As OMR said, I think the decision about whether Parsons or Harden guards the PF will depend on who the opposing 4 is. If it's more of a traditional guy (Ibaka, David West), then Harden. Dirk or maybe Ersan Ilyasova, on the other hand, you may be better off with Parsons. Anyway, I don't think these are the only results. Sometimes, for example, you might stick Parsons or Harden on the opposing center if he is not particularly good. Also, going small like this will often force the opponent to go small rather than staying big and try to outmuscle the Rockets. Some teams won't have bigs skilled enough to really take advantage of the mismatch-- and you have Howard or Asik to clean up a lot of mess in the paint anyway. For other teams, the prospect of a PF (or C) having to check Parsons or Harden as a perimeter ball-handler is just not worth any advantage it may otherwise gain in terms of size.
^^^ Good points. I agree. I think it's a lineup we may see a bunch in crunch time, but not a ton otherwise, at least until the playoffs -- somewhat similar to what the Heat did last year.
the best lineup we see so far in preseason if Howard/Parsons/Garcia/Beverley/Lin sorry Harden, but ball movement and defense is better with Garcia
History would show otherwise, but I'm hoping that since we have the second all star on the team now, we are going to be more protective of our lucrative diamonds in the rough. Let's go a year or two without the backup PG taking over (Brooks-Lowry, Lowry-Dragic, Lin, Lin-Beverly). Come trade deadline/next offseason, unless Parsons or Lin emerge as true super stars or we actually establish a better than average stretch-4/starting pf, you have to assume that we're going to go full steam for Love/LMA using Asik/Lin/picks/star rotation players that could start elsewhere as bait.
Coach has a lot of options. Truthfully though, I want Donatas Motiejunas to be given the longest look at PF. His rebounding and size, combined with his unbelievable ability to run and finish on the fast break just makes him far too interesting, especially with those great outlet passes Howard throws.
Speaking of Miami, 82games.com actually showed them small-balling-- or perhaps more accurately, "spread-balling"-- very regularly during the season. Specifically, the site indicates that Lebron took up 42% of Miami's PF minutes while Shane Battier took up another 8%. 82games.com tends to just classify the bigger guy as the PF when they play together, so I think much of Lebron's 42% actually was just a lineup with Battier and Lebron at the forward spots no matter who is defending which opposing forward. Anyway, this is about 50% of the minutes with a 3 point shooter at the PF spot. What Miami did that I think might inform Houston's strategy in the upcoming season is this: no matter what 82games.com says and despite Lebron being the more ideal defender against bigger guys than the smaller and aging Battier, Battier actually matched up against the opposing PF (David West, for example) the majority of the time, with Lebron only being used to guard the big guy when it's really needed in crunch time. This being done to save Lebron's body from the pounding in the paint. Battier's body was being sacrificed (which likely contributed to his shooting slump towards the end of the Pacers series and for much of the Finals) because he was expendable. Omri Casspi, I think, will be Houston's "Battier" this season. He is a less skilled and less important player than Parsons and certainly Harden but still provides mismatch potential at the PF with his shooting and dribble So, you use him to absorb 20-30 minutes of pounding each night and save the other guys for crunch time and the playoffs.
just wanted to say Bob always note he hasn't been a big time poker player for a few years now. He only plays when there's a high +ev with a bunch of fish in a high stake game, which doesn't happen too often like before apparently
Meant to say wing defender. Beverley is the best perimeter defender but against scoring SFs and bigger SGs like Kobe, Wade, Durant, etc. Parsons is needed on the perimeter. Garcia had a great match up against Durant in the playoffs(mostly from denying him the ball, still got burnt once Durant had the ball), but over the course of the season I question if he can be counted on to be your primary wing defender- age, footspeed. Again, I was only commenting on the starting lineup, we will see Parsons at the 4 at the end of the game and in between. If Garcia can prove to be an adequate defender, then we might see Parsons start at the 4, until then I still like Casspi better. He is a 44% 3PT shooter from the corners over the span of his 4 year career. That's the guy he is, none of my views towards him are based on preseason. Dmo was awful 2 games ago and only padded his stats towards the end of the game against scrubs. The last game, he was completely out of the rotation and only played garbage minutes. Not that preseason rotation matters much, but he certainly did not out play Casspi. I like the Lin/Bev/Harden lineup more as well, but if we are talking about starting the game, I like Casspi at the 4 because it puts more of our other starters in their traditional roles. Morris: liked him when we drafted him. Said I was wrong the second he played(didn't play) in a Rockets uniform. Not sure how I was 'stuck' on him. If Casspi sucks I'll admit I am wrong as well. But so far he's only proven what we already knew.
Small lineup can definitely close games. Lots of time outs/fouls/stoppages will give them extra rest to turn up the defensive intensity.
Yea, Battier was guarding Duncan when he missed that bunny. Now if only Casspi could feed the post like Battier.
There's no clear statistical evidence that Casspi is better than Garcia. All their numbers are fairly similar.
RAPM Casspi 12-13 -1.3 11-12 -2.4 10-11 -0.5 09-10 -0.6 Garcia 12-13 -1.7 11-12 -1.6 10-11 -1.3 09-10 -2.3 Their numbers were comparable the past 2 years, but Casspi was better than Garcia his rookie and sophomore year, playing on the same team under the same system to boot. Synergy stats also ranked Casspi as the best perimeter defender on that Sac team his rookie year.(which included Garcia) On top of that, Casspi is 25 years old and has a chance to improve. Garcia is 31 years old and has a chance to regress. Not hating on Garcia. But if you account for stability, durability, production and potential, I'd rather go with Casspi in the starting lineup.
