Yeah, it would cause turnovers now and again. Tough pressure on the entry passer with some zone behind it *cough*Seattle*cough* seemed to be the best medicine... You don't totally shut down Chris Paul. You make him less comfortable thus increasing the odds he makes a mistake on a given possession.... I remember countless times when he was in New Orleans that the Rockets would frustrate him when Rafer or Lowry would dig in..
Bill simmons and zach lowe owe rockets an apology. Not sure if you heard the latest BS report by Simmons but it was full of BS. The first 15 minutes was dedicated to how the Rockets suck at defense and how Howard is no where near his 2009 form. They also kept yapping about how this team can't go anywhere with Howard being the leader. It is so funny simmons goes to 1 game in which the rockets lose and he yaps about how this team sucked for 15 minutes on the most popular sports podcast in america. The guy sometimes is a complete and utter joke in regards to his analysis. I was thoroughly disappointed in Zach Lowe as well who i usually consider an intelligent guy who uses stats to back up his claims. Not sure what those 1 knuckleheads are smoking. The Rockets are 4-1 and have played pretty damn good defense in 4 out of 5 games. Great to see Howard dominate tonight on both ends of the floor. Looking forward to destroying the lakers on Thursday. http://espn.go.com/espnradio/play?id=9931626
Simmons also ranked the Rockets very highly in his Grantland countdown (#8 I believe)? He's a big Parsons, Harden, Lin, and Morey fan.
Dwight has looked pretty bad in pick and roll. And he has not been too eager to challenge shots the last two games (which is probably due to foul trouble). To my eyes the defense has looked better with Asik out there instead of Dwight. But I fully expect this to change as the season goes on.
This podcast is such a huge overreaction based on [*]ONE GAME, [*]ON THE ROAD, [*]WHERE THE REFS WERE PLAYING FOR LOS ANGELES C'mon, Bill & Zach. You're better than this, you understand advanced statistics, sample sizes, you understand that you can't judge a team based on one game. This was literally the worst defensive game of Harden's entire career. Lin and Parsons aren't nearly as bad defensively as Bill makes them sound--they're not elite stoppers or anything, but they're not major liabilities most nights. Patrick Beverley wasn't in the lineup. Teams have bad games. But guess what... the Rockets have the best record in the West, their schedule has been if anything ABOVE AVERAGE in difficulty, and on top of all that they've been struggling with minor injuries to start the season (Casspi and Bev). Chill the f*** out Bill.
Zach Lowe's dislike of Dwight has jaded any sense of objectivity, he's so invested in criticizing him that he's willing to throw away common sense. He was complaining about Dwight's body language whilst a CBS guy (who was actually at the game) was wondering why it was actually good now, especially in the face of how **** Houston played.
Damn it, my dvr didn't record the game last night. Must be blacked out cause of the stupid Comcast ****. Fuuuuuuuuuuuuddge!!!
The Rockets shouldn't expect respect from the media until they start winning against good teams. The standards have been raised. The Clippers game was their first real test against a strong team, and they failed miserably.
Agree with durv. We are contenders, and have to take criticism like contenders. LeBron went through the same thing when he first went to Miami. He was whiny and entitled for a year. Then he realized the way to silence them is not to respond, but to be cool and concentrate on winning. True winners have even higher standards than the critics.
They also know their audience. After that absolute disgusting performance against the Clippers, after an entire offseason of Dwight hate, you think they can say anything positive about the Rockets? Of course not. And quite frankly, you know as well as I do that if we weren't fans of this team, we'd be talking about how the Rockets are overrated and got destroyed when they faced top competition blah blah blah. I personally don't care about the national media this year. You shut them up with success. And we'll certainly have that once we get things figured out with Dwight.
I think people have talked about it for a while. Howard has lost a step and he's not getting any better. I don't think BS is over-reacting. We've seen it from him in the past 4 games. He's not what he used to be and we need to deal with the reality of things. An overpaid highly limited offensive center with great but not the best defense in the league.
Anyone who watched the clippers game saw a team (the Rockets) that simply was not ready to compete against the elite teams. It went further than the players. Guys literally did not know how to defend the Clippers - it was a very sad state. The rotations were awful. Guys would just find themselves out of position. It happened with Portland as well. Seems we adjusted a bit in the 2nd half. Just so many small mistakes that add up. The initial help defense is a step slow, and then once a guy gets beat he's not rotating quickly enough to the shooter. Those are fundamental things. Maybe it's just taking time to learn...but it's not like these are all rookies! I think it's fair criticism.
Problem with Howard is that his explosiveness and athleticism is declining but his game is not evolving. IN other words, he's not getting better.
Totally agree. Of course they eviscerated the Rockets' perimeter D. It was awful. Lin was completely overmatched. To be fair, however, that's not uncommon for point guards trying to limit Paul. Harden's defensive performance, on the other hand, sunk to a level far beyond merely bad. The Ball Don't Lie "75 seconds of Harden Barely Trying on Defense" video demonstrates that it was even worse than I remember. Truly laughable. http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nba-b...ly-trying-defense-against-214240517--nba.html I'm not sure I've ever seen a superstar perimeter player demonstrate such little effort. A good shooter like Redick would have had a big first quarter even if Gary Payton had been on Paul. I hope the coaches really took Harden to task for it. All that said, it's just one game, and I still like the Rockets' chances this year with our two superstars and our excellent and versatile supporting cast.
I think this is the most zach Lowe hate I have ever seen. The man is the best writer in the nba, zach Lowe bagging on dwight isn't saying he hates him, he is just comparing him to previous standards that he has for dwight Zach compared to 95% of writers actually can talk about a wide variety of topics without having some bias.. Easily the best journalist in sports Skip bayliss voice "So disrespectful"
agree. Lin has bigger body than Curry. GSW loved his D. His Per48 steals is 5.6 and blk is 1.5. Both of them were the best among PG. And he got fouls a lot. Fans loved his toughness. Just like Bev.
"Harden and Jeremy Lin shouldn't have even run to the defensive side of the floor. Just cherry pick on offense since you aren't doing anything anyway." lmao This is why we need Beverley. Hope he's healthy enough to start this saturday when we face the Clippers again.
