The defense was a disaster. The offense reverted to 2015-2016 ISO ball in the 2nd half. Our rebounding looks suspect. We got bullied in the paint. I'm excited. The problems are obvious, but the evidences of life were there. This is not the 2015-2016 Rockets, and we certainly didn't play the 2015-2016 Lakers. Here are the reasons you should be excited: 1) The Harden-Capela PnR is absolutely legit, and it's going to be there all season. Mozgov is not some pushover center. Teams will adjust of course, but it's going to be pick your poison for defenses between covering our shooters and slashers. Speaking of shooters... 2) We are a better shooting team than we showed in the 2nd half. It's obvious that we got tired-legs in the mid-3rd quarter and weren't able to maintain the hot shooting from the 1st half. That will fix itself as we get a few games in and add to our depth (Beverley and DMo). 3) The playcalling out of timeouts was fantastic. Very impressive stuff. We had a great shot essentially every time. 4) KJ McDaniels is now a legitimate NBA rotation player, and he deserves commensurate minutes. He's not perfect (struggles staying in front of quicker guards), but he fills up the box score in ways other than scoring. I'm actually more impressed with his finishing around the rim than his improved shooting. Fantastic chemistry with Harden, and he's giving good effort. I really can't understate how important McDaniels is to this team. If he can play at a high level, we will have the ability to go small and still have capable perimeter defenders. 5) Do not worry about Ennis. He either improves or he disappears into the bench when Beverley returns. 6) I'm sure many are concerned about Randle bullying our bigs. Our best post defender hasn't signed yet. Once DMo joins the team, I believe we will have an effective counter to guys like Randle and Blake Griffin. Speaking of DMo.... 7) Last night really highlighted how thin we are in the front court. DMo wouldn't have cured our rebounding woes, but he is an able body that would have taken the load of Capela, Nene and Anderson after they were winded, and provided the playmaking that requires us to play Ennis right now. When DMo signs and Beverley returns, all of the fringe guys will go to the bench and we will have quality NBA players throughout the rotation.... Harden (35) / Gordon (13) Beverley (28) / Gordon (13) / McDaniels (7) Ariza (32) / McDaniels (16) Anderson (28) / DMo (20) Capela (26) / Nene (18) / DMo (4) A 9 man rotation with a few minutes here and there for Dekker, with more minutes given to better defenders than we put on the court last night. 8) MDA is committed to giving Harden more rest. I started to get antsy around the 8 minute mark of the 2nd quarter when Harden normally would've checked in last year, but MDA stuck with the bench and we kept pace. He still ended up playing 37 minutes, but that's mostly because of desperation time in the 4th quarter. I'm expecting 34-35 minutes from him on a regular basis. My real concerns are two-fold: 1) Nene - What happened? It's like he aged 5 years between the end of the preseason and the Lakers game. For now I'm going to chalk it up to a bad game, but he truly looked dreadful. 2) Rebounding - I think the primary reason our defense struggled was rebounding. The stats will show that we were even with the Lakers, but that's deceiving. Ultimately, our inability to secure the ball forced us to bring another defender into the paint, which left us exposed on the perimeter. My hope is that the return of Beverley and increasing McDaniels minutes will help us, but I'm still concerned that our bigs will never be plus rebounders (other than Capela, who looked a little better as the game went on). The point is that I see positive signs, and other than the offensive breakdown in the 4th quarter (due to tired legs), we look like a different team than last year.
Good post fins. It's just that the loss yesterday was pretty disheartening for various reasons...and btw we need to keep the expectations low, to me this is still a regular season team/roster, if we can make a dignified first round, that's ok for what we have.
Nice write up. fwiw: Mozgov only played the first 6 minutes of the second half. Sat rest of 3rd and entire 4th Q. So, they beat us by going small and quicker than us...even undersized Black only got 12 minutes. So combined, Mozgov and Black played 34 minutes.
I agree with OP and think its a well thought out post, but my question is forgetting Dmo right now why wasn't Montrezz in the game. Did we get rid of him or did he already get sent down to the Vipers? He probably would have provided defense and rebounding as the backup PF
That's interesting. The rebounding was low for both teams because both teams shot over 50% from the field. Randal is a big body and he can really play i have been very high on him since last year and think he can be a fringe Allstar type guy. Russell was annoying as hell last night he's a good shooter but ultimately he won't become an Allstar because he can't take it to the hoop but he does have some nice moves to get off mid range jumpers. The guy that impressed me the most was Clarkson. Outside of his shooting from deep which I know is not as good as he showed last night, he made plays that should be there for him all year. Very impressed came off the bench and played his tail off and should be in the running for 6th man of the year. Ingram, I see why Walton is not starting him and bringing him along slow, hes just not ready yet, way to early to tell but he looks like he won't be helping the lakers out at all this year. The game was just too fast and the players are to strong for him right now. I was pretty frustrated last night because wen we rebounded the ball and played the right way we were just so much better than them last night. We def should have won that game last night even if it would have been high scoring, we lost that game more than lakers won it if that makes any sense. Big test in Dallas but my gut says everyone from the shooting/rebounding/defense will be a lot better Friday. I honestly wouldn't be surprised to see us blow them out by 15+ and hold them to under 102 points. In fact that's what I'm expecting. We're not a great defensive team but I don't see how we can be as bad as we were for most of last night full time. Hold teams to 102 ppg and we will win slot of games close to 50 if not more. But that's what we have to do in order to win like that. We had tired legs shot terrible from three and still put up 114 points. This team is going to put up 110+ ppg every night and that's encouraging. Gotta tighten up the rebounding and that will make the defense better.
disagree greatly. he's an all star caliber guard no doubt and if he's this good already and the amount of control he plays the game at the pg position with good pace especially at the age of 20. He's going to have no problem becoming an all star and on multiple occasions
All of our problems this year Morey can address mid season compared to the chemistry problems last year with Dwight. We'll be alright
Well, Coach Walton came from the team who loved to play small ball the most. For us to match a young team like that at small ball, we sure could have used Beverley.
Didn't get to watch the game(did listen to a good portion of it), but my concern is that your talking about tired legs in game 1 of a 82 game season with only one key injury and several other contributors (Anderson, Gordon, Nene) still healthy. If our depth & fatigue are a problem now, then we are really screwed when those other guys take their customer 20-25 games of injury time later in the year. Agree Dmo will help when he returns, but let's not get too excited about Dmo's return this season for two reasons - he has been mostly injured the last year and a half so his comeback is going to take some time to regain form AND his agent is clearly waiting for one of Anderson or Nene to get injured to give him some leverage in the contract negotiations. If those guys can play the first 20-25 games of the season and Dmo doesn't join the team until 1/4 into the season, Dmo's chances are really low of making an impact once he returns to the team because he has to learn a new system/coach mid season while regaining his conditioning/form. I'm not sure what Dmo thinks he is going to gain by sitting out(or what his rookie agent is telling him) - he is far better served taking the QO, playing his ass off and trying to get a new contract next year than holding out and playing a lackluster season once he does return. Team's aint got that much time for older players who lack athleticism and have only made an impact in brief spurts of their NBA career.
Simply put, we lost because of Nene. We would have barely beaten them. That's fine. Nene will bounce back, Bzdelik will kill them in practice and we try again. What irritated me was playing Brewer at all, and not trying Harrell when they were bullying us.
