Small ball doesn't work when you're scoring 98 points per 100 and giving up 106. Warriors small ball is like 110 on offense and 95 on defense.
Non-small ball for the Rockets is scoring about 80 points for every 106 points it gives up. Yes, there are some small ball lineups not working, but those are when Harrell or Jones is playing center or some lineups when the small ball PF is someone besides Ariza. Granted, those two lineups are because of injury and non-small ball lineups being even more ineffective. Ariza,Trevor - Beverley,Patrick - Brewer,Corey - Howard,Dwight - Lawson,Ty is the only small ball lineup playing more than 4 minutes in this season with Ariza at PF and a center that has scored less than they have been scored on. I will be perfectly happy with Rockets playing big when they don't actually get crushed playing big. I suspect that will happen when either Harrell gets defensive rotations down, Jones stops sucking, or DMo is healthy. If DMo comes back healthy, expect Ariza to be the backup 4. If not, people need to learn to embrace that Ariza is likely the starting PF for a while.
Yeah good points. I just looked at our lineup combinations and was actually surprised. The aggregate is a little misleading. It's sad but true that this small ball is probably one of our best options at the moment.
They were winning in spite of some big holes because they were making their shots. You had Harden scoring an efficient 40+ pts and Dwight going for 20-20 and still don't win the game comfortably. They won in spite of the line-up... not because of it.
Also, I'm not advocating that they should change the small line-up. They have no choice. The alternative to the small line-up is to put Harrell at PF. He kills spacing and is too inexperienced to be effective defensively. He screws things up simply due to inexperience. The small line-up is their best option at this point. They just have to hope they are making shots. If they have even just an average shooting night, it's going to come down to the wire.
Mchale was trying to reward Thornton for his great play while Jones was out with his injury. He was able to get some wins but didnt realize that one day small ball will bite him and his team on the backside. If Mchale starts Thornton again tonight Fared will have a monster game on the boards. Jones had his hands full in the 1st meeting but at least he snagged 8 rebounds and scored around 14 points. So you can best believe Ariza will have his hands full and he will struggle to find his shot.
