I'm a STH and remember when Pat came into the mix, the guy who sat next to me just lost his crap all the time talking about how terrible a decision it was that PB was playing/starting over Lin. Despite the fact that you watch the team every night, some people just don't always pick up on the smaller less glamorous elements of day-in day-out solid basketball that separates different players. Watching Ariza secure 3-4 rebounds every night that would have been offensive boards last year with CP25, watching him consistently fight through/around screens to challenge pick-and-rolls, watching him shoot an awful looking three then draining the next open good look without being emotional or frustrated...all of these things are subtle contributions that demonstrate the immense value of Ariza. And that all of these things come without an ego by a guy who will play 40+ minutes a night against the opponent's best guard/wing make Ariza 2.0 one of my favorite Rockets of the last few years.
Are you actually watching the games? It doesn't take a stat analysis to see that the defensive improvement this year is in large part because of Ariza, not despite him. He makes good rotations, is a great help defender and makes his man work for the shots he gets. It's very rare to see a missed defensive assignment by Ariza, or an uncontested shot by his man.
Bump! Wow, he struggled tonight. Absolutely no court awareness, lazy defense, no jump shot as usual. He should be Brewer's backup, because Brewer can make good things happen for the team even when his shot isn't falling. My new rotation for now if I'm coach: Beverley/Cannan Harden/Terry Brewer/Ariza D-Mo/Smith Howard/Dorsey (ugh)
I agree. I saw brewer take a couple too. I thought the Rockets coaching staff preached against those...
Ariza has lost his shooting confidence in the playoffs for some reason. He's 11-37 (30%), 4-15 (27%) from 3. We might get by Dallas but can't beat the big boys with him shooting like this.
In case yall didn't notice, the whole team no showed last night. Stop looking for a whipping boy. The team no showed and got it handed to them. Simple as that.
i know he does other thigns but im so ****in suck of this bad shooting from ariza. i thought he was gonna flip a shooting switch in the playoffs but instead its the same crap. man i hope this is the last game. at least string two good shooting games before another brickfest. low 40s is good enough
The whole team aside from Brewer and Smith sucked last night, but I am concerned about Ariza's shooting. He's been dreadful this series other than Game 1. The Rockets are not gonna go very far in the playoffs with him putting up performances like 1-9 in Game 2 and 2-10 in Game 4. Ariza, Terry, and Pepperoni were a combined 3-19 last night. Those 3 have to shoot better in Game 5. Harden can't do it all by himself out there.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>Houston was 15-of-42 on uncontested FGA in Game 4. Non-Smith Rockets were 10-of-36 (27.8%) on such shots.</p>— Bobby Karalla (@bobbykaralla) <a href="https://twitter.com/bobbykaralla/status/592554988238409728">April 27, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script> They forgot how to shoot
Harden needs to stop trying to do it all. We were killing so many ways The first 2 games. Now the ball doesnt come off his hands if its not a 3pt shot. We keep setting sucky shooters up.
Yeah, they were getting good looks. Especially Terry and Ariza. Terry was just throwing up bricks and Ariza lost confidence in his shot and started hesitating or stepping inside the arc for a 20-footer. Even Harden seemed reluctant to shoot after the first quarter. I guess if you're gonna have a bad shooting night, it may as well be almost the entire team. Just get it out of your system.
Really frustrating to watch Ariza take long 2s early in the shot clock when the Mavs were surging. I know he only took 4 shoots but Prigioni had some ugly bricks too. Brewer and Smith were the only 2 bright spots from the game.
