So no one with any insight? That we're not good is obvious and this thread was not meant to bash our players.
Bad defensive players with bad defensive principles and no PF leads to a bad defense, it's not that complicated. It's not bashing them it's a fact. Lawson has always been bad on D. Harden has a best been decent, and he's been terrible so far this year. Thronton's career has consistently shown that his teams defense gets worse when he's on the floor. It's one of the big reasons he was on the free agent scrap heap. Brewer likes to overplay, which is good when you have protection, which we don't. Having 2 guys in the frontcourt that can cover mistakes would be huge, Dwight is having to clean them up all by himself.
Harden habits. Individual weakness. But also, and maybe the biggest problem, team doesn't seem to be prepared each and every game night, and throughout the game. They seems to play the same generic way defensively. They don't seems to have a focused effort to take away the other team strengths. It's on the coach to have a plan and to have the team buy into the plan.
Rockets will try to pressure guys at three point line, keep guys from driving towards the middle, deny penetration while not fouling, and always have rim protection. I doubt Rockets will do much switching on PnR as I think they prefer to show and to recover with guys helping on roll man (though I'm not sure as they just are all over the place at the moment). Basically, DMo looks to be an important piece for the defense. He can keep his man from getting open looks while also knowing when to help deny penetration. The guy that helps on defense needs to be the guy who's man isn't easy to receive a direct pass. DMo just gets when/where he can help and when he can't. When he does help, he gets back to his man when needed. There was a big gap between DMo and Smith last year in team defense. There was a big gap between Smith and Jones. Rockets did a great job last year, but a healthy DMo would have made everything a lot easier in the playoffs.
Jones and/or Harrell should be adequate as another big if they can play with Ariza at the 3 and without Brewer in limited minutes. I'm not sure Thornton will be able to replace Brewer in lineups without at least three starters. DMo is very crucial if he can come back healthy.
To be fair, Harden is a consistent scorer but his shooting has always been inconsistent. His ability to get to the basket and get fouled is how he can score even when he is not shooting well.
Right now Thornton is playing awesome and his offense more than makes up for his defense. .450 from the 3. 17ppg. It's only 3 games but he's making plays. Not sure why everybody being so critical of him at this moment. Everybody talking about how we can't wait for Dmo to come back but the moment he comes back, the talk will be about how soft he is, how he can't get any rebounds, and how we need to trade his azz. You just watch.
i think you nailed it with the first sentence in the OP. they're thinking of out scoring their opponents. the defensive focus/intensity is sporadic at best. it was obvious within a few plays of the first game that Denver's intention was to race back in transition even on made baskets. our response was exactly as you noted. players & coaches all share blame. even bad defensive players can get back on transition, block out on defensive rebs & at least try to stay between their man and the basket.
The Rockets defence is atrocious no matter how you try to look at it. It's bad. They allow uncontested 3 pointers. They are in top 10 in opponents fg% in drives. They are in top3 in drives resulting to passes which leads to wide open jumpshots. Here is a dreadful diagram <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="el"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">Early season defensive struggles for New Orleans are easy to explain given number of threes/close attempts allowed: <a href="https://t.co/ALoqbdtaI8">pic.twitter.com/ALoqbdtaI8</a></p>— Seth Partnow (@SethPartnow) <a href="https://twitter.com/SethPartnow/status/662046704066105345">Νοέμβριος 4, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
I think this chart is very telling since I believe the top 5 teams in the NBA are the Cavs, Warriors, Spurs, Clippers, and Bulls. In spite of these 2 wins, we're still in deep doo-doo this season without a major trade.
The Rockets are both 25th in defensive and offensive efficiency. What a massive and disappointing dropoff.
Did some of you guys watch the game vs Orlando? Harden was consistently closing out on people and Dwight was trying his best to guard the PF and C. Harden also took 11 3's and only made a small fraction of them too. We don't have a PF right now, you have Ariza and Harden guarding some of the PF's out there. Put us against the Spurs or anyone with a good PF and we're not likely to win against them. I see now why McHale doesn't put Capela in the game for longer than he does because he definitely shows lapses in where he should be defensively. He'd rather go for the block versus play solid defense + help defense. Any updates on Dmo?
Even more illustrating (sp???) is another graph by Seth which shows the expected eFG%. It's not like in the case of Pelicans who had to play the Warriors twice in a week with an almost depleted team, or Memphis who also played the warriors but also had rotten luck. The Rockets' defence is so without teams shooting more than they were expected to be. <blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="el"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">1 more, using XeFG (avgs based on 2014/15 location/defense distance) slightly more detail on quality shots allowed <a href="https://t.co/DbDEWWF1K2">pic.twitter.com/DbDEWWF1K2</a></p>— Seth Partnow (@SethPartnow) <a href="https://twitter.com/SethPartnow/status/662052566763593728">Νοέμβριος 4, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> In this graph you see which teams had bad luck with other teams shooting hot against them and which had good luck so far. In other words it shows the quality of shots defences allowed. The better the quality of shots the bigger the expected eFG%. Rockets defence has a 52%+ expected eFG%. Memphis and Pacers on the other hand so far had bad luck even if they didn't allow many good quality shots their opponents hit those shots. The season is very very young and this luck will average itself out, however what will NOT average itself out is allowing time and time again good shots to the opponent. If things dont' change in execution hustling and even design of the defence, there is no change in the future for the Rockets defence. It will continue to suck. We are talking bottom 5 territory.
The thing is, we had much a much less talented roster start out the year last year, but our D was incredible. We were playing guys like T. Black, Nick Johnson, Papa significant minutes, but they had a purpose. Our strong side rotations were awesome. But something incredible (in a bad way) happened to our D once DMo went out and Dwight came in late last year. It's been a mess. We keep switching for whatever reason, we don't double any pick n rolls, or rotate well. We're giving up wide open jump shots off pick n roll, and if Dwight goes to contest a shot, there's no rotation to get the rebound. It's a total mess. And it's so hard to fathom, we had it last year, and then just totally lost it. Sure we can use injuries as an excuse, but we had more random rotations last year but excelled....Luckily we have a soft schedule so we can figure it out without falling in a deep hole.
Our defense stunk last year too, but we tried more. Here's the issue with our defense: 1) Absolutely no strategy 2) Absolutely no accountability
Such a uselss graph. I know, I know everyone wants to jump on the analytics train and show a graph or table or some **** to prove their point. This graph means nothing. Do you know what means something; strategy, effort, execution, and accountability. The fact that Thibs can make Brooks relevant on D, Dunleavy relevant on D, means it's no longer about personnel(strictly) and more so about strategy. Personnel obviously helps, when you line up KG with Posey and Pierce it's a devastating 2,3,4 set up like he had in Boston. But fundamentally, with how the rules are now, it's all about positioning and crowding the area. We have no idea what to do in that regard, we have no care to figure it out, and we have no accountability to figure it out. It's all about the gimmeck offense overpowering the 90% of teams that are less talented than us.
Yawn. Graph shows that a strategy to limit dunks and open three pointers that is executed with effort will limit scoring. If graph is useless, 3 of your 4 things that mean something are useless. Graph doesn't show accountability as it is just one snap shot with very little sample size.
Whatever you say Charles Barkley. Please let me know when Thibs made Brooks relevant in defence or how he made Pau and Mirotic or even Rose. Oh wait he didn't. You need about 36 more games to make definite conclusions but it shows some things. First that the losses weren't because the other teams were all shooting out of their minds but that the defence was so crap that it allowed them good shots. Secondly that the Rockets defence in comparison to the other teams in the league is pretty crap. Both at the rim and at the 3 point line. I don't even dare to look at stats for transition defence. The good thing is that historically teams improve their defences as the months go on but our base is pretty low right now. If you think the problem so far has been the offence and Harden's shot that's wrong. The problem is the DEFENCE.
As Morey said, this is somewhat of a blessing in disguise. The Rockets are being forced to work on their small ball, which is absolutely crucial to this team's success. What this team lacks is high skill level in the front court. Sure we have multiple guys that can jump out of the gym, but they can't hit free throws (or any shot outside of 5 feet), aren't consistent playmakers, and with the exception of Dwight, don't have the girth or experience to be defensive anchors. Look at the Warriors, Spurs, Grizzlies.....multiple bigs, both in their starting lineups and coming off the bench, that know what to do and where to be. DMo is the only big on this team with high BBIQ and skill. IMO, he is every bit as important to us as Draymond Green is to Golden State....maybe even more (Green isn't the shooter or post player that DMo is). This defense will get significantly better with the return of DMo.
