It was hard but I re-watched the game. Why do we shoot so many contested 3s? Those have the same effect as turnovers. If the 3 isn't open, the paint might be. Our formula is getting to the rim and shooting 3s. We have yet to find a balance between the two. We don't run any offense at all. Ty Lawson is our best penetrator besides James. He needs to get involved instead of giving the ball to james and running to the corner. I keep saying this because he's blatantly doing it. The coaching staff has to address this. Also a lot of guys out there have trust issues(terrence jones). They don't even look in Ty's direction most of the time. Your point guard should be the first person you look for in a change of possession or when you set your offense. I know it takes time but it's basketball, it's very simple unless you insist on making it difficult. Give the ball to Ty and run some of the plays we ran when Lin was here. We have the same coaching staff, the lack of offensive sets is inexcusable. James is still has the ball for too long on offensive possessions. Everyone is standing around waiting on him to make something happen. Mchale has his work cut out.
I'm a Harden supporter for sure. But I feel that James is sometimes too focused on being the MVP that he feels he has to 'get his' every night or else he won't get league attention. Even to the detriment of the team sometimes. He needs to learn that WINNING is more important than MVP conversation. When shots aren't falling and someone else is hot (Thornton) start setting them up or help them score. Sometimes it's just not your night. But he seems to want his stats
Lawson has to be the primary ball handler, otherwise he is useless. McHale has to realize that. Harden and Lawson need to share PG duties. A sixth man role for Lawson should be a last resort. Dwight is the only consistent rebounder, Capela can play against reserves but against big starters, he struggles a lot. I did expect 4 or 5 rebounds from him instead of just 2 though, since offensive rebounding is his speciality apart from shot blocking. Harrell needs to take Jones' minutes.
There was certainly concern after an 0-3 start, but this lost is an underline for that. Not much can be said that hasn't already been said, but repeating some of them is worthwhile, if only as being therapeutic for fans. Last season after Brewer and Smith joined the team, there were hiccups in trying to find the right combination of players and when they played. Smith was inserted into the starting lineup and it didn't work. Coming off the bench, he felt more comfortable and the Rockets were more successful. The loss of Josh Smith and the addition of Lawson are significant changes and the disruption to the rotational rhythm can't be underrated. Until the Lawson/Harden mix gets a true synergistic rhythm, and how that affects Beverly's role gets sorted out, the Rockets are just going to sputter some nights and likely fizzle out in games they shouldn't. That disruption of chemistry creates a vicious circle. The more it happens, the more the players become frustrated and play tentatively, and think too much, instead of playing instinctively, which goes hand-in-hand with finding that rhythmic rotation and synergy. Harden settled too much for 3-point jumpers last night, I guess, hoping his shooting touch from the previous 2 games would continue. When it wasn't there, he did not revert to driving to the basket as he had done to help jump start his rhythm in the precious 2 games. The small lineup probably exacerbated the defensive rebounding efforts and consequently, the second-chance point gorging by the Nets. And some of the seeming lack of effort may be due to the tentativeness mentioned. What helped the Rockets get somewhat on track the 2 previous games was that Harden became more the focal point, a la last season, but also drove to the basket which then helped open up things for teammates. The addition of Lawson was supposed to relieve him of that burden. But Lawson still has yet to be part of any smoothly running rhythm. It was anticipated he could accomplish a similar outcome as Harden does when driving the basket, but that hasn't happened consistently enough. That puzzle piece is still missing. And as I see it and have posted before, as a team, the shooters are just too streaky and inconsistent for the system, as envisioned by Morey (at least it seems to have been laid at his doorstep) of good-look 3-pointers, coming off inside play, either from the bigs drawing the defense in or a play-maker, like Harden to force a collapse of defenders, when driving the basket. I just don't think the personnel supports that. Results speak for themselves. And because of the tentativeness all around, mid-range jump shots are also not falling when attempted. Ball movement disappears often when the ball is in Harden's hands. But that is part of reverting back to last season. Too often it seems everyone on both teams just watches Harden and take cues from him. At least players should moving and cutting when he has the ball to help create situations for him to drive rather than a pull-up 3-pointer, as he did too often last night. I think that happens more when Lawson has the ball. Despite his talent, Harden hastn' gotten the knack yet of playing off the ball as successfully as he does with it in his hands. To bad the Rockets aren't in the East. This struggle could be absorbed more easily. Being where they are, there is little margin for error. The sky isn't falling -- yet. But there should more of a sense of urgency on the player's part, relaxing at the same time to just play. Don't think too much. They do hang their heads and say the right things after losses like this, but until their recognition of the corrections needed translates to the court and becomes dependable, they will keep creeping closer to the ledge of no return in the WC. And that will be a sad waste of the effort and production Howard is enjoying. I'm sure this is hurting the players more than fans. There are high hopes and expectations for this season from both. And they can see those hopes being dashed.through no such intent on anyone's part. That is a bitter pill. I hope things will come together.
To me, the 3 point shot is almost an excuse for not having to play real basketball. I hate how we overly-rely on it. It has its place but we depend on it so much and it's a low percentage shot. Sure, it's great if you make a good number but it's also almost a sure way to a loss if your team 3 point average is terrible and your still jacking them up all game. This team still has very little mid-range game and that bothers the hell out of me. It's mostly inside or 3. That type of basketball will only take you so far.
An insightful (and excellent) post, GMNot! I'll add that we could have really used having Chuck Hayes on the court and on the bench, in uniform, last night. The Nets were walking down the lane for buckets, and putting bodies on their bigs was a rare sight, along with good ball movement. In my humble opinion, Chuck could have made the difference between winning or losing, had Morey not released him, and assuming Chuck's healthy. Not only on the court, but on the sidelines. The small amount Morey is saving by letting him go isn't worth losing games. What cost victory? At the end of the season, they are priceless, and we'll look back on losses like last night and groan in exasperation.
The flaws in the team and its players are critical and we will never be true contenders unless we can fix them. 1) harden's still terrible defense and settling for threes too often 2) mchale's in game adjustments or lack of 3) offense/defensive schemes 4) a decent freethrow shooting big 5) at least one or two true 3 point marksmen (40%+) The sad part is that these can all be addressed. Morey git ur dun
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">It's not statistically significant yet, but James Harden has lowest rate of taking layups of his career thus far.</p>— Dean Oliver (@DeanO_Lytics) <a href="https://twitter.com/DeanO_Lytics/status/664784036125155328">November 12, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
This just goes to show that we shouldn't take any game for granted. Any team can beat any other team on a given night. Hopefully we learned something from it.
Yeah, FB, we learned what it feels like to be humiliated by a lousy team. Seems like we've had that "education" before. :-(-
I thought this was the best offensive game we've seen from this team this year. As in playing an actual meaningful offense, not just guys getting hot. Sadly there were too many missed shots, bad boxouts, no adjustments to counter BKN's rebounding, Shane Larkin got unusually hot from long range and James kinda shot too many early threes without giving the offense a chance. I think it's still a step in the right direction.
It is significant. Said it right when the game ended. Harden should not be taking 10 3s in a game...unless he's made 8 of them or something. His game is driving, the entire offense is dependent on drive and kick and when you have the best drive and kick player not drive and kicking...well... Also, dunno the stats on this but I'm pretty sure we score every time on a Ty/Dwight PNR but we must run it like twice a game or something.
Wouldn't matter. The league has figured Houston out including the refs on how we are officiated... we just gotta move the ball better and play defense better. We've needed a new coach every since we hired Mchale.
