Wow....just wow. The other posts about whether the Rockets hot 3 point shooting last night is sustainable just got answered. You leave our shooters open, you are going to see 40% of them go in. A 120.0 offensive rating is just unthinkable. Yet here we are, at least in a small sample size.
yeah the off rebounding in that lakers game and the easy layups from the inbound bothered me. It seemed like the lakers underestimated us and thought they could lob, dunk, or drive on us at any point which created a lot of turnovers. I’m nervous that teams like them will learn and adjust. The lakers made a lot of dumb plays like trying to throw lob passes to Caruso and in tight areas to davis because they thought they could. Let’s pray this small ball works.
Like I said small ball harasses the opponent no doubt but small ball exposes your small hits to punishing big men. I don’t care if it’s the new era of big men the fact is 250 lbs is still 250 lbs. we are not talking about one game or a few games we are talking about a half a season to go and playoffs. It’s grueling. It’s tiring. Ask any big man in the league. Now you’re exposing tuck and your guards to day in and day out bang with the big boys. It takes a toll. No question about it. It would be ludicrous to think that it doesn’t. Taking a charge here, getting an elbow there, being posted up etc day by day there’s a physical price to pay. That’s why they need to play their bigs at some point 10 min 15 min. Whatever it takes to keep pj and the rest of the 220 lbs and below guys fresh.
I think realistically other teams will take their bigs out of the game before we get beat up. Dwight was punishing us, but he only got 4 minutes because he was a huge liability on the perimeter. Same with McGee. And we rotated so many guys on AD that no one got bullied for an extended period of time. PJ, Harden, RoCo, and Sefolosha all covered him. No team ever beat Golden State's death lineup with size. We haven't had a backup center for years; nobody ever beat our small ball with size either. My concern is with teams that can play small and beat us in our own style. The Clippers can spread us out too and have multiple all-defensive perimeter defenders. They can also shoot lights out. Can Russ get past their defenders as easily as he could against the Lakers without a positional mismatch? We'll find out hopefully.
What do you mean when you say “take punishment”. We don’t know or have anyway to measure how much the post ups and inside play hurt yaos body just as much as we don’t know how pj us physically feeling. If you’re simply talking about who is more physical in defense in the post or inside play of course tucker and Barkley were more physical but that doesn’t mean their bodies don’t wear down when Banging down low. Also Yao was still a good physical presence down low against bigs. It’s a tall order when you’re playing pj against those western bigs and Giannis. We should have great concern about wear and tear and not expect pj and our guys to be impervious to pain and injury. Again what’s prudent and what’s the hey look this is cool new and hot approach. Prudence.
wow you got me hyped up about a clippers match up. I don’t like the clippers and think the have issues with their shooting. As long as pat Bev keeps jacking up threes I’m good lol. But with the Morris trade maybe they countered our move and will employ him in small ball situations? Very intriguing. Their roster is unique and strange and could cause match up issues with how big and quick their team is. This is something to watch.
It has to be a good mix. The problem is Mike has got to make the adjustments when necessary and he is not good with that. I am satisfied with H stein to play but the Rockets need a buyout stretch 4 that can iso in a post up so at least we can get an easy bucket when the game changes in the playoffs
To me, take punishment means that you can play physical and not get injured and not see your performance degrade. I don't believe that Tucker is somehow at a disadvantage in terms of stamina or physicality simply because he's shorter. Yes, he's limited in what he can do as a shot blocker or rim protector, but the idea that PJ is more likely to wear down because he's at a height disadvantage doesn't make sense to me. Tucker is 245 pounds AD is 254 Jokic is 249 Gobert is 245 PJ's in the same weight class as these guys and his lower center of gravity should give him an advantage in terms of leverage. I agree that AD has an advantage versus PJ in skills that rely upon height advantage (blocking shots, rebounding, replacing light bulbs) I don't think that AD has an advantage in endurance and that PJ will "wear down" easier because he is shorter. I think the opposite is actually true.
interesting. There’s no wrong or right in this discussion. I love the way people are discussing this. Yeah I just don’t know. I’m just concerned how this all plays out and whether it affects us physically. I still think there’s much that’s been neglected in terms of banging inside and the toll it takes but maybe just maybe PJ can hold up. Let’s all hope this works. If you think of it this is all or nothing for MDA and morey. If we get obliterated the rest of the season or playoffs that’s their names and jobs on the line. Legacy in question. Championship or bust. There’s only one goal and one destination.
Another thing to think about is that we aren't playing traditional defense on a lot of these big guys, so we aren't really "banging in the post" as much as a traditional defender does. @coyotetex touched on this in the OP, but you can see it in the opponent turnovers - we are overplaying passing lanes by design. The easiest way to guard a great post player is to make sure he doesn't get the ball in the post. If he gets the ball in good position then yeah, you're probably screwed in most cases, that's why Anthony Davis was 14/21 last night. During this small ball stretch (small sample size, I know) the rockets are averaging 11 steals per game, opponents averaging 17.5 TOV/game. Prior to this stretch the rockets only had 7.9 steals per game, 14.5 opponent tov/game. So I think the way we are guarding them is less physically demanding than traditional post defense, where it's two 7 footers banging into each other all game. We also threw a lot of double teams at AD to try to force passes out of the post, which is especially good considering most of these big men aren't great passers (this will likely be a problem against Jokic). Vogel noticed this too, as you can see from this post game quote:
yeah I noticed we doubled in the post a lot and played a zone scheme. Players rotated nicely on defense and weak side help was great. Guys In the passing lane and so forth. Reminds me of a football zone defensive scheme lol. It was really fun to watch. Curious to see how harden adjusts after playing that high screen and roll or iso all these years. Lakers chose to trap him which they saw Russ dominate as a result. It’s pick your poison for opponents when playing us I guess.
Great post bro, headed to your 2nd post. We shot 50% from the field and hit 10 more 3s than the Lakers. So you can hit all the 2s you want but if the Rockets are scoring 18 more points from 3 than you, it's a wrap...
I love the discussion as well. This doesn't happen enough on sports boards where people have a legit discussion about game theory. I don't agree that Morey or DA's legacy is on the line. This era of the Rockets is going to be forever seen as one of the most fascinating teams of all time. The Bucks are on a pace to win 60+ games, but I bet that the Rockets get written about 10X as much by national press as the Bucks. The Rockets are groundbreaking. In fact, the Bucks are only as great as they are, because they embraced Morey's analytics. A ring would make the story A LOT more compelling though. It would shake up everything that people think they know about basketball and set off an arms race for positionless basketball. And something I haven't seen anyone else mention yet - with Westbrook averaging over 31.5 points a game for the past month+, there is a real possibility that next year, once this lineup is all solidified and the Rockets are comfortable with the play style, Westbrook and Harden could be #1 and #2 in scoring with both averaging 32+ a game. I don't think there's ever been a team with two players on the same squad fighting for the scoring title? Maybe on the 60s lakers? We are the luckiest fans in pro sports right now. No one has a team more interesting than these Rockets.
The Rockets will be running more. Also, it isn't as if Clint was a massive man. He was 240 lbs. Tucker is a 265 lbs man...... James Harden is 225 lbs.....Thabo is 220 lbs. The reality is that there will likely be less banging because the Rockets 5 will be drawing the other team's 5 out of the paint area...... also, the Rockets will be facing less minutes on the floor against traditional 5's, as teams will need to make adjustments.
Haven't read all the reactions and analysis from the "experts" yet but from previous days Shaq was the only one to say that he sees that the Rockets will be hard to beat with all the shooters on the perimeter and the dribble drive offense. Great hearing someone on national TV that doesn't oppose us for a change.
I am pretty late to this post, but man, had to comment. What an interesting read. And excellent deep dive into statistics and facts. Love seeing this stuff because you get a real idea of where the Rockets are headed. The true "whys" on what they are doing. Give me posts like this, instead of posts like: "Rockets are too short XX"
