ESPN: Rockets spend two days trying to instill confidence

You must have recently watched Coach Carter for the first time, right?

 

Whatever it takes to get these fellas back on the right track is fine with me.

 

Absolutely agreed on the sports psychology part. Unfortunately from what it's known to the press or published there are extremely few NBA teams that pay any attention to psychology or even employ a professional sport psychologist on the regular.

lol no I never knew this movie until I just googled it right now. Is it good?

 

Time for these mental midgets to put their balls on the court tonight!

 

Houston Rockets have a sports psychologist, at least last season they did. Dwight mentioned it in an interview. I don't know if Harden consulted him during the playoffs but they had one available, quite a prominent one in Houston.

 

That's Adelman's offense. Not easy to pick up. A vivid memory I have of McHale's first year with us was the mini-rebellion around this same time--nov-dec. Lowry and Courtney Lee asking the coaches if they could go back to Rick's playbook. They hated McHale's offense which featured heavy point guard action. That's why Dragic's game took off with us.

Finch can teach it but it takes a lot of coordinated screens and movements. Are they fast learners? They would have to be.

 

I'd like to see someone tell Larry Bird as a player that the team wants all the players to listen to a sports psychologist.

 

I wouldn't mind seeing more of Adelman's Princeton, but correct me if I'm wrong, doesn't that system require its big men to be able to make the correct passes? I just remember Divac and Webber running it beautifully in Sacramento. If so, there's no way we are going to get Howard, Jones, Capela, etc. to run the Princeton to its fullest potential.

 

yes, you need a high post triple threat player to effectively run this. Not something Dwight would be good in. Would also reduce touches for harden and further limit his effectiveness, so as we are currently constructed, I would lean heavily away from this type of set for the primary offensive structure.

i think people are missing the impact dmo has on this team when he is healthy. Last year he provided exceptional rim protection behind dwight. Rebounded at an acceptable clip. Blocked shots and was a shot maker from the perimeter and post. When our offense stalled last year, we frequently went to dmo to carry us for several minutes at a time.

Bringing back in a stable low post game with additional rim protection is going to send this team on a surge. Might take Dmo some time to get in shape, but his size and shot making ability are highly missed at this point of time.

 

Larry Bird was probably second only to PJax when it comes to sports psychology.

"Who's finishing second?"

 

if the 3's don't fall tonite, then it's probably safe to assume that clyde walked in on that speech to the players and just clubbed the navy seal before he had a chance to finish

 

Uhm no. He didnt' provide any exceptional rim protection. Unless you mean bottom 1/3 by exceptional. (including other combo bigs).
Rim fg% allowed 48.8% Contest % 44.3%.
He's bellow his positional average for rim protection (positional average for DMO was estimated last year as exactly 4.5). And he allowed 37.8 points at the rim bellow the average for a combo big like him.
Josh Smith who played mostly the 4 (so his numbers should have been lower) had MUCH MUCH better rim protection in every way measurable.

With the way DMO has been described the last few days one would think he was a superstar. An elite rim protector stretch 4 with supreme post game and playmaking abillity. WOW. And he will solve all our problems the minute he steps on the court.

 

A trifecta big man rotation of a healthy Dwight, DMo, and Smoove with Capela playing 4th wheel would have been a championship-worthy big man rotation. They would have been very tough to beat even if Harden was stinking it up by puking out pull-up 3's at a 24% hit rate. Because that group would have held our D together for 48 minutes a game against anybody in the Association.

 

Same thing. It's an excuse for the poor shooting.

 

It eventually paid off for Artest.

 

Agreed. That's why I didn't include Yao with Tmac, Francis and Mobley. Loved Yao.

A lot of us are down on Harden right now and rightfully so in terms of leadership. But he can turn it around. I wouldn't give up just yet.

 

Thanks for the link. Very interesting!

 

see, it's funny because of Clyde's history with seals!!

I lol'd

 

the fact that he averages a point per possession on post ups and can stem some of the tide when our offense can't hit outside shots, yes, i do value that.

And yes, Josh Smith filled in admirably in the playoffs when Dmo was down and provided a dynamic, though unstable dimension to the team - but let's not forget the work dmo put in before his injury.

and given that he was in 4 out of the top 5 - 5 man combos for us last year year
and given that he was in 4 out of the top 5 - 4 man combos for us last last year
and given that he was in 3 out of the top 5 - 3 man combos for us last year
and given that he was in 2 out of the top 3 - 2 man combos for us last year

yeah, i think he's kind of an important piece.

if you want to argue we miss smith as badly, that's fine - but right now we simply need one of them.

and his rim defense is remarkably better than any present lineup power forward offers us and would provide a third legit big to our rotation which is desperately needed.