How to the Rockets beat the Warriors & Spurs in the playoffs?

To beat those two teams they need to get a deep bench. Sign Rodney Stuckey or Jarrett Jack. And get power forward help. And change the playbook, chemistry because they need to stop shooting too many 3's. And a plus = Howard needs to work on his freethrows.

 

This team had too many BAD FT shooters this past season , cost them a game or two in the post season and those games could have changed the outcome of the WCF.

You live with 50% from Dwight but behind him you have to have guys who are at least average. I think you have to let Smith walk and sign a vet big man who is versatile and a decent FT shooter , doesn't necessarily have to be a center either because you have DMo & Capela who can soak up those minutes behind Howard.

PF without Smith is a bit thin. DMo as your starter and Mr inconsistency T.Jones behind him.

Boozer , Scola , Bonner , Koufos , Bargnani or Stoudemire

Also have to find a point guard , I'd be looking at JJ Barea , Cory Joseph & Mo Williams and possibly Aaron Brooks.

 

I agree with some of this. Adding another PG to the rotation with Beverley is absolutely key. And re-signing Smith to solidify the PF position is also important. I also think their offense could use a bit of boost, and I'm hoping the addition of another quality playmaker + Dekker will help a bit in the regard.

But asking Howard to start making free throws at this point in his career is just totally unrealistic. Guys at his age and with his experience don't just start making free throws. He just is and always will be a 50-55 percent free throw shooter, and the Rockets have to be prepared for that.

 

I'm honestly not sweating the Spurs. Howard will abuse a 40 year-old Duncan(he'll be that old come late April). And if Capela continues to develop, he'll abuse Diaw. The reason the Spurs beat us in those 2 late regular season matchups was their bench(coupled with no Bev or D-Mo). Well, both of those advantages are now wiped away. Unless Duncan can hold down the fort at center and Aldridge destroys the Rockets like he did in the first round series in 2014, I give us a slight edge over San Antonio. And if the Spurs suffer any injuries, they're toast.

The Warriors are another matter entirely. They kept Green and Speights(I was a little surprised about that one), so other than presumably Lee and maybe Barbosa, they'll have everyone back from last season. It is worth noting the Rockets did play them very close in Games 1, 2, and 5. The only blowout loss was Game 3 where no one showed up. So it's not like we can't beat them. But we need to work on deficiencies that plagued us last season like the turnovers, late game defense, missed wide open 3's, and missed free throws.

 

When the Rockets out rebound their opponent they usually win. DMO for a 7 footer has amazing low moves moves ect, but he is not a good rebounder at all. DMO more than likely would have been cannabalized on the boards with higher playoff intensity and all out aggression by his opponents. On the flip side he could have put some pressure on the opponent in some half court offensive sets down on the blocks and maybe come close to hitting the 38% FG from the 3pt line that Smith accomplished while shooting over 4 attempts per game. Hopefully DMO can train his lower body area to get stronger in the off season if his back doctor will allow that, he needs to get much stronger to improve IMO.

 

Smith and Howard at the free throw line doesn't do Houston many favors, but they didn't lose the series against Golden State because they didn't make free throws. They lost because their offense got too stagnant and not enough guys were stepping up on that end of the floor.

And as infuriating as Smith can be sometimes on offense, he probably was the Rockets third or fourth best offensive player in the postseason and he was definitely their second best playmaker. For all of his faults, he absolutely did more good than harm for the Rockets last season. He needs to be re-signed if Morey can do it without breaking the bank.

 

Agree 100%

 

GS faced a Rockets team with two 37 year old point guards. Beverley and Motiejunas were also out.

This team returning fully healthy with an upgrade at the starting point guard position could put up a better fight.

 

The Warriors are going to be tough. It doesn't matter who you put on the team.

I don't know what the Spurs team is going to look like yet. They have Duncan, LMA, Kahwi, Parker, Kyle Anderson & Patti Mills. How are they going to fill out the rest of their roster? What happens with Ginobli? It looks like they are going to have to renounce all of their free agents to make the deal happen.

 

Depends on how the season is going. If we're not a top 4 seed around Jan-Feb, expect Morey to actually make a big mid-season deal, even it's just to open up cap space for Durant

 

As much as I hate it, I agree.

 

Good points here , however when you look back at the end score and lose by less than 5 points....you putting too much pressure on your offense to over come horrendous free throw shooting.

 

The reason he couldn't rebound was because of how often we had to play him at C.

 

THOROUGHLY!!!

Rocket River

 

The West is tough. Spurs and Warriors are tops; Grizzlies are always competitive; Dallas will be better with Deandre, Wes Matthews (and probably JLin)...yet they have no bench. Pelicans keep getting better but they're not there yet. Next season will be fun. Certainly what WON"T help us is if Bev gets injured and/or worn down and/or sick come playoff time like he has the last few years; JET can't come save the day forever, dude's getting old.

 

Yes he was, but unfortunately that playmaking he did bring isn't enough for this team and using up our MLE on him really hinders us from adding more of it. The Rockets would be better off rolling with Dmo and Jones and bringing in Mo Williams and AB than resigning Smith (if it even ends up being feasible).

 

By
1) trading for a PG who is a playmaker...i would put try my best to get lawson
2) getting the 1 seed and hopefully avoiding both until the WCF

 

Wing defense. Wing defense. Wing defense. Repeat 1000 times.

 

First, I don't believe anyone has proven to be able to shut down Curry over a BO4 series...

The way we win vs. SA and GS is via the bigs. I think if we are healthy, we will struggle vs. Memphis more than the Spurs or W's next year.

 

The spurs history of plugging players into their system won't work with LMA and their current system; they will have to adjust to a classic PF. Sure Pops will adjust to LMA's game vs their current motion system. Question remains, can the role players adjust. They are built for motion and now need to adjust to a scoring PF.

Will LMA have to adjust to a new system like Love had to, or will the system have to adjust to him