Definition of a streaky shooter. 1/8 one night and 4/4 the next will get you 37%, but that percentage only helps on the nights that his shots are falling. Give me a guy that's an actual shooter. His percentage may not be much higher, but he's going to be more consistent and give me those numbers on most nights with less variation from game to game. IMO, this is why Morey's strategy is failing. $1,000,000 idea -- $1 execution.
fyi last playoffs ariza also had a terrible first round. after he was much better. over 40% both series
I know this going to sound lolworthy, but there is a difference between a guy who an shoot at a good clip and a guy who just a good shooter. Ariza has times where he is hot, but like DMO, most of his three pointers have to come from getting an open shot where his feet are set and he has a great look at the basket with perfect timing. That is still valuable of course, but in an offense without a lot of ball movement and without big men who are making the defense move around in the paint and kicking the ball back out, it has its limitations. And that isn't even accounting for when he goes just stone cold. This team desperately needs pure shooters. Guys that defenses seriously respect because they know they can just pull up and knock down a 3 at any given time. But we also need better ball movement, especially going in and out of the paint. Defenses do not have to work hard to cover this team. If our shooters are hot that night there isn't much a defense can do to slow them down. If they aren't hot then we don't have any way to score consistently. Defenses can just sort of go along for the ride.
We need another perimeter player that can break down the defense and score and we need a PF that has those similar skills and defends the paint at a decent rate. Get those two players on the floor with Harden and we will be solid. Then add shooters around them. Right now, we have 1 player that breaks down the defense and makes plays for others. That will not take you far in this league. Look at all other contenders and they have that. Multiple players that can handle the ball and make plays for themselves and others. Both of these players dont have to be superstars, just really solid players. Add a good coach to that and we will be real contenders.
Rockets need alot more than shooters. They need athletic players with all around skills. A kent Bazemore is the type rockets need to invest in.
The problem is how much better are they going to get - Ariza was 37.5% this year, Beverley was 40%. They aren't perfect players by any means - but finding 3 and D guys who volume shoot over 40% for cheap is not easy. Of course, Brewer is another matter.
I think getting rid of Brewer will improve our 3 point shooting alone. They aren't cheap - I don't think you can easily acquire them, you have to grow them. Kinda like McHale did with Parsons and Dragic before we let them walk.
We were tied at the half despite shooting awfully from 3 and golden state bombing . Why does no one understand this ?
If you're blaming that 3rd quarter collapse SOLELY on our lack of 3 point shooting then you really didn't watch the game.
I'm not , go read my first post . I said despite the fact we shot poorly in the first half and GS shot well it was still tied .
Which is why my retort was "games don't end at halftime". My interpretation of your post is "Even though the Rockets shot like crap they were still tied at the half" which makes me then think you're thinking we could keep shooting like that and still be in the game (and, based on the game, we couldn't). If you're saying "we shot poorly and we were still tied with GS so if we had actual shooters we could have blown them out of the building" then I agree with you 1000%.
It's half and half . Yes having better shooters would have led to more converted opportunities . But we were tied at half regardless . The difference in between he halves was how we played not how we shot ( from 3) . If you look at just the 3 point attempts and makes you wouldn't be able to tell any difference from the first half to the second . We could have shot just as poorly and sill won if we had continued playing like we did in the first half and owning the paint . We panicked , tried shooting 3's to catch back up immediately and that let the game spiral out of control . Most of our 3 point attempts in the first half were in the rhythm of our offense , the quality of the looks were actually better . To your point about blowing them out , even if we made 5 more threes in the first half , if nothing changed with how we played in the second then we still would have lost by 15 . Better shooting would be nice to have , probably even neccesary . But what is more important for the team as currently constructed are things like being the aggressors , controlling the tempo , and maintaining focus . Because there is proof that ( even for a half ) that we can shoot like **** and still hang with GS even when they are shooting well . Yes half a game is half a game , but so is the other half . When analyzing the game the first half should be given just as much weight .
This. People keep just focusing on one side of the floor with these threads. Morey clearly targets guys who can essentially walk and chew at the same time. We shot more 3s last season at a slightly worse clip but our I guess our defensive was good enough so that people weren't b****in about it.
the 4 guys who took the most 3's on this team shoot above the league average, which is why the rockets basically shot really close to the league average, even while shooting more than almost everyone else.
