J.B Bickerstaff Post Game Press Conference (1st win)

Not discounting any of that BUT....

We actually saw some good things from the team this game that we haven't seen all season thus far. The effort was there, there was MUCH better ball and player movement many times. But, it just seemed like, while playing with more effort and urgency, they were playing not to mess up, not to miss a shot instead of freely. It finally came together in the 4th and they finally looked like the Rockets again. Through all those things you mentioned, the horrible shooting, etc; they didn't just throw their hands in the air and give up like they've done so far this year.

People complained that McHale didn't make proper adjustments especially on the offensive side during a game. But, someone changed things up and put Harden in the post which completely changed the game and got them rolling. The head coach has to take at least some credit for that, right?

I know it's JUST ONE GAME, but give the man his dues.

 

Actually, not true. We went small for a few minutes in the second half.

However, your point is we played the vast majority of the minutes with double bigs in there. And that is true. We did.

But....no the defense wasn't better. The only thing that happened defensively was Dwight played his butt off and Brewer scrambled on the perimeter. Other than that...their D was not good. You have to remember who we were playing. We were playing the fifth worst team in the league, a team that started Mason Plumlee and Noah Vonleh at their power spots. And we needed a miracle shot to get it to OT to beat them.

Our double big lineup with one of Dwight or Capela paired with either Terrence or Harrell IS NOT going to work. Terrence/Harrell are not good enough defensively to take us anywhere and they for sure aren't good enough offensively to overcome the spacing issues we have with them on the court.

 

I hope JB knocks this opportunity out of the park. Really seems like a high character, intelligent man. Love this guy, so far

 

good luck on fixing our D


Results
Date Opp Final
11/16 vs. Bos L 95-111
11/14 vs. Dal L 98-110
11/13 @ Den L 98-107
11/11 vs. Bkn L 98-106
11/7 @ LAC W 109-105
11/6 @ Sac W 116-110
11/4 vs. Orl W 119-114
11/2 vs. OKC W 110-105
11/1 @ Mia L 89-109
10/30 vs. GS L 92-112

 

we have never limited an opponent under 100 points this season, never once in 12 games so far, it's 12 damn games....

 

This game went to OT we held them to 99 in regulation on under 40% shooting and they only scored 4 point service in OT. Id say we played defense last night. What I noticed different was James Harden actually defending his man from the beginning and giving an effort which had been absent this season. We get that effort on defense from now on now then positive things are to come for this team

 

Harden was great defensively last night. He always will have his struggle containing quick guard, but he got other aspects that make him a very good defender. He's very strong and wide and most important of all, he's got good anticipation. If he keep moving on defense and have his head engage and alert, he can absolutely be a very good defender.

The story that he have to carry the load offensively and so can't expend too much energy on defense wasn't the case last night. He did it on both side of the court.

 

Watch it there mister. He was far from great, I'd say he was hardly adequate, a bit less bad than previous games. Don't forget that some random crab man went off on him there for a while.

There were a lot of defensive miscues overall but the Blazers are a bad team and didn't capitalize. I was happy to see some traps there at the end, it's a shame they don't try them more often throughout the game, it really caught the Blazers off guard.

I just hope no one thinks this was a good game for the team. We had 4 quarters of disgusting offense, it wasn't just guys not hitting shots. The offense didn't produce easy looks at all. And then we hear Finch at halftime saying they were getting the shots they wanted. Was he watching the same game? All we got were contested threes and heavily contested drives. Really makes me think the coaching staff has no idea what's going on.

If all you're getting is contested shots then the offense isn't working, change it.

It's obvious that guys are hesitant to try different approaches since 3 or die has been imprinted on them so much. Even when they get easy mid range looks it's like they hesitating, like they're thinking "I'm not supposed to shoot midrangers" which results in misses. .

 

It was the simple things that JB did last night that has me excited for the future.

1. Lawson off the bench
2. Better rotations
3. Energy from the sideline

Excited to watch going forward.

 

They shot under 40% how is that not good defense?

You say that Portland isn't a good team so we should ignore this? Weren't we just getting smoked by bad teams? By Brooklyn? By the Nuggets twice? By a Dallas team without Parsons/Dirk/Wes?

Can't spin this any other way, this was a big improvement for this night.

 

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">JB hyped. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Rockets?src=hash">#Rockets</a> <a href="https://t.co/8worpnyvlg">https://t.co/8worpnyvlg</a></p>&mdash; PDS (@PatDStat) <a href="https://twitter.com/PatDStat/status/667185098488287232">November 19, 2015</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

They held us below 35%, Jay. Does that mean they played better defense than we did?

This was two crappy teams playing against one another. I'm sure glad we won. And the headlines read Harden leads Rockets to victory with 45 points.

But the truth of the matter is we sloughed along with the 5th worst team in the association for 3 quarters. Did you watch the game? It was the most boring, disgusting waste of time for 3 quarters. You could hear people dropping their drink straws in the upper deck. The whole place was dead. No effort, no nothing. We looked listless, and lifeless.

We sloughed through the whole game basically until the last 8-10 minutes of the 4th quarter. And then we mounted just a little burst. But it wasn't right. It isn't right. This IS NOT a good defensive team right now. I don't care if Portland only shot 40%. They suck Jay. They're gonna suck all year. Portland probably won't win 25 games this season.

The only way to tell whether the team is playing good defense is by watching the game. Portland got open look after open look. They simply missed a bunch of them. But they got plenty of looks. Just like JB said we got our open looks. Good defense???? We had Harden up top defending either Lillard or McCollum ALL NIGHT LONG!!!! Do you think that's gonna work??? Absolutely not.

We had Terrence/Harrell down low defending Portland's bigs. Do you think that's gonna work??? Absolutely not.

We had Jason Terry defending their other half of Lillard/McCollum that Harden wasn't defending. Do you think that's gonna work??? Absolutely not.

It didn't work last night either. That's why you gotta watch the games. We should've beat that team by 30. We had to get a miracle 3 to get to OT and punk them out. Our D sucked. The only thing that saved us was Portland's shooters were even worse than our D.

 

We shot horribly so we should have lost that game handily right?

I actually did watch the game, Did you? Yes we did need a miracle 3 to get to OT but that also ignores every thing that happened before that. What did Dame shoot that entire night? So umm...actually what we did to Dame worked. We didn't just play him man on man, so i'm not sure if you saw the game but whoever was guarding him had tons of help. It was a defensive plan to not let him beat us and it worked. It was the plan and he was forced often times to depend on his teammates that as you say are bad shooters.

Again, Portland is a bad team and so is Dallas without 3 starters. So are the Nuggets. So are the Nets. So you are just ignoring that they actually did play defense tonight. A bad team is still a team filled with NBA talent. Part of playing defense is letting bad shooters shoot, that's what teams do to the Rockets. Pack the paint and let mediocre shooters shoot. We did not let Dame go off on us. McCollum found the midrange game and that's what hurt us most and seemed to be what we gave up.

You keep saying that "You think that is going to work??" and umm yes it did. Because they shot under 40% and then you say "We should have blown them out by 30." Well yes, because we should have played better offense

Pointing out that we shot 35% is not an argument against our defense... the fact that we were so terribly offensively and managed to hold them to that shooting is actually quite impressive when you consider missed shots lead to easy offense. So i'm not understanding the argument here.

We played good defense and poor offense. That's why we didn't blow them out.

 

JB is now the winningest coach in Rockets history

1.000 :grin:

 

He on pace to be the greatest coach in sports history

 

Well Portland had played Memphis twice and beat them once but a good amount of points and the other game they lost by one. Portland really isn't that bad... Houston had Memphis next I expect a better game from Houston after a day of work with JB. I see JB changing things for the better and the players believing in him and playing much harder. The talent on this team will make him look better as a rookie head coach.

 

If the Rockets win the championship this year will this make JB the first coach to win a championship as a interim head coach first year?

 

Meanwhile Luke Walton hasn't won a single game...

 

I love when they interview JB, he has been one of my favorites when it comes to sports interviews. That being said, there are plenty of good coaches that are horrible in front of a camera, belichick, popovich come to mind.

JB will make adjustments like he did in the fourth when they posted up Harden more as the announcers pointed out last night. Bill Worrell was on full rant last night blasting the 3-point/layup/no mid-range strategy. I think that was his way of endorsing the firing.

 

Another change, the AGGRESSIVE doubling of the ball out high with Dwight Howard. The defense really was extended.