Starting EG means we can bench CP3 earlier in the game. This is still a good move. Obvious first sub would be Ennis or Clark in for Paul.
I’m not saying Gordan looked good to start off the game but this was the exact change that was needed to boost our squad and I’m glad we got the W! We can only get better from here. To everyone that said our bench sucks....I have to say, our bench (without EG) won it for us tonight.
EG at this point is just a good slasher and he’s very effective doing that. But he’s absolute garbage from long distance. As much as it’s pains me to say this. I’d be shopping EG around and see what it could get us. The next star that becomes available, all picks and EG has to be on the table with other assets also. Cp3 is a great 3rd option we need a legit 2nd option. Chris is just half step slow and it’s showing.
Hindsight's 20/20 and in retrospect I should have posted all this before tonight but I've been thinking about this for a while (starting Gordon on purpose - not because of injury where he's not first choice to start) and I've been fantasizing about what happened tonight. About several things that happened tonight. I was too embarrassed about being a homer and a never-ending optimist when it comes to Rockets (while a cynic about virtually everything else) to post any of this so I can't claim any credit for having been right in advance. WRT Rockets I'm such an eternal optimist through good times and bad, I literally always believe we can pull off a win, no matter how far down we are or how poorly things are going for us, until coach clears the bench. I never give up until coach gives up. And of course I was sensitive to the fact that many know I'm friends with Morey even though I've always felt he was the smartest GM in the game, for years before I met him and even through our woes in 15-16 and this year, from the first year he came to Houston. I kept repeating the mantra to myself not to judge the roster at the beginning of the season but to judge it at the end, as Morey had warned before taking the blame for the meltdown this season so far. That's because I always believe in Morey's ability to turn things around and always have since he came here. I didn't feel like that was really an okay thing to say on a board where every thread was "Fire Morey." Or at least I felt inhibited in saying it. I'm always going to believe our guys can do anything and I'm always going to believe in Morey. None of them are perfect and they all make mistakes, sometimes grand ones, but I believe in them like crazy. So these were utter fantasies but they pretty much all came true tonight--at least for tonight. And sure it's just one game but it was such a different game in terms of our approach (nothing like any other game this year) it gave me even more probably irrational optimism. I'd like to see this kind of play this year so much more than the constant iso's. In tonight's game we iso'ed less than any game this season, we moved the ball, and we finally got a different result. Before Gordon's comments, I've been wondering if, after his shooting slump, the constant trade rumors, and the constant iso, he may have been feeling forgotten and so he couldn't get his head right. And then he said he wasn't having fun and talked of sacrifice which reminded me of nothing so much as what an iso-heavy team we've become, playing 1 (Harden) or 2 (Harden/Capela) on 5 so much of the time while our other guys stood in their respective spots, and how it hasn't worked this year at all. (Was it just last game against Dallas when, for what felt like 4 plays in a row, Harden iso'ed until the clock ran down and he tried to force a pass through like three defenders to Capela, all resulting in turnovers? The same failed play over and over. Maybe it was the game before... I am NOT criticizing Harden. He's a basketball god and we're just so lucky to have him. I'm criticizing continuing to do the same thing over and over though it isn't working.) When Gordon complained publicly it seemed like he was feeling very undervalued and very forgotten. That's what I made of the "sacrifice" comments. Iso-ball worked so well last year but it's been a flop this year and still, so often, Harden's walked the ball up slowly and dribbled down to the 5 or 4 or 1 second mark so there hasn't been any ball movement. I've thought, how can a D'Antoni coached team be the slowest in the league when we brought him here to be the fastest? Wasn't that Les Alexander's theory? I've thought so often over the last weeks about MDA's 7 seconds or less offense and whatever happened to it. I guess having the best iso player in the NBA happened to it and having another of the best (Paul) happened to it too. And it worked until it didn't. It made sense to me that Gordon was the one to finally complain publicly. I wanted to see him get a start when it wasn't due to injury to see what that would do for his confidence. I fantasized he would up his game if he got a "real" start and there was enough ball movement for him to get his chances. And even though he couldn't hit a three to save his life, he did up his game considerably from his games off the bench. Of course that led me to thinking about our non-existent, Gordon-less bench. I had a fantasy about them too. More on Nene later. My fantasy theory here was that, maybe, just maybe, if Gordon wasn't our 6th man there would be pressure for Ennis and Green and whoever else got minutes (House in this case though Clark was also in my thoughts) to show that they could be effective and not only as afterthoughts to Gordon and whichever star guard was out there with him. As ever with my irrational optimism about the Rockets (always, even in the leanest years) I imagined they'd relish that chance and would will themselves to being even more than an "existent" bench (vs. "non-existent") and would somehow manage to excel. Before he got hurt Ennis was strong tonight off the bench and so were Green and House and of course Nene was the definition of strong. I was mostly thinking, we have to shake things up. And sure we need more guys, but pending that, we need to shake things up with the guys we have. I was fantasizing about MDA making in-game adjustments and rotating players in and out with much more regularity than usual since it was so clear the rest of the league had our number. Starting Gordon would make that a necessity I thought. As it turned out tonight the Ennis injury and the foul trouble made it even more so. And of course I was fantasizing, with some pretty good data from last game, that Nene would show a total return to form and his man-sized play would help solve our size problems. I never went so far as to think he would have a good enough game to make up for an uncharacteristically poor game for Capela, but he did. I could never have guessed all those things would happen in one game. And, yes, of course, it's just one game. But "plop-plop-fizz, oh what a relief it is." I don't know that our guys could have taken 4 terrible losses in a row. I'm bullish on the Rockets because I always am. When we have a year like 15-16 or like this year has started it's hard to be bullish but I still watch every game I can until the bitter end, always believing we can turn it around. And sure my faith was tested and I was tempted to turn off several games this year out of frustration. But I'm not just reacting to one game. I'm such a homer, I always believe there's a way to turn a bad season to good. Tonight was a great start. Now Gordon’s in the starting lineup regardless since the Ennis injury. I only hope coach and everyone involved took notice of how well everything else went tonight after playing and losing the same game over and over. And being the optimist I am about the Rockets I hope this wasn’t an outlier and that the major change-ups in our game plan tonight continue. I’m not good enough or smart enough or tall enough or loud enough to make a difference in the game. All I can do is hope and believe. And I do. Always. But tonight especially. That was some mean basketball.
Exactly smh. EG is highly overrated. If he’s your super sub on a team that has legit 3 stars. Great. Here he’s supposed to be the 2nd best scorer on the team and he’s just not that good. As the 3rd last year he was pretty valuable but clearly cp3 is not the same scoring wise anymore. He’s just not hitting his mid range shots anymore and can’t finish around the hoop. I’m sure the 3s will start falling for him but I don’t expect the inside play or the midrange to get that much better.
To be fair, "War and Peace" and "Anna Karenina" are pretty good reads, but you don't feel guilty when you skip a page or two of philosophizing about Russian farming practices in the 1800s. There's plenty of relevant stuff otherwise.
well considering the bench has been pretty bad for the 25 games before last night, you could probably say it was way overdue. and now that ennis is probably going to be out atleast a week, someone else is going to need to step up as well
I'm skeptical that this was truly the case. It is more probable that Minnesota was looking to ship Butler to the Eastern Conference all along and negotiated with the Rockets to drive up the market. Perhaps if Morey offered Gordon (instead of the carcass of BK) plus 4 firsts Minnesota would have considered it, but Morey was never going to make a Godfather offer like that.
