Don't get me wrong impressive win but we shot insanely good from 3. We know these guys don't do this consistently because we constantly complain about missing open shots. I'm curious to see how it goes when they shoot their average. Hopefully well.
Really great work. Props for the enterprise, the math, and doing it before the Lakers game. The thing I noticed most in the Lakers game was how aggressive our smalls were playing on defense. They seemed far more diligent and aggressive than in previous games where they knew they had a shotblocker behind them. I wondered whether there's any cause and effect in that. Did you see anything like that in the previous 3 games? When I think about how to quantify it, my best guess would be turnovers, e.g. strips in the block.
I mentioned Thabo giving us some solid minutes last night in the game thread. Your point here about Clint's departure opening up opportunities for players like Sefolosha is well taken. (accidental double post!)
interesting. But conventional wisdom may hold true I’m afraid to say. The TNT guys made a great point last night that can the rockets hold up physically. That’s where all this math fails. Just physically can small players take a beating with still half a season to go and the playoffs? There undoubtedly a physical toll not to mention the short rotations MDA employs. I suggest a mixture of both giving Hartenstein some minutes just to ease the physical burden maybe 10 min a game or so. But the eyeball test from last night I saw a scrambling and pesky defense that bothered the lakers. A lot of points are given up in this fast paced scheme but crucial turnovers in blocks and steals are big part of this D. I’m just wondering how this all happened did MDA go to morey or vice versa? I’m thinking it’s from the top down to MDA.
yeah I agree. Even with the lakers win I think they will adjust as all great teams do. The style is hot but is it wise in the long term and is it effective in a seven game series. I don’t like how so many Easy buckets are scored in a big man cutting in the lane or put backs. That puts more pressure of rockets offense to score and in closely contested playoff games you cannot give up those types of buckets. I think You can employ small ball but not for 48 minutes. I think you can have the best of both worlds to change tempo and style to harass opponents but you still need bigs to stop easy buckets. We shall see.
They're forgetting the fact that those bigs on the other team will now have to do more work chasing our players around the perimeter so it's a double edged sword--you can either give up tons of space to man the paint against Houston or shift your defense (playing a style you've rarely played with the rest of the league) to have your big man drag to the perimeter leaving the paint wide open for Westbrook. Here's the other rub: there are probably only 2-3 centers nowadays that plays most of their game down low in the post where it's most physical that we have to worry about. Embiid, Jokic, and probably another center I can't think of. Davis, KAT, etc have a perimeter game that's a big part of their offense. So banging down low isn't the same as to the days Shaq, Kenny, and Barkley played. And if the other team decides "F It. We'll just bang down low with our big" then they're most likely shifting their offense away from what they usually run and that plays into our hands too. I will say/agree that we will need to give our bigs some burn time eventually and I hope we can bring in O'Quinn. But right now, given today's NBA, the physicality at the center position is almost gone.
You know just about every popular analyst on TV don’t think this will work. Jalen rose hasn’t really given a position on it but Shaq made an interesting observation last night. Shaq said he saw all the shooters around the arc and the small ball offense opens up the shooting which will make the rockets hard to beat. Very interesting.
We really need a Shawn Marion type of player. Long athletic guy that can rebound but plays like a guard. I know they called Marion the Matrix for a reason, but that is the type of player that we need.
If 5 people stand in 3 point line, we dont really need a tall center, as the missing ball will go far away. The only effect is when the opponent offense, they will get the rebounds easily using their height. It is good to reduce harden double team pressure
Why does everyone seem to think the bigs will wear our guys out instead of the other way around. Big guys traditionally get gassed more quickly than smaller guys. Who gets more tired AD getting pounded by the bowling ball that is Tucker or harassed by 3 or 4 different guys like sefalosa, tucker, harden, gordan? Yes AD is taller, but is he stronger? Sorry, but being swarmed and attacked by multiple strong 6'6 players would be extremely tiring and frustrating on any big man, not to mention having to try to run the floor constantly. Everybody assumes its the same guy muscling up to AD all game long. It wasn't. If MD will play a 9 man rotation keeping all our athletic swings and tucker fresh, I think the opposite will occur when it comes to the tiring of players.
I don't think that being tall means you are by default more physical or more capable of taking a beating. Yao Ming was BIG. But he wasn't able to take punishment the way Tucker or Harden can. In fact, Charles Barkley was a fireplug, just like Tucker. If I'm going to war, I'm taking Barkley or Tucker over Capela every day of the week. You would think that Barkley of all people would get that height doesn't equal toughness. And the other problem is that the Lakers only have ONE Anthony Davis. Did you see the beating that AD took last night? If AD goes out, are we really scared of any of the Lakers other bigs? The guy that frightens me the most on the Lakers other than AD and Lebron is franky Alex Caruso.
Rebounding isn't all about height; a lot of rebounding is who wants the ball more. Boxing out, hustling, and reading the shot can make up for a lack of size. As @coyotetex pointed out above, Charles Barkley was a fireplug...about 6'4" and he was one of the greatest rebounders in the game's history. Dennis Rodman was 6'7" and was another of the best rebounders in the game.
I think the bigs will be used as change ups Also I wanted to say . . . .we have 2 elite drivers and 2 very good drivers The spacing helps Rivers and Ego as well Rocket River
Don't you think our shot quality was way higher than normal too, though? Not saying we should expect to shoot 45% but it felt like we got more wide-wide-wide open, practice level, "alone in the gym" type shots last night than we ever have in a game before. And that's not coincidence, that's due to small ball vs bigs. I think playing 5 out could raise this teams 3p% by a couple percentage points, and this should be even more pronounced against teams that try to play traditional centers against us.
We definitely did I'm not going to say we didn't. We had more open looks. But at the same time Harden and Russ did well at generating open shots even with Clint and we saw the brick wall being built over and over so I have my reservations about this. But I'm definitely hoping it's not a fluke.
That’s my concern as well. I think the prudent way to do it is mix it up like the warriors Hampton lineup employed strategically not for 48 minutes. The short rotations bother me and why not put hart or chandler in the mix to give PJ a breather and allow less damage to ur guys banging with those giants. I really don’t know how they’re going to defend gobert. I’d imagine they’d have to employ a big at least for 10-15 min. But who knows what they are planning to do. As I mentioned before though I’m really intrigued with how this small ball idea came about. I’d imagine it’s from the operations people and morey but if that’s the case all this hate for MDA is unwarranted. His hand is forced in playing a style conducive to what the execs want. Morey wouldn’t trade Clint if this was MDA’s idea who is a lame duck in a contract season.
