ClutchFans Game Thread: Rockets @ Clippers 11/4/2013

What does this mean?

 

What exactly did Lin not do well in the first half? He was our only solid starter & facilatator. Did you see anyone but Lin trying to push the pace, get our offense set, try to facilitate and not turn the ball over? Can't help it if his good offensive game was overshadowed by bad defense, dumb TOs, and whistles. This was probably Lin's strongest first half game of the season. Despite the fact that he couldn't check Chris Paul, defensively, and got overshadowed in that aspect, that he was still able to control the Rockets' offense is good for the Rockets' development.

 

But...who played good defense in this game?

 

I agree. It's just that so far we're one of the better defensive teams in the league and I wanted to see how we matched up against one of best offensive teams. Just annoyed we didn't even bother to show up for this pre-test.

 

Hate to lose, but let's take this one constructively. I was in love with the twin towers (the Dream and Sampson), but this is not it. Dwight and Asik are too similar players and the team just loses its edge on speed. On top of that, it does not seem to give anything on the defense. I would say the opposite. So let's have a good look at the viability of the twin towers.

As I posted earlier, I find Casspi's energizing effect on his teammates one of his best qualities. He had a nice scoring night, but I'm happy to see his assists go up. He had a pretty nice stats line. Love Garcia too. I loved his look at CP3. The Clips commentators suggested a T for that too! Compliments to Smith and Brooks as well. They stood their turf.

The take home message undoubtedly is the re-evaluation of the twin tower starting setup. It seems to put the Rockets in a constant deficit in the first quarter. I'd recommend that McHale tries something else just to see how it may change the 1st Q.

 

smart man

 

We're not a good defensive team, we're just a team that has good 2 interior defenders. 1-on-1 defense will not work against motion pick and roll plays. Nobody on this team plays defense as a team.

 

Smith is young and willing to set picks for Lin. So his pnr with Lin ended up us scoring with ease. If Howard or Asik are not willing to set picks for the guards, then they will suffer as both of them are not accomplished post players yet.

 

Why did I see this coming lol? Clippers win by 19 and instead of props all I see is ref crying. Do I have to again say on the the road the Rockets got 43 free throws to our 28? Sure some calls sucked for you, some sucked for us too. You got 15 more free throws.. take it and stop griping.

 

:grin::grin:

You still pertending to be a Rockets fan?:grin:

 

I was at the game tonight, a few observations:

1. Plenty of Rockets fans (and Lin fans) in the building, judging by the cheers and jerseys worn by people in attendance. Dwight got booed, though. I thought it was weird since Dwight didn't leave the Clippers.

2. Watching this game as a Rockets fan must be what it's like for GS fans to watch the game when the Rockets set the franchise 3 pointer record. Obviously the team defended badly and Harden was as horrible as I've seen him, but it seems like the Chris Paul and the Clips are just in an offensive zone and was hitting an unusually high % of shots even considering how open they are.

Just like GSW and HOU last season, one bad loss doesn't mean that the Rockets are something like 20 points worse than the Clippers.

3. Omri Casspi looks bigger in person than he does on TV. I can definitely tell that he is more muscular than Parsons. Wider shoulders, bigger glutes, thicker limbs.

4. Also, Casspi's role on this team may be the 3 point shooting PF, but his natural instinct is to fake the shot and drive toward the basket, which he is pretty good at while defended by PFs.

5. Parsons is pretty skinny, a girly man compared to Casspi. I don't think you want him to block out PFs in the post for more than like 8 minutes a night if you can help it.

6. Chris Paul does everything for this team. He might be a dirty flopper but there is no denying how great he is. They do have other guys who can score (like Crawford, Griffin) but this team just doesn't work without Paul.

They better hope Doc Rivers's apparent plan of having CP3 dominate every minute of every game instead of pacing himself until crunch time doesn't backfire on him by the end of the season. Without a healthy CP3 this team isn't going anywhere in the playoffs.

7. I miss Patrick Beverley. I don't think Lin and AB did that badly tonight-- they certainly worked hard in the face of greatness, but it would be nice to have a defensive specialist to throw at CP to maybe wear him down a bit.

 

The Problem wasn't lin's offense, or anyone elses, the problem was the defense in the first quarter mainly by Hardens disgracefull off the ball lazy efforts. Reddick set the tone for them with the first 9 of the 11 points and from there they jumped out to a 42 to 27 lead. Harden's head was not in it.

The blame rests with him. After the game I was mad and I blamed lin, , Parsons and co,but after watching the replay, wow Harden needs to be ashamed of himself for that effort.

Granted others stuffed up on the rotation, but Harden gave up on Reddick on 3 different sets and let him have easy looks.

 

There is noway the clippers will shoot like that again and if we can still score a 118 from here on, we will give them a run for their money here in Houston.This was a one off for the Clippers.

 

Because he was the only big willing to come out to set picks with Lin so he had some easy pnr points. The other bigs were too lazy to set picks, quite unlike Griffins setting picks for Paul the whole game.

 

Casspi let Harden and Howard have it during on them going to a timeout. You can he was pointing to Harden and Harden to position himself better on defense.

 

I thought we played too fast. We need to slow it down next time, not play into their pace. They shot the ball well too. Harden wasn't himself tonight.

 

Slowing it down plays to their advantage. Paul in the halfcourt was killing us being Reddick was running Harden silly off the ball. We simply got outworked on defense. Parsons was giving Dudley who is a great 3pt shooter easy wide open looks.

 

Props to you. Don't think I can bear to watch the replay.

 

McHale had already tried something else with the twin towers setup that worked. Ironically, it's the same thing that's worked with two traditional bigs on the floor, all the way back to the days when PFs couldn't shoot as a matter of course: Relentlessly set picks after goddarn picks to create defensive movement to set up everything else.

It's what the Nuggets did with two traditional bigs; it's what's worked for the Rockets this year (when they did it); it's what's worked for the Rockets last year with Asik-Smith (when they did it). How do you make your man come out to play you if you don't shoot the outside shot? The same way as always: You make him come out to defend your screenplay.

 

I honestly thought our pace was what it should be. We just got sloppy with turnovers and a cold shooting night. We probably would've quicken our pace even more if our shots went in and kicked off a momentum. Maybe just me, but pacing was not a problem.