Start with playing 4 quarters and quit passing up open looks. I swear we have too many guys playing scared it's maddening.
Who had the Rox winning in 4? Not me. We had a legit shot of winning game 3. Not supposed to happen. There's an old saying "You can out-hustle talent, until talent decides to hustle". Once the Rox match their own intensity from game 1, the late Bill Paxton said it best in Aliens..."Game Oven man". A couple of adjustments from our Coach of the Year should do it. Still think the Rox win in 5 or 6. Everyone keep their heads up, we have the better team. The Rox have something to play for now. The sense of urgency will be evident next game.
Play defense and take care of the ball in the first quarter. Remember how all the talk after Game 2 was how the Thunder reserves had to play better when Westbrook sat? Well, the Rockets starters need to get their act together. They got bailed out by the bench in Game 2. It nearly happened again last night. But they can't keep spotting the Thunder 14 point leads and expect to win games, especially on the road.
Keep doing the high pick and roll, if they switch a big on Harden, iso the sh** out of him, i still don't see any big can guard Harden one on one, if they double Harden, swing it to whichever shooter we have free up. Our shooters gotta take those open 3s, there are times they just hesitate for some reasons in this series...
Troy won't play. Ariza is the so called "glue" who keeps this team together they say. He's averaging more mins than harden in the playoffs (wtf) and I'm starting to get a milk hair vibe from Dantoni. He's getting out coached by Billy freaking Donovan
1. Yes please...him or Adams 2. It will happen in game 4... 3. Beverley is a better shooter when he is set. Him initiating the offense is good for spurts...but not the entire game. Harden just needs to start sooner. Often times he consistently takes at least 8 seconds to get to halfcourt...Perhaps that's his style, but Harden needs to get going a bit sooner.
The Rockets havent played a complete game yet with everyone contributing at one time. When this happens, everyone will be in double figures and the Rockets will blow out the Thunder. Ariza is due for a very big game 4. I expect a very focused Rockets team that starts at the 2nd half of game 4 onward.
We have literally zero guarantee that this will certainly happen though. But yeah, we need to come out strong from the start. Playing like scrubs for the first quarter also gives the opponent more confidence, not only easy baskets.
We need to get back to what got us here. They have completely taken away our fast break points. We averaged over 16 a game this year, and they have held us to 5.7 fast break points a game. They are getting 17 fast point breaks a game. We lead the league in percentage of points made off the 3, and our percentage has dropped from 37% to 26%. Those two factors alone are the biggest difference in our game.
I agree with what a lot of the others have said with the Rockets starting the game with intensity. In game one the Rockets rose the occasion at the start of the game. Beverley was making 3's, stole the ball from Westbrook and got a dunk. Our bigs were getting rebounds, scoring in the paint, etc. Some of that was how OKC was playing, but it was also our intensity was at a different level than it was at the beginning of the rest of the games. One of the ways the Thunder changed their defense on the PnR by clogging the paint with their other players. We've got to do a good job not only knocking down the three ball when it gets kicked out but also at making back cuts to the basket to either get open or take some of those defenders out of the way. The last thing, I can say is that the Rockets have been doing a decent job of switching on defense as the Thunder drive, but part of that switch needs to include other players finding a body to help box out. Also be careful with the TO's. That is what ignites and has ignited their offense all year long. As good as the Thunder played last night, we still could have won the game. So the adjustments don't need to be major.
Roberson is a 49% FT shooter for his career and 42% for the season. I don't think any amount of adjustments are going to make him suddenly better at it.
As Rudy T put it, "SHOOT THE F!@#IN' BALL!!!" It drives me crazy when I see our sci-fi offense bog down because our alleged 3-pt. specialists like Ryan Anderson are too scared to let it fly. If you aren't going to take an open 3, why are you here? The Rockets need to pick up their defensive intensity and start making the Thunder work harder. I see people saying, "Well they can't possibly keep shooting that well," but it seems to me shooting that well is very much achievable if the shots all continue to be easy lay-ups, single-covered post-ups, and wide open jumpshots. I see way too many Rockets games in which evens scrub teams "amazingly" shoot video game-like percentages because of poor rotations or lack of ball pressure or whatever.
