That "mindless" and "useless" offense is what got us here, and got us 65 wins, we are not going away from it. We'll add more wrinkles but Rockets can develop another system over night.
Let me just start by saying that I'm not the biggest NBA fan, but the sports fan in me supports the Rockets. I never miss a game. If I can't watch a game live, I DVR it. The regular season was fun. Best record in the NBA. But the regular season doesn't matter with this Warriors team in the playoffs. I usually never change the channel when the Rockets are losing, but I did against the Warriors. I can't stand them. They're too cocky. They get away with fouls, and complain if they get called for one. And sometimes they get away with barking too much at the officials. Why be a fan of the NBA if you aren't a Warriors fan? It'll always be hard for me to get excited every season as long as the Warriors have Curry, Durant, Green, and Thompson.
I wish what I saw tonight was the offense that got us 65 wins. It was not. It did not have the pick-and-rolls. It did not have good down screens. It did not have confident 3's. It looked like a bunch of guys who had been told to drive from the arc instead of shooting, but then didn't know what to do when they couldn't get to the rim. I'm not criticizing the iso offense. I'm criticizing this bad version of it.
I would love for us to bounce back but eric gordon luc mbah and ariza definitely need to hit their shots. D'antoni is right. We've focused so much on defense that we've forfotten completely how to play offense. That is a big problem playing against a team like the warriors.
We will bounce back. This game was really close, until it wasn't. The main thing I expect to see is that we will set more screens and actually commit to them. On the rare occasions tonight when we did run the PnR, we gave up too quickly and played it soft. Don't be afraid to knock these Warriors on their asses. Force the refs to call moving screen. It's do or die time, time to get physical.
The third quarter lapses where all year we let teams back into games combined with the fact they actually are the best third quarter team in the league killed us.
This was the Warriors best game against us...they can't have 3 more best games against us. This series starts on Wednesday. I BELIEVE...GO ROCKETS.
I mean thats fair enough, but I feel like there was reason we didnt do those high pick n rolls, its cause draymond was always there to disrupt them. I mean I think the main reasons, we did those so much is because draymond is really a disrupter for our offense(as much as i hate to admit it) we will adjust.
One of our strengths is protecting the ball and that's one of their weaknesses but you wouldn't know it based of this game. I expect a regression to the norm on that unless they just iso Durant all day again. Either way, we'll adjust and take these clowns out. We just got to protect the rock like we're used to doing.
The only thing that’s “trash” would be this thread. Rockets will bounce back. If you want to quit on the team at the first sign of adversity, then don’t try to jump back on the bandwagon later in the finals!
We have role players that are known for not showing up in the playoffs. EG and Ryno are two of them. You hear the commentators say that EG doesn't have any rhythm because Harden dribbles the ball 20 times before passing it to him but that's just bullshit because you clearly see guys like GG and Nick Young who check in and automatically nail catch and shoot shots. Face it, EG just isn't prepared for the spotlight and Ryno is even worse, he is AFRAID to shoot.
I think the rockets are going to have just jack up an insane amount of 3s and hope the variance goes the rockets way.
Keep going! I know peeps dun like the GSW but some dudes here proclaimed sweeps, gentleman sweeps of the Worriers before the series even began is not showing enough respect. Respect your opponent to effectively game plan against them.
I think Worriors broke down Harden mentally alittle bit with this performance .. 41 points but still a 13 point L even tho he was still trying to score ~.3 secs left in 4Q. But if the backcourt violation would be called and we score 3pt instead of Klay I think the game would go in different direction.
The missed bunnies and free throws are directly attributable to the Warriors defense. They made everything difficult. When we finally got into the lane and to the FT line, we were exhausted. I don't think our offense was mindless and useless. The Warriors are just a good defensive team....especially when they have 6 days to prepare also. We can't run pick-and-rolls against them efficiently. That's why we didn't do it. Draymond destroys everything in the paint. He is that good. Their defense is that good. In my opinion, the Warriors would look like we looked against their own defense. I suspect this is what their practice scrimmage looks like. The difference in these two teams is in how they shut down the paint and overall defense, not the offenses. Their defense held us to 21 of 40 in the paint. They forced us to miss those shots in the lane. Meanwhile they were like 21 of 29 in the paint. We could not hold them down low. When we did finally pack it in we left them wide open from three and midrange. Our offense is as good as theirs. It's different but it's just as good. The difference is they have a different level they can go to defensively because of Draymond. And we can't answer when they do.
