ClutchFans Game Thread: Warriors @ Rockets 3/17/2013

That would be coachGOODlee. whenever he praisd highly on a rookie over a starter, that rookie's career is doomed! Poor Beverley...

There she is but this picture was taken a couple of games back. Do you think she is jealous of Parsons??

If you want Harden playing better D, cut down his minute! Agaisnt wolves, he played the WHOLE second half without ANY rest. McHale is driving him to the ground! No win is worth shortening Harden's career.

Finally someone paid attention to the root of our perimeter defense tonight and not utilizing the strength of DMo! DMo is about low post. I am really pissed at McHale. You have one of the most skilled 7 footer low post players and McHale is having him brinking the 3's...SMH!

 

I think I see some problem there, "rain 3's at a high efficiency". Come playoffs time, raining 3's might not be consistent all through out a 7 game series. Opponents will certainly adjust their defense. What you need is a variety of offensive sets and definitely low-post plays. Even Heat were forced to play down low with Lebron/Bosh. Even Detroit during their "superstar"-less championship have to go to Wallace in the post. You have to take what the defense give sometimes. I still have to see a team without post plays that succeed in the playoffs. Yes, even MJ's teams run several plays from the post. We're having problems running B2B games. There might not be B2B games in the playoffs but certainly games are more taxing in the playoffs than they are now.

 

But our opponents would have a harder time keeping up with us as we'd be conditioned and trained to run at a breakneck pace, whereas they (e.g. Memphis) wouldn't be.
And yeah, opponents might run us off the 3 but then our penetration game should open up even more allowing Harden/Lin who are excellent passers to pick defenses apart. Having said that, of course a post game would be awesome but I don't buy that a run n gun offense can't work in the playoffs. Defense is a much bigger problem than our offense imo, even in the playoffs.

We'll just have to see, as no matter who we pick up next summer, our offense will still probably be based on run n gun transition and the penetrate and kick 3s with a smattering of post ups. I would run more pnrs though and post up D-Mo some, but for this year, we're gonna go in guns blazin and I look forward to some signature playoff wins, even this year (at least that's my hope).

 

I think this lost was bound to happen? Before this game we were beating teams left and right by 30+, it was only a matter of time before we get hit with a big butt whoopin at our home no less...

 

Bad shooting nights happen, but you can usually ramp up the defense to compensate.

The Rockets are one dimensional, and got exposed as such.

They may or may not make the playoffs, dogfight to the end.

DD

 

I picked up highlights from the warriors thread to see what was wrong with our defense.

Look how effective their pick n roll's were. Their big set great screen's. I saw one moving screen from Bogut on Lin that should've been called but other then that they were great. The defense just didn't rotate. We had players standing there 3-4 feet from an open Curry not even trying to contest the shot. In contrast look at out pathetic attempt to set a screen at 3:35 of the 2nd video. Warriors showed us how to rotate on defense.

1st half
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=acN3c1pe1Oo
2nd half
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=yn8VLCy3iVU#!

 

They owed us one. rats

 

Damn it I still can't believe we got our asses kicked by 30! Losing by 10 is respectable, losing by 20 is an off night but by 30???

 

Ouch. Yeah, the Warriors wanted to beat us a lot more than we wanted to beat them. Parsons picked the worst possible time to play what was probably his worst game of the season. Harden's shot deserted him, and while he had nice numbers in other aspects of his game, as usual, he wasn't as effective as he typically is that area when he's having a rough time shooting. Just seemed off. Like totally off. Worse defense that the usual mediocre we've come to expect in that area. Defintely not a game where his defense was better than usual... for him. Lin was the only player shooting lights out, but except for that aspect of his game, he seemed off as well. Not at the level of suckage Harden exhibited, though. Motiejunas played like a rookie with few minutes under his belt. Lost and ineffective. Poor timing, dude. Asik? Pretty solid. Had he managed 40 minutes instead of the 30 that seems to be his limit this seaon, the score would have been closer, but we would have still easily lost by double digits.

The Bench Mob? Played like a disjointed mob, not like an effective second unit. Robinson had his worst game since we got him, playing so bad that Donuts looked like a vet stepping up. For the 5 minutes that he saw the floor. Seemed like he was out there for 20. I know I felt like I was groaning in front of the TV a lot longer than 5 minutes when watching him play. That's how bad he was. Beverley sucked. Smith? Blah. Needed a huge game from him last night and didn't get it. Looked decent only in comparison to the play of the rest of the subs. Delfino? Another player we needed a big game from and he gives us 1 board after giving us an amazing 10 the last game. His big weapon, shooting from Downtown, more suckage. Brooks sucked. Garcia played 12 minutes and it was like he wasn't there. Anderson inexplicably played 2 minutes. Of course, he had a turnover per minute, so that could have played a role. Wish he'd had more of a chance, even so, considering how bad the alternatives were.

The game "played" by the Rockets, over all? Total Suck. Sorry, but suck seems like the only adjective I can manage this morning. GS picked a bad time to play their best game against us this season, and we spread our legs and told them to bring it on. God, what a horrible performance for a game with so much riding on it. I wish I could get a mental enema so I could rid my mind of the memory. THIS is the game people will point to if we don't make the playoffs. Damn.

Ouch and damn. Seems to fall short as a description, doesn't it.

 

This is not exactly the solution against a team like GS though. Harden still needs to guard someone. Who should he guard instead of Klay? Curry? Jack? Every one of GS's preimeter players can shoot!

Harden just needs to man up. We don't ask him to play lock down defense. We just need him to stop slagging off his man for no reason (maybe to look for rebounds to pad his stats? Lol), stay on his man and put his hand up and turn those wide open shots into semi contested shots. It doesn't really take a defensive stopper to do this.

 

Patrick Patterson vs The Lakers on Sunday: 22pts, 5rebs | Shot 9/12 FGs, 2/2 3's

Really could've used that on Sunday vs the Warriors.

So could somebody please start the Patrick Patterson/DMO/T-Rob Tracking thread?

 

Luckily for Harden, there are not many teams nowadays with SG as their focal point of offense anymore compared to 90s and 00s era. A lot of teams start Tony Allens and Sefoloshas of this world. So even his not so good D, he should outscore his matchup 90% of time. Now if he only put a little more effort on D.

 

Yeah, I know. Really stinks. <sigh>

 

Harden... I hope he doesn't end up wearing himself out. Every night this guy has to play incredible and it's shameful. Seriously look at ever other players individual stats on this team compared to Harden's. Freakin nuts!

 

They came out playing with very little fire. Just a horrible start to the game.
Young team = Inconsistency

Lin played well despite needing to chase Curry around all day through picks and screens.
Harden needs to step up on his D when the game started to get tight in the 3rd quarter.

 

The truth hurts.
He is at best a backup PG.

 

HOLY CHYT I DON'T KNOW why we don't run OFF BALL screens for harden or jeremy or chandler more often! That would make the opposing defenses work too hard. One of the recognizable set plays the rockets have that actually works is when they screen harden's man and he catches and shoots. Do it MOAR!!

 

they need to talk to each other on defense. i couldn't tell from tv whether or not there's any communication going on but saw way too many instances where lin ran smack into a screen set up for curry as if he had no idea the screen was even there. the screener's man needs to call out the screens to help lin prepare for it. they all need to talk to each other more... it's not being lazy or being bad individual defenders... their team defense is just awful and that has a LOT to do lack of communication on that end.

 

All in all it was just a horrible game for the Rockets. No energy, shots were not falling, missed layups, the spacing on the offensive end wasnt bad its just that the shots were not going in. All the missed layups, it just looked like one of those nights.

Defense was pretty bad too, it looked like they didnt have a clear plan as to how to defend the Warriors. Looked like a zone/man-to-man hybrid that just didnt work, of course it also hurt that Curry and Thompson got hot in the 2nd half. The bench was just awful, they looked like a bunch of high school players out there. It was embarassing.

They need to watch out cause this whole win 1 game, lose the next pattern is going to bite them in the ass. You cant make a legitimate playoff push without stringing together some wins. I am sure they are going to turn things around come Wednesday, but hopefully Friday we wont see a repeat of the Rockets that showed up last night.

 

Not Beverley's fault that Toney is gone. Of course we wish both were here.