Harden last year: SG 92% of the time, SF 8% of the time Harden this year: SG 36% of the time, SF 64% of the time Ariza last year: SG 16%, SF 78%, PF 6% Ariza this year: SG 0%, SF 16%, PF 79%, C 6% Brewer last year: SG 6%, SF 76%, PF 18% Brewer this year: SG 1%, SF 59%, PF 40% Beverley last year: PG 99%, SG 1% Beverley this year: PG 49%, SG 51% I think all of these jacked-up line-ups are hurting the team. Especially on defense. It's not like just one player is playing out of position like you might do for certain match-ups. Multiple players are playing out of position for long periods of time.
Great observation. Seems like the problem forcing this is the bigs. Injured, or underperforming (TJones). Then the strange McHale choices. Problems are: 1. Defense. May be lineup related. 2. Ty Lawson. For whatever reason not working. 3. Playing out of position.
I think it's fine to play small ball during stretches of the game... but not for long extended periods. Some games it might work great, and some games it might be a disaster. If it's only used for short periods in a game, it might give your team the quic boost it needs.
Quit making excuses. These guys need to be held accountable. You could play Howard at pg and they still should have beat the nets at home.
Basketball reference. For example: http://www.basketball-reference.com/players/a/arizatr01.html Scroll down to where it says "Play-by-Play".
You got Lawson/Thornton/Harden guarding your perimeter and people wonder why the rockets have major defensive problems
Good post OP. I hope coach realizes that small-ball isn't working right now and that we need to make some adjustments. I pray to God that he makes adjustments in lieu of just emphasizing that they need to play harder.
The defensive wasn't that bad last night, it was all of the second chance opportunities we gifted them. For some reason Dhoward12 thinks he can block every shot attempt instead of staying on his feet and getting the rebounds. But Mchale needs to play another big to help him out on the boards, He can't be two places at one time.
It's Dwight's job to contest at the rim. It's the perimeter defender's job to not allow the drive. It's the weakside defender's job to box out and secure the rebound. Our perimeter defender's allow easy blow-bys. Lawson is a bad defender, Harden gives poor effort, Bev is too small to guard SGs. Our weakside defender is a usually a SF and gives up 4" + 30 lbs to opposing PFs. As JVG said, defense isn't over until you secure the rebound. Our defense is bad.
Basketball reference's positional estimates are notoriously wrong year after year. I dont' put any importance to them. Nyloncalculus had to make their own estimates because bballreference's were so wrong.
small ball cannot be played this much with this team. it may work in situational spots but cannot be the lineup for the majority of games.
Houston basically has howard by himself on the boards with ariza at the PF position. He goes for a block and the opposing bigs crash for offensive rebounds
Even just watching the games you know those players are playing out of position. Harden starts the game as the SF and that's mostly where he's been playing, Ariza mostly at PF. Beverley often plays at SG with Lawson at the point. Brewer is like 100 pounds and has been playing at PF. They are just all playing out of position right now. It's probably not good to have all of your guys out of whack like that.
I don't believe that playing out of position is a big deal if mchale would pull these guys and make subs during games if it's not working. He will just keep banging his head against the wall like a big idiot.
I bet it matters in terms of team chemistry. It's hard to continue what they had going last season if everybody is playing in different spots this year. It completely changes the complexion of the offense and the defense. Like I said, it's fine if one player is out of position to exploit a favorable match-up. But when you got a bunch of guys playing in spots they aren't used to playing, not only are they going to be slow because they aren't used to it, but everyone else is going to be slow because nobody is used to everyone else also playing in different spots. It makes the whole team look like crap. I think that's a big part of what's going on. When D-Mo gets back, I think a lot of the problems will go away because people will be playing where they are used to playing.
