ClutchFans Game Thread: Rockets @ Pistons 10/31/2012

What a great opening for the Rockets. Harden did all the right things at the right time. Lin was pretty solid as a PG.

The only thing was when Detroit tightened up their defense and made the run Douglass was the only semi-ball handler on the court. It might have been nice to have kept Livingston instead for those types of situations. Our offense couldn't get it done during that stretch.

But the great thing is that the Rockets kept their composure.

Smith was terrific and put forth great effort.

Should be a fun team this year. I'm excited.

 

Delfino and Smith were really the only guys who played off the bench with Douglas getting some minutes. Both Delfino and Smith looked good with Delfino's 3's in the 4th helping us pull away in the 4th. Smith played better than I expected and should do well as the 1st big off the bench. I also expect Morris to look better coming off the bench once Patterson returns. When that occurs I expect the Rockets to use a nine man rotation with Douglas, Delfino, Morris and Smith coming off the bench. Once that happens I expect our bench to be fine.

Suprised that Jones didn't see the court. I thought his play in the preseason earned him a spot in the rotation.

 

Imagine if we had a decent 2nd unit.

With the amount of movement thats been on-going for the Rockets. Give it 1-12 games for McHale to sort out a solid 2nd unit with all that they have.

Though your statement makes the assumption:

Morris will start and suck it up for most of the game.
Smith will be spotty and suck here and there and have 1-2 sweet dunks.

Lin will not steadily regain his form ~

Chandler Parsons will play like garbage for the rest of the seasons.

Tony Douglas will play 20-25 minutes as the floor general of the 2nd Unit.

Etc etc etc.


Assumptions as if this team is set in stone and this is our ceiling. This isn't even a beginning. This is the plastic wrap that your thinking of removing from your brand new 2000$ computer that you haven't even begun upgrading or buying accessories, peripherals for.

We've just taken the plastic wrap off. Now its time to remove the little security tape so we can perform an unboxing.

 

I had thought we could hide Douglas's lack of PG skills by playing Harden alongside him and letting Harden do the playmaking. Granted Lin went down and we had to give Douglas more minutes than usual, and it is really only one game, but it didn't look good. After his first corner 3 hit the side of the backboard, things went downhill pretty fast.

Morris, on the other hand, is essentially just a rookie, and a rookie that slimmed down to play the 3 having to play out of position at PF, after missing a couple of weeks due to injury. Give him some time. But if we're going to put him in, try to post him up either high post or low post. That's his strength, not spotting up for 3pt shots or spacing the floor. Having said that, he still rebounded well, and tried hard, racing the floor and getting open. That effort was much better than last year, and should translate to better performance soon, hopefully.

I think Greg Smith will play well with Harden and Lin. Both are great at the PnR, and in assists that lead to shots at the rim. Which so far Smith (including preseason) is converting at a crazy clip. Smith hustled and rebounded well, but gave away a couple of silly pushing fouls. Similar to last year. But a good start.

For those that say McHale should've given more minutes to rookies. Don't forget Morris and Smith are also essentially just rookies. And Douglas plays like one. I'd love to see T Jones (and later on DMo) get playing time, but I'm fine with him giving time to Morris who busted his ass during the off-season and improved by all accounts (except clutchfans', of course).

Other random observations:
- We had 17 rebounds, 26 assists and 8 steals between our starting 1-3. That is crazy. That is the sort of output that leads to wins.
- Is Parsons trying to do too much? Lead to a few uncharacteristic turnovers, but he'll be better.
- Harden's TS% for this game was 67%. That is only 1% better than his average for last year. That is crazy also. Can we really expect this kind of offensive efficiency all year long?

Some here (including me) have talked about how Scola would look in this line-up if he wasn't amnestied. I'm also thinking Carl Landry would look mighty good (2yrs @ 4M/yr). Mid-range jumpshots, athleticism, some-post ups, a trailer for Lin's passes (like Amare in NY), and very good 4th quarter player as well. Average defense and rebounding masked by having a defensive presence like Asik inside, and guards/SFs (Lin, Harden, Parsons, Delfino) that rebounds particularly well.

 

Delfino stepped up big.

He made multiple three's for us later in the fourth quarter.

 

hey new to clutch city.... I have been a knicks fan for 30+ years, but over the past decade have really grown tired of the way this team has done business, after the carmelo trade has demolished our team and rebuilding plans, I have decided to follow a few other teams, teams that are exciting to watch and are building something special.. of course I am a Huge Lin fan, and I am also a harden fan. I am really high on the rockets and would enjoy the opportunity to follow this team and converse with you guys. You are lucky to be fans of a team that is commited to building the right way and I think you are well on course. Last nights game was great, I can't remember the last time I was jumping up and down during a game....

I live in Atlanta now, so hopefully i can make the rockets - Hawks game this week.. I know this is a little off topic, but wanted to introduce myself.. I plan on catching some games in Houston as I have family there as well.

Good luck this season, you have a good young team, and I look forward to watching them grow.

 

WOW

That was an entertaining game. Just a few things I noticed:

- Every time harden ran the P&R off the side he was either double teamed and lost the ball or didn't find the open man, or he was crowded and didn't get the call (The refs were very consistent with the amount of physical contact they allowed)

- Our Perimeter player's defense put our bigs (Asik & Smith) in a lot of trouble by going over the top against Stuckey and Knight, Id rather see them take a 20ft shoot than attack the rim and get our bigs in foul trouble. Our centers were really vulnerable, getting no help defensively.

- Spacing Was great and allowed harden to put that performance

- Our bench scoring problems will be solved if we put the ball in Delfino's hands and ask him to do much more, something I think he's capable of.

- Lin has a problem controlling the tempo of the game. He kept being aggressive and playing uptempo even though the pistons were on a run and we had a couple of consecutive turnover possessions.

- This was a good win against a solid Pistons team at Detroit

 

Rockets were really superior to the Pistons last night. Don't let the final score make you think it was close. Look at the scoring by quarters for the Pistons:

22,36,23,15

So that 2nd quarter was an anomaly, which I blame on the 2nd unit and not properly guarding that tall white guy from Duke dropping uncontested 3s.

 

Couple things:

1. Delfino is a spot-up of shooter. He can't create shots for himself and others. You can't put the ball in his hands and ask him to create.

2. I thought Lin played a great game, as evident by +23. That 2nd unit lost control of the game and allowed the Pistons to run loose.

 

Delfino saved us. Harden led us. Lin and Asik were OK. And the Pistons were turrible.

Mchale... did a good job. Called OKC plays to maximize Harden.

 

I can't remember the last time a Rocket was on the front page of ESPN's Top Stories, ahead of the Lakers lol.

 

Right on bro. As a hybrid Texan-New Yorker, I have to say, that the Dolan family needs to get out of the basketball business. It's a travesty the way they've taken one of the great sports franchises and run it into the ground. Not trying to say Houston is all that, but comparatively there is no comparison. I can tell you it feels good to have a star to root for again, and to see the beginning of something special for the long-term. I hope they stay the course ...Houston that is. Welcome to the BBS.

-Aruba

 

Hi! Love your posts on RealGM.

(I'm a former Knicks fan too.)

 

It's the NBA. Every team will make runs unless they're playin a back to back and totally shot.

 

Welcome to Clutch City. We bleed red here and always have. The new years Eve game against Atlanta is one worth coming in for. It was a total blast last year.

Go Baby Rockets !

 

Welcome to the board, man! Care to give us your keys to the game?

 

I left them in the car, Bill.

 

Article with a spice of drama on the Rockets
http://www.theatlantic.com/entertai...-james-harden-plot-revenge-on-the-nba/264391/

The NBA's most fascinating backcourt is not in Miami, where Dwyane Wade is joined by pedestrian point guard Mario Chalmers. It's not in Brooklyn, despite the billboards throughout New York featuring Deron Williams and Joe Johnson. It's not even in Los Angeles, where Steve Nash and Kobe Bryant have five NBA titles and three MVPs between them (but have played a combined 2,315 games and more than 78,000 minutes).

No, the backcourt tandem to watch this year is in Houston, where Jeremy Lin and James Harden enter the season with a lot to prove. Those two kids, with a combined age of 47, are setting out to show their former teams and the rest of the league that they are worth every penny of their contracts and then some. And one of them just happens to be among the biggest breakout stars/cultural icons the NBA has ever seen.

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Eight months removed from bursting onto the scene in New York and spawning the Linsanity meme, Lin enters the season as a starting point guard for the first time in his career. The 24-year-old point guard has yet to show he can be a day-in, day-out success in the NBA, but he has the ball-handling skills, preternatural court vision, and insatiable drive to be an All-Star point guard if he puts it all together. And there's no doubt that Lin's global fame is unmatched by anyone in the NBA not named LeBron or Kobe.

Lin's persona is part of what drew Rockets' general manager Daryl Morey to offer him a three-year, $25-million contract in July that was based on marketability and future performance, rather than existing results. The deal was backloaded with a third-year salary of $14.8 million, a so-called poison pill designed to impose the maximum luxury-tax penalty on the Knicks if they matched the offer. New York owner James Dolan, the bane of Knicks fans for nearly two decades, refused to shell out the extra cash, and just like that Lin was a Houston Rocket.

Dolan's snub and unprofessional dealings with Lin (the young star found out about the Knicks' trade for Raymond Felton while surfing the Internet) will look much worse if the point-guard sensation lights up the scoreboard in Houston. Like so many NBA stars before him, Lin has the added motivation of proving that he's worth the money.

The same can be said for Harden, a top-25 NBA player who was treated like a fungible commodity by the Oklahoma City Thunder in the offseason. Though casual fans may know Harden because of his awe-inspiring beard, the 23-year-old shooting guard has shown himself to be one of the most dynamic offensive players in the league, a more-athletic Manu Ginobili with a knack for creating space in the lane with his herky-jerky dribbling style. Harden's biggest strength may be his shooting: He made 49 percent of his field goals and 39 percent of his three-point shots last season for Oklahoma City.

Harden had a breakout spring and summer: averaging 16.3 points per game in the playoffs as the Thunder reached the NBA Finals, and winning a gold medal on the U.S. Olympic team in London. But with star teammates Kevin Durant and Russell Westbrook signed to max-level contracts and power forward Serge Ibaka getting a high-cost deal of his own, Oklahoma City general manager Sam Presti was unwilling to give Harden a no-trade clause or a four-year, $60-million contract, the most he could have offered under the NBA's new collective bargaining agreement.

Like Lin, Harden was snubbed by his team and unceremoniously shipped out of town. Now he'll have the chance to lead a team to the playoffs.
When Harden balked at those terms, Presti shipped him off to Houston in exchange for inferior shooting guard Kevin Martin, draft picks, and salary-cap flexibility. The Thunder were immediately excoriated by the sports media for choosing profits over championships, and Harden was suddenly Lin's new backcourt mate.

Like Lin, Harden was snubbed by his team, deemed unworthy of the asking price, and unceremoniously shipped out of town. Harden may even have the bigger gripe, because he had demonstrated his worth by steadily improving over three seasons and becoming one of the five best shooting guards in the league. Now he will have the chance to lead a team to the playoffs, a task he actively shunned in 2009 when he lobbied Presti to draft him to be the Robin to Durant and Westbrook's Batman.

The rest of the Rockets are either unproven or ineffective, except for defensive specialist Omer Asik. The offensive burden will fall on Harden and Lin night after night. And the two players have very similar styles that depend on being the dribble man on pick and rolls, a role that will likely be split between them now. They will have to develop a symmetry on offense that allows them to leverage the best part of their respective styles: Harden's outside shooting and careening drives to the basket, and Lin's interior passing and pick-and-roll game.

Whether Lin and Harden can succeed without a competent big man or bench help remains to be seen. But the long-term reputation of both men is at stake, and if sports history has shown anything, there are few more powerful motivators behind greatness than pride.

 

Hmm. Does anybody know how Smith is & why Jones did not play?