Great thread HP! OKC might've been the most athletic/lengthy team in the playoffs...Spurs not getting younger overnight and they are not athletic enough to deal with Rox "new wrinkles" being installed on the defensive side of the ball...Rox are throwing some subtle wrinkles on D and in my opinion if the Rox avg around 30- 35% give or take from three point land in this series they're going to the finals which I'm expecting. When Anderson plays efficiently the Rox can beat anyone. No other team built like OKC in the west and has a Westbrook. Parker/Ginoboli gonna have to play out of their minds to win this series and I don't see them turning back the clock to win 4 games having to deal with Ariza/Bev. ...westbrook sits Rox attacked...when Kawhi sits Rox attack same blue print. The Lob Capela Dunks are back in play this series...OKC blocked and swatted the lobs shutting them down with their length and athleticism...Kawhi gonna work hard this series. He looked worn out by the 3rd period. In some ways Spurs are an old man's OKC
It is very hard to trap Harden and cover the roller and cover the perimeter. Plus we have plays to beat traps. OKC didn't trap much, favoring more traditional flashing with Gibson and using their length and athleticism to show help in the lane sometimes. But their defense was mainly picking a poison to allow drives vs 3s, and they still achieved taking Capela out, but not Nene. And Harden scored a lot, and lived at the line. I have a feeling Pops main focus will be on fixing their problem with turnovers and their terrible transition d. They need to fix their offense more than their set defense, imo. He might go with similar defensive approach, maybe less Lee. They did press Harden way out, and did deny him when Bev ended up with the ball, or Ariza. We just showed a lot of weapons and plays to free ppl. I thought their defense to deny Harden drives was good at times.
Bingo, I don't think this can be understated. OKC was mucking everything up constantly. Now the Rockets are the team dictating the pace, free of all the hacking and contact that wasn't being called last series.
Might want to fix that misspelling Beware of autocorrect from California companies wanting to spell his name like that LA suburb, Beverly Hills
Basketballholic made a narrative-driven comment about how Pops would attack Nene to try and get him in foul trouble, as his way to make us think that Spurs want to see more Capela to destroy him. Lulz Well, it's Pops who is trying to protect his Bigs from foul trouble with Harden drives. Aside from changing personnel, I can see Pops sticking with the same defensive plan, but fixing it by yelling at them about their horrible transition D and trying to play fast with us sometimes, and their apparent subtle mistakes on help rotations that caused those early timeouts. I could see him just saying: less turnvovers, better transition d, and more fockass and effort at chasing the threes when we send help. and again, they need to fix their offense more. Their offense is their main problem right now. Oh, and our bench killed them, too. Need to fix that. Haha
I'm sure it was even more obvious on tv, but being at the game (which was awesome, btw), it was just obviously way way too easy. I mean i could see the play happening 10 seconds ahead of when it happened. Like being Bobby Fisher out there or something. And you knew this because the Spurs decided to do nothing special defensively other than try to play solid rotational defense... which it doesn't matter how solid it is when you a willing and solid (and last night great) 3 point shooting team and/or when you have Harden. That's why you saw so little of Kawhi impacting the game defensively. I didn't care for Pop laying into his players so often and so early. Maybe he gave them a plan and they just completely ignored it. But it seemed like they had no plan as to how to stop the PnR, spread, lob offense. Assume Pop will adjust... but not sure why there wasn't a better plan in the first place. All that said, the Spurs guys did play like crap, especially out of the gate. Parker missed an easy layup. Lee clanked two free throws. Aldridge missed a long jumper that was tough... but as a pretty open long jumper within his range, etc. When Harden/MDA say look at the tape and see where they can improve, there are definitely spots.
Yes, I remember now. Harden would throw that behind the back pass. One wrinkle I've seen(or just noticed) in the offense is whenever EG is in the game. Harden/big will do a PnR while EG starts in the paint. Once they do the PnR, EG will bump the bigs defender if he is there and get himself to the 3 point line. Can't find a vid of it.
You just noticed it. We did it a lot against okc and I think @heypartner pointed out a sequence of like 3 straight times.
Yes I guess I just noticed it, it's the Spain PnR that's on the first page. It looks like such a simple play but gives the Rockets a ton of options and makes the defense have to choose who to guard. I love that play.
