Getting better at one aspect - Turnovers is enough to have that kind of impact to tip the scale towards winning when encountering close games The Rox will play a lot of close games because according to Morey they are not a great team yet but a good team
He's not making as many dumb passes as he used to. The shots aren't falling, but everything else seems to be working. I'll give him a pass on some of the defense tonight cuz I'm certain all that switching was JB's call.
100% agree it's been very noticable not to mention only 6 TOs in 3 games for him. That's got to be a record for harden in a rockets jersey.
His defense against Holiday tonight was pissing me off, Holiday got like 8 points in the 2nd half purely against Josh switching on him. But a 30 year old PF shouldn't be guarding a young athletic PG anyways. Horrific shooting, good passing, decent rebounding, good defense with certain matchups. Tonight his D wasn't so hot, although he did get a key stop or two against Anderson.
It is not Harden, Harden has been doing the same things It basically freed up Ariza or any other 3rd option to embrace their game on Offense. Improved help defense
I noticed with Josh on court: when he has the ball on top of the key, given his size, he has options either to penetrate to the rim or swing the ball left or right. For guy his size, its an advantage. He's been accurate with his passing too, it means his awarness is decent.This cross court ball movement had been missing. On the defensive end, he has always been active. He tries to contest most opponent and his fundamental is excellent. He always jumps straight up unless he really tries to block. Most importantly, he brings that fire that has been missing..
Take to account he had not played in month with the Clippers. He is getting back into NBA game shape with the Rockets. He will improve.
His passing was good tonight, but he was bad at everything else. Shows how silly it is for people to put so much stock in wins and losses without looking at context. Poor play and poor coaching against a bad team without its best player. This Rockets team isn't good, yet.
Morey seems to love these kinds of bigs. Terrence Williams, Royce White, and to a lesser extent Terrence Jones have similar games, though varying degrees of size and skills. The only one who has produced tangible results playing this way is Smith.
Hmm I disagree. I've seen all three recent games. He opens up a lot on offense and defense for us. Besides, whole thread is about intangibles. Rockets seem to play harder with Smoove back. No idea why.
I was debating on bumping larsv8's stupid thread about "the real issues" where if something isn't quantifiable it doesn't exist.
Well, we aren't a championship team with Josh, but anything is better than what we were doing so far this year.
This is how I see it too. For weeks people have been saying Ariza needs a rest and he has finally gotten it. Not having to take on the entire defensive burden has given him a spark especially
Basketball IQ is a tough thing to apply to Josh Smith. A better term to provide is controlled chaos. He's not a "high basketball IQ" player, because he doesn't have a system he uses whereby he tries to analyze a situation, break down defenses with the most efficient play. He just goes out there and balls. And somehow, in that split second before the whole play breaks down and goes to hell, he makes a brilliant decision. But it only happens half the time; the other time the play breaks down. In basketball, it's not ideal; won't get you a big role on a high efficiency team like SAS or GSW, but for us it's just somehow put everything back in sync. Now we have somebody to break those horrible lulls we go into, that we still went into today in the beginning of the 4th quarter. Like many have said, Smith's game isn't suited for many teams. For most teams. For any team but the Rockets. He's wildly inconsistent but in there lies a touch of genius. Reminds me of myself actually . Unfortunately, in most real world day jobs, a higher level of consistency is expected of you.
DMo is good stats and big impact guy. But haters only have one argument that he can't rebound. Josh SMith can't shoot the basketball in the game of basketball, but he was a super star in this league.
