ClutchFans Game Thread: Rockets @ Pelicans 12/29/2019

Yea I hear you...obviously Morey felt otherwise since he insisted on Jeff being hired on as the defensive coach initially. Jeff’s importance to the defense was furthered confirmed by the fact that Tilman (and I believe Morey) begged him to come out of retirement and coach last season. If they truly felt confident with MDA at the helm, why call Jeff?

A team consisting of Ariza, Luc, Paul and Tucker are going to be good defensively regardless of the head coach. All those guys are known is elite or above average defenders. Their defensive success was likely the result of their own individual talents and to a lesser extent Jeff’s scenes. Now MDA did help by being self aware enough to take a step back and leave the defense to Jeff.

So yes I agree that more perimeter defenders would improve the team’s defense but I think it would be more than likely in spite of MDA than because of him.

 

@roslolian is typical pessimist with fatalistic slant. He closes himself to opportunities because he is convinced only he sees things realistically.

I'm sure he was surprised when Morey acquired Rivers and Faried during last season buyout. Moreso he probably could not have imagined how well they produced because they could not be any good since they were still available.

Never going to get a homerun if you dont get up to bat. Roslolian will never swing for the fences because the chances to hit homerun are not in his favor. That's not being a realist.

 

We didn’t start to trend upward defensively until Melo was cut with cleared the way for Big Dilly to come back (bad blood there). Even with the lack of an Ariza replacement and roster turn over, Jeff was able to get the defense back to snuff. MDA wasn’t able to do that. It’s not really in his bag of tricks but credit to him for knowing that and taking a back seat on that end.

 

It is sad that they both are feeling a sense of urgency to play.

Someone like Harden even missing a week would cause all out panic as the Rockets would likely lose all games played that week.

 

a lot of coaches depend on having a good defensive coordinator...Kerr had Ron Adams...Doc had Thibs

a lot of the head coaches that don’t seem to rely on a defensive coordinator as much as an MDA are sh*t offensively...see Clifford, Thibs, Vogel, etc

it is certainly possible to have a good defense with MDA as your head coach, but this roster won’t cut it

Morey and Tillman, where y’all at?

 

With a strong defensive lead, you’d see noticeable improvements. But yes, there are many roster holes. That’s part of the reason for MDA’s rotations (and the other part is stubbornness).

 

my only argument has been that it is indeed possible to be a good defensive team while having MDA as your head coach to push back against the statement that a MDA led team will never be good defensively...it will require a good defensive coordinator and capable defenders

without it, u will continue to see inconsistent, below average defense

 

I don’t think our defense is particularly bad this year. I think we can lock in and play very tight with about 5-6 different guys . Maybe 7 now that Gordon is back .

Would I like some extra personnel or development, yes, of course , but I’m greedy.

I think we underrate the defensive talent on the roster . With hindsight they were fully elite . Cp3 before he fell off . Ariza , Luc , pj with a lighter load. Harden had his first year of solidly good defensive ply due to lightening the load. Cp3 was able to focus more on the defensive end at times too. Clint fully broke out in the playoffs that year with his performances vs Utah and Minnesota. Not to mention the steady play of Gordon. Truly that was an absurd squad . That’s 7 starter level players . Plus we had half of the season with good Ryno, nene, and Gerald green.

We were so good MDA was comfortable playing Tarick black in 51 games . Right now Hartenstein is on pace for less than 30 .

I would also like to talk about the offense / defense relationship. I don’t question MDA’s ability to have a team with good defense. Our offenses have been historically good and that creates pressure on opponents and definitely helps your defense. If you are making shots they also have to go against you in the half court.

Make no mistake I think MDA is a good coach . I just disagree with him on which extent he spreads out the rotation. I think Capela trying to play through his injury and now having to sit out is a perfect example . I feel like the obvious approach is to play Hartenstein or Clark or Tyson more to give them the chance to step up . Instead he opts to lean into PJ and Clint . Yes they are better players and we have a better shot at winning the game if they play more .... but like you said , it’s championship or bust . Smart teams rest players . The NBA is trying to make a rule against it (did they already make one?) because it’s a ****ing dominant strategy to a certain extent.

Imagine this scenario . We are the 3 seed the clippers are the 6th seed. Harden plays 80 games . Kawhi plays 60 . Kawhi doesn’t play 60 because he’s injured ... he plays 60 because his organization wants to periodically rest him throughout the year. Do you like having played harden those extra games just so you can win more games and be the 3rd seed. You can’t know how your season will play out . But , in most scenario’s you’d prefer you wouldn’t want to go into a matchup where your stars have accumulated appreciably more wear and tear compared to the other team’s

 

our defense isn’t horrible...it’s just inconsistent...at times we look great, and at times we look horrible...it all accumulates into us being a slightly below average defensive team at the moment

I do think he should play Hartenstein more...he could at least try to get him a consistent 10-15 minutes a night

Clark should play more only because I don’t think PJ should always be playing such heavy minutes...I don’t think Clark is that good, I’d never want him on the floor in a playoff setting...we’re only gonna see PJ’s workload decrease if Morey brings in reinforcements

well the Clippers can easily survive Kawhi missing 20+ games...the Rockets can’t survive missing Harden like that...we are too terrible when he is not on the floor...Kawhi’s level of load management is far beyond the level of anyone else’s, I don’t think he should be used as an example

 

Actually, we were trending upward in defense even before Jeff came back and then when he came back we started sucking again before becoming really good in the second half of the season. Also explain to me how NO with better defenders than us, have a really bad defense with Jeff?

 

I’d argue that MDA never led that team (on the defensive end) that was 6th in defensive rating as evidenced as the increase and fall in defensive rating based on the presence or absence of Jeff B. That being said, MDA showed great leadership qualities by allowing a subordinate coach who was more competent on the defense end take charge. That benefited the team.

But we are going in circles, let’s agree to disagree.

 

You may be right. I couldn’t find anything that showed whether our defensive rating with Jeff went up immediately or if it was slightly going up. But I do remember Tilman practically begging him to come back. Do you have any links to back your point up?

Does New Orleans have that many better defenders than us? Ball and Holiday are very good on the perimeter but, from what I can remember, guys like Reddick and Ingram aren’t known to kill themselves on that end. Hart appears to be getting better on the perimeter but he’s far from a “stopper”.

I could be wrong but I don’t remember Favors being known for his interior defense although he is getting slightly better. It looks like the Pelicans have a defensive hole in the middle. I’d argue that our “defensive rotation” of Tucker, River and Capela is on par, if not better than anything the Pelicans can field.


As for their bad defense? I’d think youth and immaturity may have something to do with it. How well do they stick to a defensive game plan? Jeff’s game plans have been proven effective more often than not when you look at the defenses of Houston and Memphis. So my gut feeling is that maybe the players aren’t executing the game plan or maybe Jeff doesn’t have the same level of coaching input in N.O. as he did in Houston.

 

I mean, I can't exactly set it up the way NBA.com has its stats page out, but basically for the month before JB announced he was coming back we had a top defensive rating(there is thread on here where i talked about it and had a link) Roy Rodgers was actually doing a good job, then Jeff came back tweaked things, our rating went down. Then post all star break we got back to being good. I know this for sure.

Yes, absolutely they do. Ingram is not a bad defender whatsoever and neither is Hart. Thats still stronger than our lineup of Harden Westbrook and House(defense wise).

Favors is also not a bad defender. Remember the Jazz series against him, he gave us a lot of grief haha. Ehh...I would say on par.

So it basically can't be Jeff's fault? Like Jeff has no part to play, he gets all the credit for success but none of the blame? Its possible....NO will get really good defensively eventually. You wanna blame Dantoni for the defense but how about the fact that our starting 5 has the best defensive rating in the league with the most minutes played, does he get credit for that? And if he doesnt, should he get blame for our bench being trash at defense? Cant have it both ways bro.

 

Ingram and Favors aren’t bad defenders but they aren’t great either. I don’t think Houston has any bad defenders (Harden isn’t bad, despite the narrative).

Never said anything about Jeff being blameless so I don’t know where that is coming from. My view on MDA that he is an above average NBA coach who is a better offensive coach than a defensive one. I feel that MDA is very set in his ways, not surprising since he’s damn near 70. The bench has flaws, but I do feel there is some talent to be mined there. I think iHart and guys like Clark can soak up at least a few of Capela and Tucker’s minutes throughout the course of an 82 game season.

I don’t think MDA is the right coach for where this team wants to be. But to be fair to MDA, he wasn’t brought here to win a title. MDA was brought here to win regular season games and sell tickets. And in that regard MDA has been wildly successful.

 

??? Where did I say I thought Rivers and Faried would suck? Why dont you look up my posts at that time I loved the signing hello I am a Morey fan I am in agreement with most of his moves. Plus those guys are minimum signings to begin with even if they just warmed the bench like Thabo is doing now that is still ok for what they made. I am also in favor of the WB trade so you obv dont know what you are talking about when you say I never "swing for the fences".

If you are gonna mention me with examples you better be accurate smh. I am not even in that conversation so why did you pick that time of all times to mention me? LMAO you obsessed or what?

 

Ok so you are saying the best a Clint Capela replacement will get is a low 2nd round draft pick lol. The point remains Sac have too many 4/5s why will they use a 4/5 to get a salary match? Lotas of teams want a Capela with a 3 pt shot if it just costs a SRP to get him they can offer somebody who isn't a 4/5 as a salary match.

This isnt NBA 2K with trade override on since when did starting centers cost just a 2nd round pick to obtain?

 

All teams need to improve their team. It doesnt mean Morey didnt improve the team already if you look at the offseason he already made a ton of moves. What further improvements do you think he can make considering we are capped out?

What we need is a coaching change not more help MDA likely won't play.

 

Reading is fundamental Rosie.

 

If I was wrong about you liking the Faried or Rivers signing my apologies but you are such a debbie downer when it comes to any ideas of improving the roster.

That you are a Morey fan who champions making deals no one would believe is surprising.

No time for stalking on my part, already multi-tasking over here.

 

3 years from now, everyone will say, why didn't we give Harden more help.