You do know it is very hard to pass from a trap right ? I do not see any sign of harden not trusting his teammates in this game...
That's what I disagree with. We scored 108 points tonight, that's higher than our season average. We didn't lose because of our offense, we lost because of turnovers from charges, failure to secure a rebound, and defense in general. It doesn't matter if we changed up our offense, the defensive end of the court would still be a liability.
no screen or pick set for Lin and harden to penetrate. should use some pick n pop with patterson but no. the rockets try to break down the defense one on oone and pass. easy to defend.
This was made much worse by the r****ded iso ball they were playing. It wasn't even a proper iso. Yeah, the ball carrier is on an island, but with three defenders within two steps of him and two teammates too close to get open shots off the pass and too far to screen a defender. I have not the no idea what kind of offense that is supposed to be or how it can possibly work even in theory, but apparently McHale is in love with it. I just call it r****ded iso ball, because we consistently suck doing it. We have run it for a full 17-game stretch plus a full 8-game stretch, with it sprinkled in randomly for a game or a half here and there when we are not running it full time. It's a can of fail every time but McHale just keeps on trying to go back to it. It's like we are daring the opposing team to trap our guards with impunity.
Luckily team defense is one of the things which is most highly correlated with age. Older your team is, the more likely you are to play good defense. The Rockets are young. They have plenty of time to develop into a strong defensive team. Also, it didn't help tonight that the refs were clearly favoring Miami, and that we were on the second night of a back to back on the road.
It's like I said, we made some difficult shots today, but the point is, our shots today were disproportionately difficult today from running that r****ded iso ball. It was fool's gold. On most nights this would have been a blowout with the quality of shots we were getting today.
We played pretty solid defense on Wade/LeBron in the fourth but screwed up with two charges (the one against Cole was a block though) and some untimely and poor defensive rebounding (something we'd been doing well all game). What does all of this point to?? We are the youngest team in the NBA. Moving on...
Important game vs Portland. I would love this win more than against Heat. We havent beaten them yet this season. This is worth 2 wins if we do it.
Exactly, this game came down to the TO difference. A delta of 6 makes a world of difference with close games such as this one. Also, I thought Lin had a decent game. If the Heat can put pressure on Rose, there's little doubt they can do the same to any guard in this league.
Also, getting much higher quality shots not running r****ded iso ball would have mattered today. Any number of things could have mattered today, but the failure that was most easily eliminated to turn a loss into a win was the utter failure of strategy.
Good to see Harden was able to be effective against Miami who shut him down completely in the finals last year. I was impressed. Good job good effort for the Rockets in this game. With Bosh out, I thought they had a chance, but too much Wade and the King in the end.
To people who watch all the Miami games, how much effort do you think they played with this game? Did we come close to beating a Bosh-less full effort or half effort Heat? I mean...they lost to the Wizards.
Was at the game tonight, place was bumpin. I was one of the few Rockets fans I went with 3 friends who were going for the Heat. I stayed reppin til the end though. Our boys fought til the finish, proud of the effort. Refs helped Heat win it.
That is why you need the big man play to help set screens & relieve the ball handlers (Harden & Lin) from being consistently double or triple-teamed & attack the rim to exploit the Heat's lack of interior presence. If you look at the Heat's record, they are more likely to be beaten by teams with a very strong inside-out games like the SVG's Magic, Memphis, Clippers, Knicks, Pacers, Utah, etc. The coaching staff needs to devise strategy that target the specific weakness of the opponent rather than going with one size fits all kind of strategy. I thought Asik & Smith could play a key roles in tonight's game. Unlike Aldrich, Smith can finish strong at the rim & has the strength & size to hustle for the ball. He has an average of 10.4 TRB per 36mins this season. Not sure why he was DNP though. In addition, the coaches tend to overplay some bench player after they played a good game or 2 like in Anderson's case. Anderson may have played well in the last 2 games but he has sat on the bench for far too long. As a result, his reading of the game & his decision may be questionable due to his lack of playing experience. McHale should have more faith on his starters to let them finish the game in the 4th Q.
So are you saying that if we changed our strategy on offense tonight, we would have won against the Heat even though we already scored 108 points?
Well said. The coaches are certainly not the ones who seem to coach the perimeter game well. Once we fail against elite defense, we turn into our default ISO mode. Last time we did this after losing to OKC and San Antonio, and you know what happened next. Today's loss to Miami could be another dangerous start.
I thought their starters put in the effort and did well, but missing Bosh apparently really hurt their bench activity. They were pretty lackadaisical out there today. Normally the Heat's bench looks a lot more active than what we saw today. It's when their starters half-ass it that they lose to the Wizards.
