I know its only pre-season and all but last year I could tell from the pre season games the team was hungry and intensive in defense. This year got me worried. Lawson and Harden looks horrible in defense together, Beverly seems less intensive and our bigs are just soft. Maybe it's just early going, taking it slow kind of groove, but the team has a tough start and needs to come out strong from the start if they want to catch up in the wild west.
I agree... I'm worried about it. They don't look good defensively at all. Last year it was a point of emphasis and they worked hard on it. I think they said most of what they did in camp last year was defensive work. You would think that they would still look good defensively this year even if they didn't spend as much time on it in camp because it's mostly the same players, and they wouldn't forget. But who knows. What I do know is that they haven't looked good. Hopefully it's just a lack of effort because it's preseason.
Any reasonable fan should worry. McHale has not worked on our defensive schemes at all and our players just seem lazy. I remember last preseason there was a focus on D all the time Green had 3 after 3 last game and McHale just say there like a doofus I don't care if it's preseason but you got to call a timeout and get into the players Same bad habits rub off once the season starts You can just turn on a switch and eradicate bad habits
Very worrisome, it all started during the play-offs last year. Since we haven't improved much offensively and regressed defensively, by the looks of it, what did they work on?
I'm hoping it's a combination of it being the preseason and their defensive anchor missing all but one game. I guess we'll find out starting Wednesday night.
I don't think they regressed defensively in the playoffs last year. What happened in the playoffs is that the Rockets played the 3 top offensive teams in the league in the Mavs, Clippers, and Warriors. Even good defensive teams will give up lots of points against those teams. As far as this preseason is concerned, the starters play mostly in just the first half. Here are the first half scores of those preseason games: Rockets: 48, Grizzlies: 43 Rockets: 67, Mavs: 47 Rockets: 71, Magic: 53 Rockets: 55, Suns: 53 Rockets: 53, Warriors: 82 (Harden, Howard, Lawson, Motiejunas, Ariza, Capela, Thornton, Terry all sat out this game.) Rockets: 62, Heat: 56 Rockets: 56, Pelicans: 59 Rockets: 55, Spurs: 58 If you throw out the game with Golden State and use the first half scores where it's mostly starters playing, the offensive and defensive ppg are: Offense scoring 118.3 ppg, Defense giving up 105.3 ppg +13.0 net rating Last season the Rockets gave up 100.5 ppg and scored 103.9 ppg. So they are 4.8 points per game worse on defense, and 14.4 points per game better on offense. I think they can clean up that -4.8 on defense. And I don't think they'll average 118 points per game, but it's obviously a good sign that they can put up those kind of numbers in preseason. Just some things to think about.
It's up to the players to get the job done, but McHale and his assistants have to hold them responsible for their mistakes and lack of effort. Their seems to be no plan in place. That is concerning for all of us.
Completely agree, but this hasn't changed since McFail has been at the helm. He has no idea about defensive positioning, from Damian's game-winning 3, Steve Blake's buzzer beat 2-3 years back, etc. His players have no idea what's going on. Some of it's fundamental, like where to set your body coming around screens, etc. Most of our fouls are due to HORRIBLE body position. The type of position that made JVG go bald, and Thibodeau put on weight. And some so basic, even D'Antoni knows it. Some of it's, just real, real fundamental. Like so basic, they teach this stuff in HS, yet we don't employ it here. There's one particular foul from KJ McDaniels where from an inbound pass, the offensive player caught it CLOSER to the bucket and he fouled. CLOSER. I'm trying to remember the game, and the player. But I was dumbfounded, even the announcer, was like oh man you definitely have to be on the inside of that. Maybe it was the Warriors game, cause i don't think bill would say that but maybe clyde. Some of it's embarassing. I think our horrible defense was extremely exposed by the like the basic read & react sets the Warriors put out there. Just really basic. It won't ever get fixed, it's honestly just **** with McHale here. Yes, he's great with building relationships, communicating to players, and listening to Morey, but then hire him a right hand man that can instill a defensive system. You can't have Ariza, Brewer, Bev, Dwight, Capela and still be sucha **** D team. I know statistically, we're good, but presence wise we suck.
The defensive rotations have been atrocious this preseason. And it's not just the rookies who missed their rotations - Harden and Brewer have lost track of where they should be multiple times. Any team who swung the ball more than 3-4 times against our defense was guaranteed an open shot (particularly if it ended up in one of the corners). Our guards are also terrible at handling the pick and roll. Beverley seems to really struggle with this. This philosophy of this team seems to be "we'll beat you with Harden's offense and Dwight's rim protection". That's not going to win us a championship. Given Dwight's health issues and Harden's propensity to play like a turnover-prone scrub on the rare occasion, we need a team game that can pick up the slack (expecting either player to be a superstar every single night is unrealistic). But I don't see any kind of team game whatsoever. I don't know what McHale and our coaching staff does, frankly, other than draw stuff on a marker board (which is ignored) and make substitutions. We can have all the talent in the world, but we can (and will) be beat by the top-tier teams who play disciplined basketball against us.
Dwight Howard not playing makes a big difference along with injuries throughout the pre-season. We played our bench most of the pre-season which may turn out to be a good thing. I'm not all that concerned. If the Rox were fully healthy with the same results then I'd be a tad bit concerned but that's not the case
