Saw this http://sports790.iheart.com/onair/houston-sports-news-57754/why-the-playoff-exit-is-much-15835591/ And saw it was a good read. Puts the season into a larger perspective and echoes the sentiments of many here . Just food for thought going into this pivotal offseason . Mods feel free to move/merge if you feel it goes better into another thread .
Come on Ben. Be definitive. We've got plenty of scoring. We need a playmaker so we'll have at least two. And that playmaker needs to be in the top seven and play alongside Harden for stretches of the game.
Yes we need another scoring option. That doesn't solve the crux of the problem. Harden literally held this team hostage at times and the thought of that is terrifying. I'm fine with reloading and bringing in some fresh blood but at its core, this team beats with Harden as its heart. What he did in Game 6 was scary for this team moving forward. There is no player or players that can fix that moving forward. If that is "in" him and it seems to happen at times (I rethink that Game 6 Clippers game where Brewer and Josh Smith brought us back) I'm not sure how this team can contend for a title. This Harden can not win us a championship. He'll get us into the playoffs and later rounds, but it's unsettling to have the entire team construct predicated on one guy that can go AWOL randomly. Especially in the playoffs where not showing up one game means your season is over.
No mention of interior post defense, defensive rebounding, and rim protection? Much of our offensive pace and easy transition baskets are predicated on getting stops and securing rebounds. Without stops and outlet passes, it's hard to put open court pressure on disciplined teams like the Spurs and Warriors. Overall, really good article.
Very good write-up. For some reason, my browser locked up several times and it took a while to scroll and read. This stopped as soon as I closed the tab.
Definitely a good read. Since I didn't see much of the season, I wasn't aware of their second half struggles. I'm a little surprised that hasn't been pointed out here more. I still think it's the rigid adherence to their high-risk, high-reward offensive system that kills them when players get tired, have off nights, get injured, defenses adjust, etc. I hope D'Antoni's serious about adding multiple "layers" to the offense, so they have something to fall back on.
When MDA says 'adding layers' to the offense, I hope he means incorporating some semblance of mid-range basketball. And no, midrange does not mean long twos.
Agreed, but I worry that our roster limits the system and not the other way around. Is Ryan comfortable driving past the close out and taking the open midrange ? What if another defender comes and forces him to pass, can he make the right read ? But no doubt we need more offensive versatility. Hopefully our players can execute.
True, but Ryno didn't seem to mind dribbling past the closeout defender, stopping a few feet behind the FT line, pump faking, and taking a midrange fadeaway jumper. More often than not, though, it seemed he was only interested in drawing a shooting foul. I suppose that's better than him trying to squeeze passes into clogged passing lanes.
Bingo. I suspect Ben is a big fan of Capela's. We've got to get big time help in the paint defensively and on the boards. If we don't get help the middle and we don't evolve offensively into a multi-pronged attack with multiple distributors then we will fall off next season.
Good Article Did not hit every point but some main ones I wonder what the Analysis for Anderson was in the second half of the season I know he was a major disappointment for most of the playoffs Rocket River
I agree with most of his analysis. I have noticed the drop off after December and was not as giddy as most fans here came playoffs time. The only thing I disagree is toward the end, he concluded that we lost to the Spurs simply because we were not as talented and deep as the Spurs. That is clearly not true. They lost their best player. We didn't. As I argued with another poster in another thread, if you compared the numbers of our role players and theirs, our role players outperformed the Spurs' in both regular season and playoffs. The narrative that the Spurs were much more talented than us is not true. I think a lot of people confuse stepping up with talent. Guys like Jonathan Simmons, Kyle Anderson, and Dejounte Murray aren't more talented than our guys. They just stepped up on the big stage while ours wilted.
My favorite quote from the article... "While diehard fans noted some concerns, many used minor injuries and a lack of motivation due to having a secure playoff spot as an excuse, in hopes that the “first half Rockets” would reappear when the stakes increased in the postseason." -Shout out to all the 'condescending' posters who wanted to poo poo concerns by quoting harden stats and record... followed by a retort to those who insisted Decker and Harrell were scrubs who didnt deserve minutes - who insisted RA at center small ball was the way to go - right up to the 7 man rotation debacle... "Dekker broke his hand in early April, and despite being cleared to return before the San Antonio series, he never fully regained a rotation role. Harrell, meanwhile, seemed to fall out of D’Antoni’s rotation altogether after February for reasons unrelated to injury. Harrell didn't play at all in 12 of Houston’s 21 regular-season games in March and April, and even after a season-ending injury to backup center Nene in Game 4 vs. San Antonio, Harrell still wasn’t used in meaningful minutes. Some of what happened was outside of the Rockets’ control, of course, like Dekker’s injury. But the undisputable truth is that Houston had better team results when Dekker and Harrell played larger roles, thus lengthening the rotation."
Digging deeper into the numbers like we already have here a month ago: We were 20-21 against playoff teams and 35-6 against lottery teams. Furthermore, we were 20-23 against teams at .500 or above and we were 35-4 against teams with winning records. Also, in those first 40, we went 19-1 against teams with losing records. In the last 42, we went 24-3 against teams with losing records. That's not significantly different. The big drop-off in the last 42 was against teams at .500 or better. In the first 40 we were 12-8 against teams at .500 or better. Of those 20 games we were 6-3 at home and 6-5 on the road. In the last 42 games we were 8-15 against teams at .500 or better. Of those 23 games we were 5-6 at home and 3-9 on the road. Here's some more facts for your consideration. We were 18-7 (.720) in games where Harden had 4 or less turnovers. We were 36-20 (.643) when Harden had 5 or more turnovers. I could go on further here. Needless to say the data verifies what we see. We are a great team against losing teams. We were okay against winning teams until the last half of the season when winning teams are fighting for the playoffs and they have done their advanced scouting because they are trying to win games. Then they sit down on our pick and roll, they force Harden into a combination of turnovers and missed pull-up jumpers. The data bears it out. When Hardens turnovers go over 4 and he jacks 6 or more pull-ups in a game, our winning percentage was around .333 against winning teams.The recipe is the same for all of them. Take away the shooters and dog Harden out high. Then defensively take Harden inside and work him over at every opportunity. That's why we tailed off in the second half and why we got toasted against the Spurs.
@kjayp I liked that part too . I think Dekker and Harrell were hugely underrated contributors to our first half success. Now , I will say ... Dekkers shooting did fall off a cliff and nene's experience made him the logical choice over Harrell ... So even if we did play these guys more in the playoffs maybe neither of them return to form and the team doesn't necessarily return to December form . The bigger mistake was cutting their minutes in the first place (during the reg season) . Yes Dekker sucked at shooting . Why not move him around ? Let him slash , work on other parts of his game and work through his shooting slump . Instead Mike sliced his minutes pretty good . Dekkers hand breaking was really bad for his development going into the playoffs and yet he still looked good at times .. Point blank he should have played more. Harrell , I can understand wanting nene to get the PT. he's a vet , that's what you signed him for . Nene over Harrell was completely justified during the OKC series . And I also understand the need to get him warmed up during the second half of the reg season. That being said .... Lol , Harell should have played after the injury and probably should have gotten more consistent pt ( end of reg season) to keep him in condition . Going forward , Dekker and Harrell can be huge for us . They've got to step up and develop and Mike HAS to do a better job of putting them in a position to succeed vs trying to fit a square peg in a round hole.
I fully agree with what you're sayin... I agreed with most of the analysis... but not so much the conclusion... I think the premise that SA had more talent is ridiculous... take away Kawahi, take away parker... what have you got... LMA had been a creampuff all year (til we decided to defend him with a PG/SG), a few quality players who are geriatrics at this point (Pau, Ginobli) and some role players... nothing special... Our downfall had less to do with talent and more about leadership... and a far too limited rotation... Pops owned MDA... and our own court leader decided to go off script for the last 5.5 quarters...
i think you're pretty spot on. Harrell was my pick to have a breakout season, and through the first half of the year, it looked like it was coming to fruition - then he disappeared... any mention made of him on CF got replies like "he can't shoot" or "he's a scrub..." I thought his sheer energy and tenacity should have got him on the floor in at least spot minutes... After Nene went down... still not getting on the floor - that's just being stubborn.... but I thought the rotations sucked for most of the year... i wasnt a fan of the MDA hire at the beginning... i didnt like his total disregard for D and the way he ran guys into the ground... Heck, the dude was still being smug and condescending about his 7 man rotation up to game 6 when everything collapsed... All season i would watch and think we're up by 20 with 5 minutes left - why are all the starters still in? Everybody kept sayin Harden needed the minutes to drive his #s for MVP run... smh... Anyway, MDA has been sayin all the right things after the collapse... we'll see if he changes or if its just lip service... lol
