I've said all year, it's a really good punch but without a counter punch... Motiejunas would've been great to have on the post up when the threes weren't falling. Someone like Aldridge would be downright dirty. The math and efficiency thing make sense but the idea is prone to long stretches of cold shooting. And ultimately, is guardable when teams get down to playoff time nitty gritty.
I've always felt that trusting only 1 person to handle the ball and make plays ins't team ball and will not work in the long term. LeBron is winning now because Kyrie can take the pressure off of him. I was hoping Mike D would use Lou to take the pressure off James. Also, I think without a dominate post player it will be hard for GS to overcome Cleveland. One day a kid along the lines of Dream is going to come along and put up Dream like numbers forcing teams to defense the post. LMA looks nothing like the guy that torched us 2 years ago.
I agree that the Rockets need to be able to adapt - if a team is giving us wide open mid-rangers, it's like our players aren't trained at taking them. I'm all about efficiency, but I agree taking more mid-rangers could make us more efficient. I also wonder about the psychological effects of no mid-range game - the mid-range was a big part of Ryan Anderson's game in New Orleans, but we saw almost none of that last year. Did this make him less confident and less likely to heat up early in a game?
Exactly, basically you just take what the defense gives you. The concept is a good one by Morey but to limit a team ONLY to layups or 3s is ridiculous, you need a mediator in between to keep the defense honest and off balance. They know where we're trying to get our shots as opposed to the Cavs, Warriors, Spurs who are efficient and deadly from shooting at all sides of the court. D'Antoni needs to bring that true Suns offense here and implement it next season, we could be unstoppable that way.
Gotta say, DannyAinge-Ball seems to be a lot more effective. #1 Seeded team in the Leastern Conference along with #1 pick in the draft.
the rockets aren't perfect. morey isn't perfect. our system isn't perfect. and i realize sports fans always have to complain. but do people ever get tired of complaining about things that work? the rockets had the 2nd best offense in the league this year. they had the 3rd best record and are presumably the 4th best team, with a roster most betting lines had winning 41-44 games before this season. and yet, what happened? they won 55. in part because everyone went "wow, mike d'antoni plus dary morey's philosophy has made this team impossible to guard." but then, after the system seemingly elevates us above all reasonable expectations, people get greedy. oh, we didn't beat the 61 win spurs? how could we have failed? it must be because our offensive philosophy, which made us so good all season, isn't a good philosophy. the spurs ran us off the 3 point line? no, actually we took and made more 3's against the spurs than we did in the regular season. and that's including the tragedy that was game 6. so the spurs gave us mid-rangers and guarded the basket. ok, that does seem like what they did. but part of that fits into us running so much PnR. the big might be backing off, but the small is usually chasing from behind. it's hard to pull-up with a guy chasing you. is it possible we could take an extra mid-ranger here or there? sure. but there are trade-offs to everything. if you start looking for mid-rangers and occasionally avoiding shots at the rim, when are you now just deviating away from what was working? if you just start taking what the defense is giving you, how do you know you're not just settling for what the defense wants? and maybe it was just that the spurs are uniquely tall at the rim with enough perimeter defense to make the strategy viable. they were the #1 defense for a reason. it kind of reminds me of people talking about texas tech football in the 2000's. "that style will never win a championship!" oh, i must've missed all the titles texas tech had been winning before that style. no, they were a mediocre, un-talked about team before that style. then they started winning 9+ games a year (and on one horrible occasion, 11 games which somehow kept texas out of the title game). and what do you know, people got greedy. oh, why can't we beat the big programs. BECAUSE YOU NEVER DID BEFORE! you didn't even feel close enough to worry about it! it must be the style that got you close enough to even consider winning big. if only you would be more traditional, your talent that you don't have would just take over! and of course, the texas tech argument sounds even funnier now since their offense practically looks conservative by today's college football standards of fast-paced spread offenses. the rockets had a good season. who the hell knows what happened in game 6. other than hoping that never happens again, we seem to have a plan that's working right now. our offense is really hard to stop, even for the #1 defense in the league when we're not quitting. you can't always have the very best team. we got beat by a better one. might there be times to take a mid-ranger next year? will there always be times to nit-pick our shot selection? sure. but i'm not going to look for many ways to change the #2 offense in the league, which finished #2 to possibly the most talented team ever. and that through 5 games against the #1 defense in the league, was performing pretty close to its regular season average.
It's not like the Rockets lost in the first round. They left in the same round that there standing suggests they should.
we played the 1st and 10th defenses in the league. our offense was supposed to be worse. the spurs DRtg was 5.3 below league average, the thunder 1.3. given 6 games against the spurs and 5 against the thunder, we should have been about 3.5 below our ORtg. we were 4.0 below if you're 110.7 number is correct. so basically right where we should have been. and that's INCLUDING the game 6 devastation that was clearly not a problem with a scheme or anything, but just the team not showing up. i suppose we can base our future decisions on that game, but other than "is harden a leader we can follow?" i'm not sure i want to take anything from that game. without that game our offense would have actually outperformed in the playoffs. hell, without just the 4th quarter of game 6 we would've been right in line.
that is a very good point. if you don't even run the offense in big moments it's hard to even know if it works. i was going to talk more about the end of game 5 but i can feel my blood pressure rising.
