I don't think ticket sales are the sole reason for the style of play. I believe when you have the youngest team in the league this style/scheme it is more likely what our players are capable of playing in the best. Certainly, we have defensive deficiencies, No back up 5, Need wing defender, and very youthful at the 4 to say the least. Our style fits our personnel. If we had a decent backup 5 and more experience our style of play would be different I believe. If Howard or Bynum come to Houston, we would be more of a half court team that works inside out than we are now. I hope as well that when Howard resigns with LA that Morey leaves no knees Bynum alone and looks for a decent defender as well.
Great stats to help us better evaluate individual player's defensive performance. You also pointed out some of the holes in team defense. Great job.
That Harden had much better defense against the Thunder in the last game seems to me more of a personal vendetta than his norm. Whenever we talk about team defense, I think our coaching staff bears the biggest responsibility for the little improvement over 60 games, even though we do have a new and young squad, since I believe they are all very coachable and willing to improve to help the team win.
Good points. Tyson Chandler, Marc Gasol, Joakim Noah and a bunch of other great centers, with their height and vision of the court, are always shouting out to their teammates on defense. That's something I think Asik can learn to help build the team defense better. Glad To hear that TRob is also contributing.
Really? I thought the opposite would be true for the Rox defensive philosophy, if we have one. If we don't allow the three, then why are we almost always seeing so much space for the opposing shooters? We believe contested twos are harder to make. Then why are we contesting the opponent's long twos?
I did state that poorly... I don't know if he was ever a defensive minded coach to start with. He did not have much of a resume when he was hired. All he does is set and watch the game. I am not at practice so... He is a pollarising --> most players hate or love him. Hard read --> IDK Do you know what happened to Parsons' defense?
Patterson is being missed. There are two net positive defenders on this team - Asik & Lin (and maybe Beverley but he hasn't had much playing time). Parsons needs to learn how to play some defense if he wants to be Harden's wing partner. Can't have two scorers who play no D. Robinson and Motie are still trying to learn the system hence why they lose their men regularly.
Harden's knee is kind of banged up, he has been known to be a really good defender when he plays hard. Hopefully we'll see that all the time in the playoffs. As of now Asik/Lin/Beverly are the best defenders on the team.
Kelvin Sampson's job is defensive coordinator and he's terrible at his job Firing Sampson would be a good first step
I love Asik, but let's see.. You sit your starting center who specializes in defense without even a decent backup, and there's a drop off?? Wow. Did not expect that. But for reals, I love Asik. And his offense is underrated. He should be playing in the 4th more often. I get what McHale is doing, but I disagree strongly.
Coaching plays a big part in it, along with personnel. McHale and his staff get outcoached at times where they remove their best defensive player (Asik) and go for smaller line ups, regardless of if he is in foul trouble or not. Harden plays defense well enough but he save most of his energy in defense for later in games. Parsons is one of our better defenders due to his size, but he isn't a defensive stopper and neither are Lin and Beverly. Delfino has hustle but is also pretty much trash at stopping folk with any mobility. Smith plays raw and such is a foul machine. Garcia and Robinson may turn into something but I haven't seen enough to say what. Motiejunas doesn't seem to yet have the strength or lateral speed to keep the bigs he plays against in check when they go to the paint. A lot of our younger players could probably have improved defensively if they were coached up but I honestly can't say this coaching staff has done a great job out of doing that outside of Parsons and even that maybe a case of Parsons being underrated at draft time. We are bad at defense for a number of reasons but mainly coaching and personnel.
