what to do, but when you are rotating so many players in and out they are not going to get it right. DD
Weren't we a good defensive team in Rick's first season? Or maybe the players were still under JVG 'in their heads'. I have a feeling Adelman is getting angry cause he understands all this but this team can't and won't find its identity unless Yao plays or sits. And it is not really Yao's fault. I have a feeling Adelman wants to treat Yao the same way he did with Tracy but this time the organization is staying behind Yao (money, China, etc) and they don't allow it to happen.
