The Lakers have built the difference, no if the Rockets won tonight they'd just be tied with 3 other teams. The one thing they need to fix is basically...they have lost a lot of close games. Feels like this year if the game is going to come down to the last minute the Rockets are going to lose it for whatever reason. But I mean they are still just one game behind 2nd place. Of course they can play better, no one is saying they can't or shouldn't be able to, I'm just saying it's so much time left, not even half way through the season, and they are missing their... I don't know...3rd or 4th best player? I guess it depends on if you think EGO has more of an impact on the team than Clint...but yeah they are missing a big time player here who adds 16-20 points and that's probably why they aren't blowing more teams out.
You can't put this on PJ, as someone already said, he plays defense for half of the team 100% of the time. If anything you could make a case that's the reason why he missed this assignment.
He did have some space on Harden, but Harden did catch up with him quickly. I would rather they had scored a contested 2 to tie the game than hit a wide open 3pt shot to win the game because of lazy defense. It's just so obvious that Kings were setting up for the 3pt shot. 4 of their guys were standing on the 3pt line.... and another one was late cutting to the paint. It's just so frustrating. I'm just going to keep my expectations pretty low for the rest of the season now.
I said I believe the Rockets can still beat the best in the west. This transition was not going to be smooth. Even Lebron and Wade took a year. I said save that post for later!
MDA insists again that there was a lack of effort from the players. Harden continues to demonstrate that he is a great player but he is not a leader (yet) and that he can hardly lead a team to a championship. After the defeats against the Spurs and the Kings, I think it is clear that this team is not going anywhere.
After a loss most of people usually put most of the blame on the coach, at times i did it too, that's normal i guess, and it happens in all sports, you think you change the coach and boom, everything gets better...which may be the case here, but in my view these kind of losses are more on the players, lack of leadership on the court, poor iq and sense of urgency really hurted us in some games so far, and tbh those have always been a thing for the Rockets in the Harden era, except for when CP3 was here, i doubt that's a coincidence, and i'm not sure that would change with another coach.
Jeff Van Gundy once said while he was coaching our team after we blew a last second defensive assignment, Anytime the team doesn’t execute the play out of the timeout, that’s on the coach, and he took responsibility for it
This team needs a lengthy, athletic 3/4 in the worse way... only then will we be a real contender. It takes Herculean efforts from James and Russ to beat anybody. Can’t keep that up all reg season and think they will have enough left in the tank to make a post-season run.
It wouldn't surprise me if Harden drops 50 on Lebron's head. He's actually got a pretty decent record vs Lebron. People overrate the Lakers so much. Yeah, they're winning and AD and Lebron are playing well, but the support around them isn't that great. They're just stepping up at the moment.
Don’t you think you could use a larger font? I’m not feeling you, dude. It’s one game. I’m not happy about the loss, not at all, but I’m still more ticked off about the loss to SA than I am about this one. If there’s a good takeaway from the game tonight, it’s the play of Westbrook. If he can consistently give us games like this one, we’re going to win a heck of a lot more games than we’re going to lose. Having said that, I have to tip my hat to Sacramento. The refs? They can kiss my ass.
You know, that was a really good game. We wasted some possessions in the middle of the fourth quarter with some awfully optimistic passes, but the game was fun and people got carried away.
Eh no need for a sabbatical. Now that the Warriors are officially done, we are the NBA's most hated team. Embrace it!
