the main one who should be receiving blame is FVV yeah, Jalen was trash, but it was his 1st ever playoff game Isn’t Fred the champion vet? The highest paid player on the team? The steady hand and mentor?
- attack the basket, most of the times he had no whistles and he is not strong enough to absorb the contacts - shoot immediately, unfortunately he has a proven track record of being bad at shooting That's why I am really frustrating watching him. For four years, he didn't add many weapons into his offense arsenal and he barely improves his shooting.
Yes, Fred is. We should blame him. Like I said, I tend to criticize him less then Jalen because: 1. I think he is not in the future plan anyway. 2. He literally is the only safe choice of the ball handler in this team (the most strong argument for this is the losing streak we had without Fred), Ime just won't give up playing him. 3. I do believe Jalen's incompetent is one reason leads to FVV's inefficient. If Jalen can be the scoring guard everybody wants him to be, FVV will not force himself stealing the show. Rockets just has way too many non-shotters like Alpi, Adams, Amen, the guards have to take the shots. If Jalen does not stand out, FVV tends to force himself as well.
All true. But the hope was that by now, Jalen would have developed into someone we can consistently count on. And for whatever reason, he hasn’t. That can be frustrating enough in the regular season, but to see the evidence of it laid out in front of us during the playoffs was maddening and disheartening. Maybe he recovers from this and has a great Game 2, but we now know he’s not one of those special types who rises to the occasion. Instead, he just rises… whenever. I’ve been in Jalen’s corner so far, but his performance in his first really big game under the spotlight was beyond disappointing.
Fred is only good for high usage maybe 2-3 times per year. This season's dropoff has revealed he's better suited as a 3rd-4th guard off the bench. Warriors have had Jalen's number all season. I don't think he'll be any worse but his upside against them is very low.
This L was on Fred. He’s the “veteran” leader with championship experience. He couldn’t settle the young guys down. He’s supposed to be an extension from our coaching staff.
Great point. Jalen doesn’t do well against smart defenses, because for all his otherworldly athleticism and gifted talent, he’s just not a very cerebral player.
Jalen was clearly overthinking last night. Makes sense because it's his first playoff game. It looked like he didn't want to make any mistakes, and then he got impatient a few instances to force up shots.
FVV been the weakest link for damn near half the season... At least last year, he kept the turnovers down when his shot ain't falling.. And the T.O stats may say otherwise, but his inability to push and set up the offense leads to others making dumb ass plays as the shot clock expires..He's ****in horrible for this team now..
Honestly, this one's more on Fred. With all his “experience,” there’s no reason he should’ve taken 19 shots. He really slowed us down. We’re just a better team when Fred isn’t trying to be the main guy — we thrive when he takes a step back and plays within the flow. Yeah, Jalen had a rough game, but everybody has bad games in the playoffs. If I had to pick one for him to struggle in, I’d choose Game 1. This is a make-or-break moment — if he bounces back strong, that’s real growth. Beside Alp and Adams that was a horrible game for us, it was great seeing them fight back when they were down 23.
Right, and as I said he didn't hold Curry below his average. If you think that's on the coach, I'm not debating that with you. My point is he didn't do anything impactful on any side of the court.
It doesn't make any sense to me that he would rise to the occasion no matter the circumstances, especially in his first playoff game ever. If you were expecting Jalen to play better than usual while the coach puts more people between him and the basket, I'm not sure why you were expecting that. Regardless, it's important to analyze the game instead of just throwing our hands up in the air. IMO for us to count on Jalen we can't build the team exactly the opposite of what a perimeter scorer needs. That's obviously going to result in him performing at a lesser rate than his ceiling. Just like for Ja Morant. Just like for Paolo Banchero. Just like for Darius Garland. Please don't take this as excusing the missing of his shots. I'm not doing that at all. He sucked at the shots he took. But this series is not on Jalen. Jalen just has to make his shots at the rate he's made them since he's literally a catch and shoot role player in the Udoka's offense. The offense is built for bigs to rebound, and when you put more bigs in there you are putting more players between Jalen/Amen and the basket. That makes drives insanely difficult. To put this in perspective, you can put Giannis in there and he's going to be less efficient than he's been since Jason Kidd was his coach. This offense is anti-penetration. We've seen it all regular season, all of Amen/Jalen/Green/Whitmore have struggled to get to the rim as frequently or efficiently as expected. While it's been 4 years we've been waiting, it's not a coincidence we've been one of the worst spaced teams in the NBA all 4 of those years. Anyhow, hope his jumper bounces back and at least we can get his catch and shoot because in this offense if you're not a rebounder or post player then you're just a shooter.
Sorry dude, but maybe the guy who started wailing "it's all Jalen's fault" should chill instead. The loss hit me hard like everyone else.
I think FVV, Udoka, Amen and Jalen all had bad games. FVV and Ime are the biggest perpetrator to me because FVV played the most minutes. If both Jalen and FVV stink then FVV who played the most hurt the team the most.
You realize they already over achieved as a bunch of young players and got the 2nd seed right? You want Rockets team to beat Lebron and Jordan record and get the championship as a bunch of 23 yr olds? lol
I thought it was a tough , close game . Will be interested how we adapt Subpar games from Jalen and FVV . Jabari could have been more aggressive and not turned it over. Sengun was pretty good , but also had 5 turnovers It is and always will be a team effort. If we want to win the series of course Jalen and Fred have to have better games Ime also went with a short rotation and we and GS beat the hell out of each other . We can start working in Holliday and Tate and see if they give us a spark. Keep up the intensity .
