I was pretty pissed when pringles was hired but obviously Morey and Les knew what they were talking about when pairing him with Harden. I will be happy to eat major crow at the end of the season if they keep this up. They are playing great basketball right now and hopefully get better once they build some chemistry and our young players develop. How crazy is the fact that we are sitting on a 12-7 record while only playing 6 home games. If you take our road wins minus our home losses, we are 8-2 which would only be behind the Warriors. I hope Ryan Anderson finds some consistency, because James Harden is pretty much unstoppable if the 3 or 4 position is shooting well. It creates all kinds of space for him operate. I'm finally feeling optimistic about this team.
I must say this is a welcome relief from the **** show of McFail and BJ Brewerstaff. This team would not have won this game last season. You could see the FIRE and PASSION show by Mike Anthony on the sidelines even when GSW were making runs. He just stayed CALM, always stood on the sidelines and kept talking to the players. McFail would have sat down, scratched his head not knowing what hit him. Coach and the positivity he spreads rubs off on the players.
The good news is that the hard part is over. From now on, our schedule is easy to average up to the very end. That's why it was crucial for us to stay over .500 or even .600 until this very moment, and they sure did it.
I agree....Rockets would not have won this game with Dwight Howard and a lack of effective 3 point shooters.
In interviews, Harden always talks about how the team is new, and guys are still trying to figure things out together. If this is what we look like without chemistry, the league needs to be afraid when it all gels!
Plus inserting a few players in the lineup. Anderson and Gordon are new. Dekker didn't play much last year. They have been integrated quite nicely. It is a work in progress. I think there is still room for improvement. This season is very encouraging so far.
Look at the other new coaches in other cities some fans thought would have been better suited for Harden Minny Orlando Washington Sacto Houston not looking too bad with Pringles right now.
The schedule does get much more favorable once this road trip is over, but the Rockets better not squander that opportunity to solidify that 4th seed. They have 15 games left this month after tonight at Denver(where I'm expecting a loss due to fatigue). The Rockets should be the favorite in all but maybe 3 of them(Spurs, at Grizzlies, Clippers).
Minny and Orlando are young Scott Brooks is most likely responsible for Harden and Westbrook's defensive inabilities Joerger is actually doing alright considering how hectic Sacramento is But the MDA Harden fit did turn out better than many of us expected. Snatching Bzdelik from Memphis also appears to be paying large dividends
no, when you look at it month-by-month basis, November is the worst month of our entire schedule this season. It would definitely be an accomplishment if we finished above .600 after this road trip.
To put it in perspective: Only the Rockets and the Bulls have played so few games at home. A few teams have played twice as many home games as us. I remember at the beginning of the season, everyone was talking about this monster early schedule, the first 14 or 20 games. This team hasn't always looked great, but it's certainly passed the rough-schedule test with flying colors. And that's while still getting used to a new coach with a new system, new key players, one starter (Bev) missing more than half of those games, and a key rotation guy (DMo) completely AWOL. We're nearly a quarter through the season and in 4th place in the conference, and we just took out the Greatest Team Ever Assembled™ on their home court. We're looking good and should only get better. Home court advantage for round one is a realistic possibility.
This link updates strength of schedule daily and uses a pretty interesting formula. Anyways, no surprise, but the Rockets have the toughest SOS this season as of today: https://www.teamrankings.com/nba/ranking/schedule-strength-by-other
They were talking about the clippers for a little bit and started arguing about the Rockets. A lot of these critics were saying Dantoni's offense makes players look better than they are. I am really tired of this line of arguments. I have watched most of the 19 games Rockets played so far. I am not seeing we are doing the so-called 7, 8 second offense on a regular basis. The system is more geared towards the brilliance of Harden. Anderson and Gordon are providing much needed help to Harden. Of course MikeD's trusting Harden and putting the pieces around him to get us succeed. To me, we are still flawed that we don't have a big body in the middle. We are struggling against teams that have superior bigs and doing relatively well against smaller teams. That is a reflection of Harden ball. But to attribute our problems so far to MikeD's system will make players look better than they are is just over-simplifying and lazy.
I just think those are excuses for those coaches that wouldn't fly here if Rockets were in the same position as those other teams if Pringles struggled to start Washington has an All-star back court with a team that was expected to take off Minny has solid team with 2-3 solid potential all-stars Sacto is a mess but their team isn't bad. Orlando is young, I agree.
great find. Our SOS is 3rd according to ESPN, so there is no doubt our schedule has been very tough, and we have 5th best record in the league. http://www.espn.com/nba/stats/rpi/_/sort/SOS
And let's keep in mind that regardless of who's wearing the uniforms, they are still the Clippers and will find a way to disappoint. Their slogan at this point should be "Haven't Done **** in Forever."
