Yup, too inconsistent. When we got Dwight I was really hoping to sign Morrow. Dude is a sniper from 3 pt range.
We didn't lose to a good team. We got utterly exposed and destroyed by a good team. There is a difference between losing to a good team and losing in a way that makes you look like your players don't belong on the fame floor with the opposing squad.
Asik and Lin are out. Harden has had feet/ankle problems all year and probably shouldnt even be playing right now. Parsons and Bev missed some games. We didn't have this many key injuries last year.
Harden is an elite off the ball shooter. But if he has the ball in his hands and the defence is focused on him, it's not surprising that his FG% suffers. He's also injured. This is down to McHale overplaying him and not playing him in a way that best uses his talents. Part of it is Harden's immaturity of trying to do it all himself. Basketball is a team sport, he needs to realise that if he wants to reach his potential.
That's just personal crap against a few players not liked by you. The truth is defense is crucial when your goal is truly championship. Rockets don't play defense on a championship level and until they do all they will be is a fun playoff team like the Phoenix Suns and Sacramento Kings were.
Rockets have so many flaws. 1. No ball movement. Our isolations are on the rise and assists are down, and it's absolutely a chemistry killer on BOTH ends of the court. Only Knicks and Raptors have a higher percentage of isolations than us. When you iso a lot you don’t have that shared responsibility on defense. It’s kind of human nature – if you work hard to get a guy a layup, he’ll want to return the favor and play harder on defense. Even if he misses the shot after receiving a good pass from his teammate, he will work even HARDER on D to make up his wide open missed shot. There is less standing around with ball movement, players will feel a part of the team, they feel the movement, they feel good. If one guy (or two) is shooting all the shots, defensively other players will not try as hard. 2. Dwight and Harden have not played worthy of their contracts this year. Perhaps due to injuries, Harden regressed from last season. We are so depended on Harden's performance. He is too proud and too stubborn to know he is hurting the team when he keeps missing shots. He just doesn't know nor can contribute if he isn't scoring. If he is having a bad game against an elite defender, more likely Rockets will lose--not a quality for a true leader. He had no go-to shots last year, and I was terribly saddened that he added nothing to his offensive game this off-season. He can't even get off decent shots when the game is on the line. 3. I've been saying this since last year--Our offense is gimmick! It's easily defended by good defensive teams--just focus on the paint and along the 3 point line. Teams have to defend less areas against Rockets. Less areas to defend = high quality defense by elite teams. For as long as we have this gimmick no-mid-range-shot-with-too-many-isos offense, I don't have high expectation of this team, and neither should you.
Absolutely right. Look at our assits. We are not helping each other. In a sense we are playing school yard basketball-beat your man.
The Rockets don't get nearly as many good looks and against good defensive teams you have to force a double team or move the ball really well. Right now, the Rockets do neither. 1) They need to learn how to feed the post. Howard's post game is improving and we're going to need it when the game slows down so we might as well get good at it. If Howard is posting, give him the ball until he forces teams to double, creating open shots. If he is having an off night, he needs to be aware of that and look to run more pick and rolls. Looking at him and then passing away from him or jacking a contested 3, though, is bad basketball, and the rockets do it far too often. Harden is particularly bad at this. If Howard is in the post and you don't give him the ball, there is no driving room on that side of the court and Harden tends to force things. Unless the team is running a pick and roll with Howard from the start, the ball needs to be taken out of Harden's hands at the start of the offense. That way someone else can look at Howard in the post. If it isn't there, the ball should swing quickly to Harden for a drive or a pick and roll where there is the spacing available for him to play his game. 2) The rockets miss Lin. Last year when the rockets ran a pick and roll and it was stopped, the ball quickly swung to the other side of the court for another pick and roll or drive by Lin. Now when the initial pick and roll isn't there due to good help defense, the ball is sticky. (In part because Harden is always the one initiating it instead of receiving the ball after the defense has been forced to shift once. Parsons gives us some of that but the Rockets miss Lin's penetration - particularly with that second unit, which can't create shots for themselves.
Bingo. The difference between this year and last year is the difference between Delfino/Patterson/Morris and Jones/Asik. Guys pump fake for 2 reasons: 1. Because the defender is playing tight and they want to go past them. 2. Because they have no confidence in their shot and they are desperately trying to get the defender out of position so they can dribble drive. The pump fake worked great last year because we consistently had 4 guys on the floor that would pull the trigger if they were given any space to do so. It's not working this year because we have a reluctant shooter on the floor that won't take the shot when it's there but instead passes back to Harden who is covered. When that happens it forces Harden and others to take more contested shots. I knew this was going to happen. Terrence Jones is not a shooter. Going back to what I said during preseason, we should be starting either Casspi or Asik at the 4. Jones is simply not good enough on either end of the floor to make a difference. He looked good early when teams had not had the opportunity to study us and were playing us based on last year's scouting reports, but once the league got to study our team over the course of the first month they discovered the defensive key to stopping us that was not there last year. That key being to stuff Harden and cheat off Jones, play up close on everybody else and don't worry about doubling Howard, just let him go. That defensive formula is going to continue to be played against us by the better teams that are trying to win this year. The teams that are not trying to win this year but are instead looking for the optimal number of ping pong balls will not be playing team defense against us so with our talent alone we'll beat them for the most part. But the top tier teams in this league that are trying to win a ring this year have our number. That means when we play Indiana, Miami, Oklahoma City, and San Antonio that we probably aren't going to win with this lineup and a healthy opponents lineup. Jalen Rose said it very kindly and gently about our team. When he looks at our team he looks at two spots, the power forward spot and the point guard spot. Those guys have to be able to shoot the ball in the system we are playing. If they can't shoot the ball it's a huge problem. This year we are playing a guy at the 4 that can't shoot the ball. He's reluctant to shoot because he has no confidence in his shot. He pump fakes when the defender is 10 feet away in hopes of drawing the defender out so he can use his point guard skills to penetrate. But it's not working and it's not going to work against the better teams in the league. Thats what is wrong with our shooters this year.
If Rockets can add some sharpshooters this off-season, they are even deadlier. This game they've had a bunch of open 3s, just missing em.
Garcia & Casspi are both 36% from 3 this year,which is pretty solid (so is PBev), and all of them have their shots falling lately (when they get minutes). CP25 is even hotter from 3 this year, with 38% BTW, I can't see any reason not to even TRY Casspi tonight, when we needed the spacing for DH12 and most of the usual shooters (CP25, Bev, Lin, Ham) started missing their shots...
***** stfu...we havent beaten any elite teams in the west yet...yes i would be worried b/c we play these teams in the playoffs not the garbage ass east which we been dominating all season
