Rest is way under-rated, especially when you're as young as the Rockets

we're currently on our 5/5 straight b2bs. then another b2b after 1 or 2 games...**** you stern

 

I'm waiting for somebody to point out the biggest reason we are losing. Thanks, torocan.

 

Here's a different table that cross-references rest days and home court advantage by altitude.


(from here)

The worst possible combo is if you're an away team on a back-to-back. So yeah, January's a killer, and all I want is for the Rockets to come out .500 and without injuries.

Ironically high altitude teams tend to do worse if they've had only one day's rest, which makes @Utah and @Denver not too bad a way to close out the month. (x)

 

just like mchale says " when did it become such a big deal to play games back to back" i totally agree

 

Another thing is: Being younger doesn't mean you can outrun older guys. I don't think averaging 24 years old team necessarily has better stamina than the team averaging 27 years old, especially if you don't use deep rotation to keep legs fresh.

 

It's not a big deal, but consecutive 4 games in 5 nights becomes a bigger deal.

 

It might just be that veterans are much better at pacing themselves - and knowing how to play intelligently rather than relying on athleticism.

 

Oh, perhaps, right around the time that NBA players have longer careers without becoming injured, perhaps.

I mean, you wonder how many more rings/DPOY awards McHale could have gotten had he just taken care of his foot instead of playing on it.

 

Indeed. If McHale took care of himself a bit better, theres a good chance he wouldn't be limping around today. From a team perspective, you'd rather your assets not injure themselves.

 

Other teams know our style and counteracted. We didn't counteractively counteract to their counteraction. Ya dig?

 

I can't believe we won 4 games this month.

 

Fatigue is the biggest reason they are losing. You can tell by how badly the Rockets are missing wide open shots. Their legs just aren't feeling good.

As stated above, the Rockets have way too many back to backs and they are young guys not accustomed to playing so many minutes or as many games.

McHale needs to stop it with the hard-ass attitude and play a longer rotation.

 

I dont care if you're are 15 or 50, if you're fatigued, your performance will suffer. There will always be a drop off, but the difference is at what level the drop off begins. We're still not a great team, who is at a high level to begin with, rested or not.

 

Incredibly fast pace + young players playing with all out effort every night = tired young players who are shooting terribly

 

The Rockets have definitely looked tired of late, and they're shooting like it, too. The eye-popping number of missed layups against Dallas certainly stood out. Free throws, too. Kinda saw it coming; what with all the guys who have never played big minutes before. They're just going to have to get a second wind along the way somewhere, because there won't really be time to rest.

 

Don't think it's stamina necessarily. I think the older players know to take better care of themselves and the importance of rest. Young players think they can party and just show up to play.

 

Why do they have such a huge difference in number of back to backs from team to team? That should not happen--they need to keep it within 2-3 games difference from most to least.