Great thread, glad I wasn't the only one. Honestly, he can't shoot 3s, can't shoot midrange, can't shoot FT's, can drive and dunk when open but otherwise gets stuffed underneath the basket...god help him, there's alot of good PFs in the west
Jones was turrible against the best teams and great against the lottery teams. We don't know how far the Rox would have made it without him. But I suspect if we had Tyler Hansbrough or some other banger type PF in there instead of Jones our record would be the same. I have no proof of that. Just like you have no proof that we would be worse without him and someone else.
Haters miss a lot of things. But mostly they miss the truth. The truth is Jones is not good enough to win a championship at the 4. His minutes will have to be situational and limited if we are to win a championship this season. Hate on.
Good weak side help defense with his blocking ability, but a horrible 1-1 defender against PF. I think we don't see much of him in the 1st round.
we did have charles jones, chilcutt, and chucky brown play big man spot duty in big playoff games before……so hopefully history repeats :grin:
Jones is going to entertain everyone here just like he did throughout the season. He has already done more than i expected in his second year.
Fortunately .. we aren't depending on Jones to be our offensive threat not us he options 1-3!! With that being said, he will do like he's been doing this year and cleaning up rebounds and getting those nice "put-back dunks" that the other 4's on the Rockets don't seem to get!! They will more than likely be focusing and doubling Dwight & worrying over Harden to free up Jones to get his 11-14 points
Jones was by far the worst starter in our games against the Blazers. He played poor D and no O. We might see Asik more this series on Aldridge.
If all you need is an offensive rebounder at the 4, why not put in Asik? Fact is the Rockets offense usually relies on space, and I'm just not seeing how Jones is going to provide that.
Lol. Griffin is likely to finish third in the MVP voting. Everyone struggles against him. He'd struggle against himself if he was defending himself. I don't think Jones struggles a ton against Ibaka. Ibaka's big games against us have come due to us leaving him open for mid-range and 3 point jump shots. As for TJones, 64% of his scoring is assisted inside the 2 point line. 90% of his 3's are assisted. He is rarely counted on to create... so not sure why it's that much of a concern. Regardless of your opinion on Harden, where he finishes in the MVP voting, etc., he's one of the best (top 3 probably) half-court offensive players in the league. As everyone has noted, we don't want to ignore offense, but defense and rebounding is the key here. As an aside on TJones, I really think next year we will see a LOT more Harden-TJones pick and rolls. Especially if Jones improves his jumpshot at all.
Rockets fans love to downplay the players on this team.... I don't think people understand how good Jones has done for a guy getting his first minutes in the NBA........... Say what you want about his points being assisted, but it's not easy to post a 19 PER as a starter in the NBA on a playoff team.... I mean he has his flaw but you'd think he was a mega scrub with no potentia lwith how people bash him on this site...........
Bad idea, that's what made him into a good player. If he stomped on another one, he'd probably be the best PF in the game.
Jones isn't very reliable now, but the Rockets have plenty of contingency plans if Jones is not effective. They can see if DMo or Casspi is any better, or use a center, Howard or Asik, to guard Aldridge if the PFs cannot get it done and either have the PF guard the Portland C or even go twin tower, they can go small and either have Portland match small or have Harden or Parsons on a big.
Yeah...I think DMo has played his way out of a shot at PF right now. You simply go out there firing away when you're shooting 25% from deep. With one of Howard or Asik on the floor at the 5 we don't need DMo at the 5 except for scraps in the playoffs. We need to take care of the 4 spot. I think after watching this story with Daniels unfold that we are looking at playing more small ball lineups. I think Jones is going to get into foul trouble and we're gonna scramble minutes at the 4 between Harden, Powell, Casspi, and Asik in the Twin Towers lineup.
As I said in another post, I don't think the Blazers have any room for error if we hope to beat the Rockets, while you can have a few things go wrong. Here would be my three keys (I'm assuming Aldridge will continue to put up monster numbers) 1. Lillard has to be able to start the offense quickly and get Beverley out of his head (where is most certainly living rent-free right now). Beverley clogs up the ball at the point of attack, which leads us to bad shots and one on one play. If we can get moving early, we pass well, make you chase us around, and find an open shot. 2. Batum has to find a way to limit Parsons. Parsons has absolutely dominated Nico. For us to be able to compete, Batum has to be a bit better than Parsons, which seems to be a tall order. 3. Lopez and Matthews have to stay out of foul trouble against Howard and Harden. H&H will get theirs (as will Aldridge), but if RoLo and Wes get into foul trouble, those two are going to have 40 point games because our bench sucks. As to your last point, I think we will be able to keep up for the most part, because we can score, too. What we have to be careful of is the five minute burst where you guys can put up 15-20 points. It happened in our last game when we were up 17 in the third. That lead was erased in an instant. Portland doesn't have a killer instinct, and it seems that you all do. I said before, my head thinks the Rockets win it in six. However, I hope there will be a couple of games where it will be close at the end, and we have a chance to steal one or two.
