ClutchFans Game Thread: Rockets @ Hornets 1/9/2013

five wins, one loss, team is tired, had a scary plane journey. i am fine with the loss.

 

From Geraldd.

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They are like my own kids. As long as our young players learn a lot from the loss, I'll gladly take it.

 

There isn't. McHale should have played both Asik and Smith more in this slow game.

Statistically Asik thrives in slower games. And the Hornets are the slowest-paced team in NBA.

 

McHale likes to stick with the winning formula until other teams have it figured out. And I think they have. And now it's time to set up plays for Asik and Smith on court at the same time and ball movements between them and the guards.

 

McHale should have adjusted his tactics when the Hornets had successfully slowed us down to their pace. He should have tried to regain control of the board first.

During the postgame interview after the last game vs the Lakers, a reporter asked Lin what brought the game back in the second half, and he said they just went back to the basics and step up on the defense, and then the offense followed.

The Rockets can't play good defense without Asik under the board. Sometimes McHale's just too obsessed with his running strategy.

It's insane to keep doing the same things when it's not working.

 

mchale needs to start managing some of these minutes when we have b2b or 4/5nights gms. even when we are blowing other teams out, the startes are always in. at this rate, these guys will break down and look sluggish on these nights.

 

Good point. This is why I think McHale and Sampson may not be good enough to take the Rockets beyond the second round in the postseason.

 

The half hour flight to New Orleans was one of the worst if you read the posts before the game started.

 

we do have a lot of options its just that this was one of those nights when everybody went totally cold....:grin:

 

perhaps but even then you gonna lose a couple of games:grin:

 

The Rockets lost the game in the 4th and were outscored 29-10 with Lin going scoreless in the quarter except for 2 garbage points in the final seconds when the game was already decided.

The Rockets and Lin were unable to counter the jump shots of Roger Mason and had no answer for him.

The answer may have been Toney Douglas sitting on the Rockets bench. Douglas scores far more points per minute than Lin and is a better perimeter shooter.

Lin's head injury against Milwaukee won that game for the Rockets as it forced the coach to insert Douglas who responded with a flurry of points including jump shots, layups and a key three-pointer that swung momentum in the Rockets favor when the game was tight.
Roger Mason came

 

That's nail in the head for the opponent team ! Two-dimensional offense stretches the floor better, affords more creative plays than one-dimensional perimeter offense, though it seems counterintuitive sometimes.

 

here we're. DOGSANITY!!!

 

I messed up on the formatting of my previous post, so let me try it again (apology for the double-posting...)


I love how folks use a 1-game sample size to make an argument. Following your logic, had Delfino been the one sitting on the bench in 4Q, one could make the same argument about how he was 5-of-7 in 3's against the Lakers and could have won us the game had he played. But guess what? Delfino did play in 4Q last night but miss all 4 of his 3-pt attempts and scored all but 1 FT point. One. Single. Point.

Not trying to defend Lin (who did play a bad game last night) or knock on Douglas (who is a better perimeter shooter than Lin), but Lin didn't lose us the game. Our team collectively did.

 

sorry, i made it triple.:grin:

 

You're on a roll. :grin:

 

Just ignore him. He has always been trying to get the LOH / LOF stuff going.