That trade sucked short term for sure, the guys we traded contributed more than the guys we brought in and if me miss the playoffs I'll be pissed.
I think teams are playing better defense against us. Opposing teams know now that if they don't get back on defense that the Rockets have the ability to put an embarrassing defeat on them. NBA players know what's going on around the league. The Rockets have a reputation now as a high scoring team that loves to run if you give them the chance. I think opposing teams are limiting the rockets fast break to some extent.
One thing I've noticed over the past couple games: the high pick-and-roll with Asik and Harden doesn't work anymore. Before, after the pick, Harden would just barrel down past 2-3 defenders to the rim. But now, teams are choosing to trap Harden and leave Asik alone (probably cause they know Asik can't do much from the top of the key).
I think that's a big part of it. It's one thing to lose another thing to be all over ESPN as the team who smoked by the high flying Rockets. I mean we are still scoring but it just seems each bucket is harder to come by.
someone did a comparison of how many points morris, douglas, and 2pat puts up per game VS TRob, Dmo and Garcia, and the new acquires are definitely putting put less points. So that might contribute to us not scorin gas much because we are lacking some offensive fire power.
Terrence Jones has a pretty decent midrange shot, maybe if we played him more than 0 minutes per game, we would all know that.
Peaks and valleys. Teams don't 'fly under the radar'. I don't know why anyone even thinks that. There's 30 teams each with a crew of assistant coaches. It's a relatively small pool of competitors. No one is getting caught off guard.
it's honestly that simple, offensive is not the problem by any means. It's turnovers, rebounding, and rotations on defense. Our lowest total of points scored in a game in the last month, is 94, after that 96, after that 103. In the last month, literally one month, since February 13, the Rockets have scored under 100 points, twice. And the OP believes offense is the problem, smh.
Harden didn't look 100% healthy at times, there were times where he was at the rim, but just didn't have enough lift to make the lay up. Hopefully, with a few days of rest, he'll be ready to go.
Yes because we haven't had a defense from day one. That isn't changing so we need to keep scoring up.
Yeah, teams aren't going to suddenly realize in March that they need to keep the Rockets out of the paint and the three point line, plus slow down the tempo.
Nah, we'll kill these next 6-7 games at home(no back to backs iirc) and everyone on CF will think we're unbeatable again.
I've noticed that, while he still gets to line a lot, the refs have been less Harden friendly on the bump fouls that he would normally get in the lane. The same thing seemed to happen last season with Lowry after the break and before his injury. I'm sure they've been told to pay extra attention to calling fouls for players that draw a high amount. It makes sense when preparing for a more physical game in the playoffs. So, in a sense, the league is on to us.
Also, they start double teaming both our SG and fullcourt pressure + double teaming our PG. I've notice that for the last few games. It seems like they really are focusing on taking the ball out of our 2 offensive control guards. Even the key of the game for Suns was literally "Squeeze Harden" and "Pressure Lin". I thought it was hilarious at first, but I guess there's a lot of merit to it.
Other teams have scouted the Rockets and watched a lot of video on our possessions. Like the way Dallas made some adjustments and put Shawn Marion on Harden, and Mike James on Lin. They have scouts whose sole job is to find the weaknesses of the opponents' game. They took away our transition game. Our bigs are bad at cutting to the rim and finishing, plus they don't do the alley-oop lob dunks like the Clippers and Nuggets do. If you watch those teams, nobody can double the perimeter players, all they have to do is toss the ball at the rim for an easy dunk. The alley-oop has become a very potent weapon in the modern NBA.
I noticed that the Mavs ran out on us (mostly Marion) as soon as we shot a 3-pointer for an easy fastbreak points. This seems really effective against us. They were completely wide open under the basket most of the time.
Harden and Parsons are all we have on offense in the starting lineup. Lin is the dud that is killing us
