“People are just not going to guard Russell Westbrook in the Playoffs”

POF’s ... poor guys.

 

i mean if you're daring someone to shoot and living with it, doesn't that lean more towards being bad/terrible. the defense certainly thinks so. we have a 11 year sample size of what this guy can do at this point. pretty tough to assume that wb is just going dissect these little attributes without bringing the entire package of what he is as a player today. I don't really see him as the type of player where putting a lid on things does more good than harm. unfortunately, he's just that volatile and needs to play the game that way. but that's probably part of the reason hes here I guess, as that's what hes done to this point of his career.

 

MDA has forgotten more basketball in a day than these 3 stooges fake knowledge combined.

Same morons screeched to heavens that CP3 and Harden would not work to either.

And inferring that MDA should be held responsible if Rockets dont win ring is ridiculous. His offense is not just proven, its historically proven.

Embarrassing cold takes.

 

a lot of this is going to come down to how much Westbrook and Harden are willing to augment their games and work on some new skills. Playing without the basketball is important. moving and cutting without the ball is going to be important, especially for westbrook because there will be times when James is ball dominant, and we can't just relegate Westbrook to a spot up shooter; that would be terrible. As long as he's moving forward towards the hoop, he's a threat. He's not a threat if he's hanging around the perimeter.

He's gonna have the ball in his hands more than James, but he also needs improve his moving and cutting without the ball so he can be a weapon when the focus is on James.

 

I agree here. how much adjustments can these guys make at this point in their career is the huge concern though.

 

Rockets have several months before the season starts to get his FG% up from the 3-pt line. I'm not worried. Russ will be a 36-38% 3-pt shooter next year

 

For the record, I believe that WB will utilize the strategy as Harden does this season; park my ass on the perimeter and catch and launch away if you dare sag off. If the defender doesn't sag off, Harden gets to abuse the D on a 4v4 match-up. One thing will be sure though, WB does NOT lack the confidence to fire away from deep. The main question would be how much point the team can afford Harden playing next to WB and that will be dependent on if his typically high 30's 3pt percentage is sustainable in a truly high volume system. If he is as mediocre as I am expecting, we will be fine offensively next season.

Also, even if the D sags off WB Harden can still do any of the following:

• Whip a pass to a corner to swing the ball around to a WB who can now attack an out-of-position D that rotated over to guard Harden's penetration
• Throw a pass back to Westbrook who can attack his out of position defender that sagged off to help on guarding Harden and unlike CP3 last season, WB has the explosiveness to do that and do it very well
• Just do what he did last season and flat out beat the D with a floater or step-back OR hit the lob if the team didn't defend it well enough and they usually don't

 

Then give him the ball. Rockets will eat up that matador defense.

 

Windhorst gets paid to simply ride Lebron's coattails for a damn check. He's a paid mouthpiece for Lebron & Klutch Sports. He's overly critical over anybody outside of this

 

That'd be awesome but I wouldn't expect that. 32-34% would be great.

 

i remember hearing these same thoughts last summer

 

Wait what?

First you complain that he is a ball not and shoots the team out of games.

But since the numbers don't agree with you he does not shoot enough 3's?B

I agree that he can shoot a team out of a win but you can't have it both ways he showed restraint by not jacking 3's even when he shot them well.

At least give the man his due.

 

Well, it’s on Houston to show people up again just as they did 2 years ago when people said Harden and Paul wouldn’t work together.

 

Oh Snap!

 

wtf are you even talking about. you can't even have a sensible actual discussion without posting bs. you took that as a complaint that he doesn't shoot enough? get a damn clue seriously

step aside and let the grown folks like @chenjy9 speak. he's definitely one on this board i have respected throughout the years and despite not agreeing we can have actual dialogue.

unlike all your complete bs that people get sick and tired of. people can tell you one thing and you still sit on your but but but but but this and say the same garbage over and over.

 

James has made adjustments just about every year off his career.

Do you hear yourself?

 

do you? obviously not cause you say the same bs over and over

 

So you're going to bet that he's going to be 2-4 percentage points better than his best year in an 11 year career? Like is the 11 year career not a big enough sample size? Or is it because he wasn't in MDA's system? Is his free throw percentage going to go up from 65% to 90% too?

Westbrook is really really really good at some facets of basketball but let's not get delusional here.

 

So you could not actually respond to what I posted and went with respected poster card.

LOL.

Weak sauce.

You have been going on and on about how Westbrook is undisciplined but when given proof of him being disciplined and restrained all of a sudden it's not impressive.

Agenda much?

 

Lol these are professional basketball players. Remember when people.thought james would never play defense....remember when people said russ would never defer to pg13.

People again do yall play basketball. All this stuff is want to, so harden just forgot how to.play off the ball.when he has done it before