[FiveThirtyEight] The Rockets Are Melo’s Best, Last Hope

He averaged 15 ppg which is solid but not quite lighting us up.

Regardless my post was 90% tongue in cheek - I haven't looked at the tracking #s to see who Melo was "guarding" while he was getting butchered, but I bet a lot of them were against Donovan Mitchell.

 

GS is relentless at punishing mismatches. Melo can be a useful player, but not against them. People don't realize how slow he is now. He's not as slow as Joe Johnson but it's pretty close.

 

Yeah it was Mitchell mostly doing the ball handling. Ingles was busy making Paul George his personal whipping boy. Playoff P my ass outside of Game 1.

 

Golden State didn't attack him when they played the Thunder this past year but maybe that would change somehow now that he's going to be a Rocket.

 

difference between regular season and playoffs bro

Ryan Anderson played 33, 25, and 30 minutes against GS during the regular season and was fine...in the playoffs he was BBQ chicken the minute he stepped out on the court

Was Utah making it a focus to attack Melo during the regular season like they were during the playoffs? I don’t think so.

bad defensive players can be fine during the regular season and then get exposed as liabilities once teams start to really gameplan during the postseason

 

I think teams take greater advantages of matchups in the playoffs than in the average regular season game. It's why RA went from regular season contributor to unplayable against GSW in the playoffs - because they attacked him every single possession. I don't see why they would do differently against Melo.

The difference is that Melo should be better at the offensive end than RA was. But will he be so much better that it offsets GSW attacking him on the other end? Hopefully we'll find out.

 

Yeah I can see that point of view but I've also seen them attack guys in the regular season as well.

 

yeah, but in the playoffs where u get to focus on 1 team and really get to gameplan against them and focus on their weaknesses, then that’s where u see guys really get exposed

Utah wasn’t attacking Melo during the regular season like they were during the playoffs

 

Agreed but even still Melo had the 2nd best DRTG on the Thunder in that series. I know the film shows one thing in terms of them running the pick n roll at him and that game 5 comeback was big with him on the pine but maybe it wasn't as bad as it was made out to be.

Now GS is a whole different monster than Utah so we'll see.

 

N we will be relentlest against them causing mismatches against thrm. Let ur mind wonders what happens when melo sets the pick to get curry on him bbq chicken. U guys gonna be amazed how easy its gonna be with melo.

 

I should have saved myself the time and skipped to the last sentence.

 

Melo will be great in Houston. If D'Antoni of all people can say he has matured and is ready to listen and win, then he will be great!

 

Look at their offense against us in the regular season versus the playoffs. Their regular season offense is very democratic, everyone shares the ball and gets opportunities. In the series against us a lot of that went out the window and they attacked the best matchup. Joe Johnson and Ryno didn't play much, but when they did they were targeted. Our defensive strategy makes it easy for them because we switch absolutely everything. Ryno's man sets a pick for Curry and we switch Ryno onto him. That's a disaster for us.

The Jazz iso'd Melo plenty in their series, but you don't think GS will do the same? I said Melo can be a useful player for us, just not against that particular team.

 

if i'm the rockets, i actually want gsw to iso against us instead of running their usual motion-heavy offense, which is when the warriors offense really starts humming.

other than game 3 second half, curry played like trash against us for most of the series regardless of who switched on him during the series. kd is gonna kd - regardless of whoever is on him, it's advantage warriors.. you just have to hope he tires out as the series goes along just like he did starting in game 4.

the rockets defense was really disciplined and at its best in game 4 and 5, forcing the warriors to become a ball-stopping iso team with kd and curry taking turns throwing up bricks from way out and getting no one else involved. if the warriors decide they're gonna abandon their motion offense for some curry/melo 1v1, i'd actually welcome that. curry is a little b**** who couldn't even shake klove in the 2016 finals.

 

Meh theyll be fine. Something about the Rockets knack of getting productivity from “washed” players that has me optimistic about this situation

Ala

Josh Smith, Michael Beasly, and now hopefully Melllllooo.

 

Watching the video again, it's crazy how insecure the guy is

 

Early contender for worst post of the offseason and believe me, the competition is stiff

 

Mark this thread and come back with the knee jerk reactions (hope it will happen in the early season for more comical effects) when Melo will hit his first game winner for the Rox.

 

The Rockets agree with you, that's why we run that scheme. We'd rather switch on everything and take our chances with them going iso than let them get easy ball movement. But our rotation shortens as a result because some of our players are absolutely incapable of playing in that scheme. Ryno, Nene, and Joe Johnson aren't lazy defenders they simply can't keep up with Golden State.

The question is whether Melo would 1) be that level of defensive liability and 2) can he score enough on the other end to make it up for it? I hope I'm wrong, but GS is an extremely bad matchup for him. Utah was already hard for him and they didn't have some of the most efficient iso players in the league like GS does.

 

Yes, this is spot on.

It isn't so much that the GSW would pick on matchups. That was actually the goal. Sure, KD went off some games, but on the whole its what got us up 3-2 despite not being great offensively.

It's that when a guy is so bad at that switching defense it renders basically every possession as a failure defensively and seeps into the team morale - see Ryan Anderson.

Even with that, the GSW were still at there best once they got more movement - see all the third quarter explosions.

I think Melo is probably near that level of inability when it comes to trying to defend Steph on the perimeter or KD one on one, but as importantly I'm nowhere close to sold that he'll put in the effort defensively to even be good against many teams switching multiple times. It takes effort, as it isn't usually just a simple switch this one matchup.