There is a difference in the defense and how hard Capela dives on the trap, though. Just like the first possession I described above, we run a 4 out 1 a lot with Capela. As soon as the trap begins, he dives hard to the basket. We just don't see Howard do that as much. He kinda steps to the basket and also gets more help defense attention. Howard seems to want the swing pass for a pin on the weakside. If you have the game recorded, I'll give you the timestamps of the 4 out 1s with Howard vs Capela, if you want. Would be interested in your take.
couldn't resist using your sipping the cool-aid line. Yeah, you only spoke in general, and probably didn't say specifically Harden is icing out Howard.
Lawson has been BEYOND terrible. But if they think he's the only reason why they suck, they're wrong.
I do think they don't really fit as a pair though, Harden needs a guy on the block that is a reliable offensive weapon too.... DD
Speaking of Ball movement... Here is our offensive style this year vs last year http://nyloncalculus.com/2015/11/25...r-to-year-comparisons/rocketsyeartoyear/#main Here is GSW http://nyloncalculus.com/2015/11/25...-to-year-comparisons/warriorsyeartoyear/#main Here is Spurs http://nyloncalculus.com/2015/11/25...ear-to-year-comparisons/spursyeattoyear/#main The biggest difference in our offensive style from last year is the major decrease in player movement.
1. It was a designed play. I never said it wasn't. 2. Howard was open on the roll. Harden didn't even look at him. 3. I gave you all 16 possessions and even the times so you could freeze frame it and look at it heypartner. You try to nitpick the first one. You can't. You won't even touch the others. Because you know I'm right. Harden and the rest of his teammates do a horrible job of getting the ball to Dwight. They don't even look for him most of the time. There is no excuse for you ignoring the obvious.
You are categorically wrong on the 1st one in such embarrassing fashion. I don't think you see NBA defenses like I do. I've watched this game twice. I'm moving on to the other games Howard has played since the firing. I'm not really interested in discussing plays via text with you, because you will see and say what you want, obviously. Move on basketballholic. Find someone else to describe plays wrongly to.
That's right. I do not deserve your amateurish description of plays, when you clearly can not see defensive structure, and how ball movement destroyed that defense on the first play. HINT: Stop focusing on the ball and one player. Look at the defense. And it helps if you *love* to study NBA defenses, like I do. So, yes. Please spare me.
I see defensive structure just fine, thank you. I went through every possession for you and showed you where Dwight was wide open for dunks/layups. You look at one play, refuse to see Dwight open and you blabber about "designed play". Have you ever played the game??? If you do, then you understand that when somebody is open...they're open. Designed play or not you feed the guy the ball to finish when they're open. Forget the rest of the play. Now take apart the other 10 possessions that Dwight was involved in and tell me I'm wrong about all those too. Talk to me about designed play on the pick-and-pop with Terry when Dwight is hanging out at the rim for the dunk. Keep talking about designed play like a r****d. If you cannot see that Harden is not even considering going to Dwight the majority of the time, if you cannot see that these guys without a true PG like Lawson out there are all piss-poor at getting Dwight the lob dunk, then you don't know the game of basketball. PGs like Paul, Rondo, Rubio, and Lawson would have had Dwight 8-10 points and themselves 4-5 assists in the first 6 minutes of this game.
Just another data point, but I was at the game and I think it was during halftime shootaround that Harden and Howard sat on the bench next to each other and were singing along to that "Surf" song, dancing and interacting positively with each other. I had a similar reaction to yours -- I was encouraged because I've literally never seen them acknowledge each other.
on that play, at the time james passes to terrence, dwight is on the ft line and he is not facing the rim. there are 2 defenders on james, between james and dwight, and the other 3 defenders have 1 foot in the paint. the description "Harden/Howard PnR, Howard wide open for lob, James throws it to Terrence on the left arc" is terrible
^^^ exactly. But basketballholic fails to see that. Nice how you ignore other posters agreeing with my description, and you still fervorishly defend your take, and isolate the discussion to just one person, so it appears that we are in a mutual debate where either could be right. No, you're just wrong. He wasn't open like you think he was. Two first team defenders (Allen and Gasol) did an aggressive trap on Harden and you even say his only possible pass "a lob pass" as you called it, was going to get Howard a layup when Green moved to Howard and Conley and Barnes were still in their designed help defense position in the low block. Not even Stockton could pass over Rodman and Pippen's aggressive trap in the Finals, and yet you dismiss Gasol and Allen like they aren't even there. We see that pass attempt over aggressive traps get blocked a lot or must go extra high, making it a very slow pass. Slow enough for Gasol to recover too, like he almost did on the actual play (he actually blocked Howard from behind, but Howard muscled through it). Besides, Howard is more that 10' from the basket when Harden passes to Terrence. It's a really bad play for you to use as icing-out Howard. Give it up. I swear, it's like you are playing NBA 2k16 and you can click a button to move the ball from Harden to Howard instantly and these NBA players in prime help-defense position won't be able to make *one* long stride to meet Howard when the ball does. It's an unnecessarily difficult pass vs the ball movement that ensued. Until you say you were wrong on that play, it isn't worth commenting on your other analysis, because you refuse to accept other takes, ever. Why would anyone argue with you about how you interpret those other plays? It's futile. Move on basketballholic. Rockets did not try to ice out Howard in the MEM game. I'm watching other games now.
