They looked tired in the first quarter as well. They probably felt tired prior to the game, in shooting drills.
Seriously ... this is actually what I'm most upset about . The game happened , **** can happen . MDA has never made this excuse before . Even vs the spurs when he was playing 6 ****ing players .... he never considered tired an option . Last year in the playoffs ... harden was quoted "tired is a state of mind" WTF is up with this excuse now !? It's the first ****ing game . The truth is the rockets were not mentally prepared for this game .... and that's a reflection on the coaching staff. Our hard-nosed attitude from last year was not there and that's a reflection on Paul , PJ , and James . And Clint .... were you high my man ? It's one thing to play that bad ... it's a whole nother level of embarrassing to chalk it up to being tired . ESPECIALLY, when we've heard things like the rockets are excited to play faster this year and we think we got more athletic . Blaming it on how we played slow teams in the preseason ..... dude , WE should be the ones dictating the tempo and imposing our will on the game . I like MDA , but he is not without his flaws .... and this is particularly infuriating.
OP, can you edit the title to put quotation marks around the word defense? As in, Rockets "Defense". Thank you.
switching everything worked last year with that personnel. Time will tell if it works long run or not with this team... either way it shouldn't be the default. Last night the Pelicans knew and exploited us. Clint needed to be on Davis in the post. At least make him work for it or shoot over a taller man. Switch everything else if you want but damn.
From what I saw, our regular season rotation saw significant differences that I believe threw most of our regulars off. Last season, we played a total of 8 players regularly. Ryan, JJohnson, Nene had really spotty minutes or played too infrequently. Cp3 Harden | EG Ariza | Green Tucker | Luc Clint This year, or at least from last night, it looks like MDA is trying to run with 9 regulars. I expect Knight to replace MCW's minutes; Hartenstein to break the rotation situationally; and Nene and Chriss to get infrequent game time i.e. insurance. Cp3 | MCW Harden | EG Ennis | Green Tucker | Melo Clint On paper, it doesn't look too much of a difference but the way MDA worked the rotation appeared to minimize our strengths and maximize our weaknesses. I would like to see our offense rely more on Harden and Cp3 staggering their minutes - putting more emphasis on them as iso-heavy playmakers. MCW's minutes need to be shortened and used sparingly on the wing ala Luc. Seeing that MCW's go-to is slashing, he needs to be relegated to a Luc role - stand and wait to cut. I also would have wished we had Clint in the game way more than we did, even if he would continue to struggle against AD. It was just a bad matchup to not give Clint heavy minutes last night. What made us deadly last year was that teams couldn't figure out how to guard our iso-heavy playmaking. They had to pick a poison. And it was great because it was simple to execute. The way I see our new guys: MCW replaces Luc's role but at a different position; and Melo replaces Ryan without whom we were already exceptional. Fitting in Melo will be difficult because it's almost necessary that we give him a significant role; whereas, with Ryan, we were able to leash him - his game also is closer to the paint than it is in EG's territory. Ariza's obvious replacement is Ennis but the shortcoming here is that Ariza was easily able to switch onto 2s and 4s with success, and sometimes 1s. Ennis at the moment is too hard to assess whether he's a good switch defender because he looks like he's itching to gamble. Based purely on defense, EG who can switch onto 3s and sometimes 4s may be a closer Ariza replacement than Ennis is at the moment... sadly. MDA needs to figure out the rotation quick. It looks like we might be better served running iso post-up plays for Melo alongside Cp3. Would love to see more iso plays next game. That's what we're great at - stick to it. Let the slashing (MCW) and transition run-outs (Ennis) come naturally. Would hate to see all this talent be wasted 'cause we're spreading ourselves too thin. With all that said, I have confidence that Coach will make some significant changes and play around a bit to get it right - I won't doubt MDA's affinity for short rotations. Also, since it's no longer preseason, if we can have a gameplan or scouting report for the team we're playing that night, I believe we would be in a better position to win. It wasn't our switching defense that looked to confuse them but the fact that Julius Randle and Mirotic were actually on their roster. I think they were expecting Rondo and instead got Elfrid Payton.
I was there watching it live.. ennis and melo looked lost on defense. Ennis actually looked lost on defense anddd offense. The offensive spacing was way off.. everyone running into each other. 2nd unit with Gordon and melo might be tricky. one of the two will be taking more shots than the other, therefore not maximizing their talents. I say we start Cp3 Harden Tucker Melo Capela Then sub gordon and ennis first.
The answer to fixing and improving a defense is not to play more minutes with worse defensive lineups
Did the Rockets even practise defence in the preseason?!? "Hell, yeah, we worked for a half-hour on it," D'Antoni countered. "You're starting to piss me off. You're starting to piss me off because you're saying something that's not factually correct."
Ennis is brought in to replace Ariza's defensive presence. We have got to get him acclimated or else you can kiss last season's great defense goodbye. I am actually optimistic about him. What I am not sure is how to integrate Melo. Last season, there is no one sitting on the bench that MDA has to play to take up Ariza's minutes. Ryno doesn't shoot and can't defend? Just sit. You can't tell Melo "just sit." And he's likely going to take Ennis's minutes. Personally, I think Melo should play Gerald Green's role. Just come off the bench and shoot without conscience. He will get hot from time to time. And then sit down when we need defensive stops.
They should just cancel preseason games against partners like Memphis and Shanghai Sharks. Those are terrible opponents to prepare for the season.
We lost bcuz of Ad mirotic and randle which are Pf and center. Ariza would of made no diffrence since he is a small foward,genius.
It's true, because Ryno was not part of the playoff team that went 4-1, 4-1, 3-2 before losing Paul. That's the only team worth bringing back and it's the only team worth comparing our team to. From that team, Ariza and a busted up Luc are gone, while Ennis and Melo are in. Ryno did not play for the team that went up 3-2 on the Warriors, so it's silly to say that Melo will be taking his minutes. If you really want to stretch it, you can say that he will take Ryno's role as a "alright if Harden or Paul are down and we need someone to be a net ZERO, this is our guy". Offensively the new guys are better than the old guys, but we did not have a need for more offense seeing as we were one of the best in history last season in that department when Paul and Harden were healthy. There are a lot of boxscore-lovers out there who will cite us going 0 for 27 on 3pters in game 7, but anyone who was paying attention could see that once Paul went down and the rotation of an already-exhausted team was cut down, something had to give. And what gave was their legs, which is why they had the passion to be up at halftime in games 6 and 7, but not the legs to finish it off. Trevor Ariza guarded the opponents best player and hit 36% of 2,000 3pt attempts in just 4 seasons for us. You are a f*cking moron if you reduce that to his performance in a game 7 where everyone predictably ran out of gas against arguably the most talented team in NBA history. Defensively, the best of our 2 new guys does not compare to the worst of our 2 previous guys. Moute with a popped shoulder looked like a better defender than Ennis looked in Game 1 and preseason. Yes Ennis will improve, and yes Moute wasn't that comfortable defensively to start his Rockets career. But don't get lost in technicalities. We are still talking about the worst of the previous 2 vs the best of the new 2 guys. This is especially important since we switch everything on defense - which means your ability to guard your own guy becomes less important, and your average ability to guard anyone thrown your way becomes more important. In that sense, Moute and Ariza were dramatically more capable than Ennis and of course Melo. It abso-f*cking-lutely matters if you have a better defender on the floor at the 3 spot when their PF/C is torching you. Even if you watch ONLY the highlights, you would see how many times our 2/3's were switched onto those guys. Even if we got better offensively more than we got worse defensively, there is a necessary defensive minimum for winning a title. We were already better than the minimum offense needed to win a title without Melo. The rest is just passion to win, and in that department too, it is possible that we have taken a hit, though I'm not ready to make that judgement yet. I do not believe this team is better than last season's WCF team. I don't believe that for one moment. But I do believe Morey knows it, and will try to fix it. We need someone who can hit 36% of his 3's, quick enough to guard wings, and long enough wingspan to irritate big and small players after switching - even if they suck at EVERYTHING else. We need a Trevor Ariza, and we're going to find out just how expensive a player like that is even with their flaws and inconsistency and going 0 for 12 one time lol.
Not looking for excuses, but part of me also wonders if the players had some sort of Astros viewing party the night before the game when they should have been preparing for their own season. The whole team looked a step slow. I don't know. I haven't seen such horrific lack of effort from the Rockets in a long damned time. Just a joke. Now they get to redeem themselves against the newly-LeBroned Lakers in their home opener? Can't wait to see who'll ref this one. Hopefully someone waved some smelling salts under the noses of our players.
