You can't be upset at players like Smith, Jones, Ariza or Brewer they're role players. If anyone deserves blame it's Harden. It was his fault last year and again this year as well. He is getting locked down by JJ freaking Reddick and Rivers and to make matters worse he's getting schooled by them on offense as well. Last year it was Wes Matthews. The role players bailed us out often against the Mavs and they can only do so much. Dwight is playing hard but once the Clips easily get past the last line of defense and all that's left is Dwight that **** is frustrating for a big man. I loved Harden's improvement in the regular season but he's unrecognizable in the playoffs. If you replaced Harden with 2005 McGrady and gave him the same role players we have now and a healthy Dwight we would be tearing **** up even with that buffoon McHale standing on the sidelines. Getting schooled by Reddick and Rivers on both sides of the ball. Mind blowing, shocking, flat out ****ing pathetic lol.
Spamming threes don't work. I have no doubt if my managed to get our hands on Korver (not saying we are getting him), we'd turn him into a 35% shooter from range.
What's weird is that the Harden-Howard PnR was a huge weapon last year vs the Blazers, and has been pretty non-existent this post-season. I second the disciplinarian idea. It's funny that the last time we had a disciplinarian as a coach, he brought in a bunch of high IQ vets and mortgaged the future of talent for the sake of present smarts (David Wesley, Shane Battier, Charlie Ward, Oakley, Bob Sura, Jon Barry, Mark Jackson...). Now we have a bunch of young and undisciplined guys lead by a laid back plalyers' coach. There's a difference between spamming threes and good threes. All teams are guilty of both, but it's the ratio of which ones you take that make the difference in a good team...well that and talent to make em. Even when the Rockets have been taking good three's, they've shot them at lower rates than average (for a playoff team).
After watching this series , I dont think I'd keep anyone outside of Howard , Harden , DMo , Capela (those two are cheap and useful) and maybe Ariza. A team that shoots this many three's & FT's needs players who are above average at those roles. Finding a point guard would be priority #1 cause Harden needs someone to take the pressure off when teams double or the refs swallow their whistles.
Bad luck. If we had these role players to surround McGrady and Yao, we would probably be in a couple of Finals. We had the superstars back then, but the wrong supporting cast. Now we have the appropriate supporting casts, but the wrong stars. The Clips are really really good. Them winning this series may not be a surprise. But them blowing out the Rockets is a huge surprise. These ass whoopings have nothing to do with coaching or tactics or game planning. It's simply the players getting their asses whupped. Pretty disappointing.
Have to find someone at PG who can defend at an elite level and still run the offense like Prigs can. For that reason I'd keep him around probably 3rd on a depth chart. I'd really like to model the Grizzlies and I like Conley and Udrih. They have dominated Lillard and Curry thus far. I'm happy with Ariza, Motiejunas in starting games with Jones, Brewer, Capela (with a summer of weightlifting and Hakeem working out), Prigs, Johnson off the bench. A lack of depth of size is killing the Rockets right now. This is what was lost with Asik being dealt. But could be maximized by hitting a homerun with the draft pick. Certainly there is 4-5 potentially great starting PG's too in this years draft class. I like the Rockets flexibility to really add an elite level PG, a quality big man off the bench who can out muscle a Blake Griffin on defense, and can clean up on the offensive boards, and another strong wing defender. You need three who can defend a Paul, Reddick, Crawford on the floor one on one with Griffin and Jordan in the post. Memphis might be able to pull it off but I'm not sure anyone else can. Using the draft and exceptions. I think Morey looks at having cap space this summer. I think Brewer is brought back. But J Smooth, Beverley, Terry, Papanikolaou, Dorsey unless they take cap friendly deals for the huge hike in cap space coming next summer or a run at Durant this summer. Rockets need to add plus defenders with every acquisition from now on.
If we could get Lawson without giving up D-Mo and get a new coach... That's my dream off season. Actually just getting a new coach would be huge for me.
Your crazy I loved Yao and Mac but ther supporting cast was a lot better than this one artest scola Landry battier brooks lowery vs jones Ariza smith terry brew and prigs. C'mon man that 09 role players were way better. Also Yao was what 28-29 years old TMac came to Houston at 26. Harden only 25 and still learning. Dwight's not good enough to be a 2nd option that was clearly shown tonight but to say harden is not good is just living in the moment he's being asked to do way to much. Sure he's frustrated and maybe tapped out of the series I don't know but I've seen Kobe Bryant Lebron James do this too early in their careers when they didn't think the roster was talented enough. I'm not giving harden a pass he's should be held higher than everyone but I'm. Not going to be like you and Asian sensation and just dump him and the whole team. I'm not really interested in waiting 5 more years to get to this point again. We got alive with hardens failure the odds of him winning the totes for us at 25 were like 5% at best not Hakeem not Jordan not Lebron did. It I don't know why you guys thought harden would be differnt. His numbers are good he just has to figure out how to make them mean something and going by the history on the NBA he will figure it out. It took cp3 11 damn years to get out the 2nd round and not look like a choke artist put some things in perspective. We do need a better 2nd player tho harden is just fine as the number one.
If you read my OP I clearly said replace 2005 McGrady therefore The role players he's prob thinking of are Jon Barry, Wesley, Sura, Flyin Ryan , Scott flash Padgett and Mike James. 09 is irrelevant since we didn't even have superstar A or B healthy.
The frustrating thing both JVG and Adelman were better coaches than McHale. But they were let go rather easily..... Thank you Alexander.
1) Get a good point guard, and don't skimp 2) Get players that can actually shoot and play D. If any of them can also handle the ball reasonably, even better; Corey Brewer/Papanikolaou/KJ do neither 3) Make Chris Finch actually apply Rick Adelman's motion offense instead of the fake motion from "Horns" on every single possession. Wasn't Finch supposed to be the forced Adelman protege? 4) Convince Tom Thibodeaux to come fix our defense and have Bickerstaff learn from him; or just hire him as an assistant if he's at all willing. Exactly the same thing goes for Jeff Van Gundy. 5) Pry away Sam Cassell to coach our guards and add some balls to the team Do these things before the season starts so they have time to develop chemistry, and don't break them apart unless it's a very minor piece. I am a big Morey fan, but I definitely disagree with his moves this season. Josh Smith was luck, available PG's were not acquired.
