i will be glad when bev comes back because he guards nowitzki on FT line post ups so much better than the lin. i am also looking forward to the brooks/bev smallball backcourt that mchale likes to strike fear into the heart of his counterpart coaches with.
I'm a fan of Lin and also a big fan of Beverley. But there are many viewpoints on the board and I appreciate you clearly stating that a) you are not a Jeremy Lin fan and that b) you believe Jeremy Lin fans believe losing our starting PG makes no difference to team performance. I've grown accustomed to the forum-sponsored baiting of Lin fans, with the goal of drawing responses from more rabid LOFs that you can then use to broadly paint all Lin fans. But now for those threads where you say something like "I am a fan of the team, I've got nothing against Lin", I can link back to this post as a start. (Seen lots of posts like this but this is the first one I thought to bookmark.)
Yep, and I clearly stated that I want Beverley back to have on the court to play defense. I just don't see where starting made a difference and Clutch responded because I'm a Jeremy Lin fan which I didn't find a fair or strong response. I have nothing against Clutch and we all have our favorite players, but I'm a big Beverley fan too. He and Lin are great together, they have great chemistry and seem to genuinely like each other. Beverley is all over the court grabbing rebounds or tipping the ball or poking it from somebody and I made a point that he played offensively well when he played without Harden in a game thread where he scored 10 points in a quarter (unfortunately broke his hand that quarter). In no way am I against Patrick Beverley because I prefer Lin to start.
According to Jenny Dial Creech, Greg Smith injured himself at practice today (Chandler too). So.... there's that for increased defense. :-/
Compare this season's 35 games so far to the first 35 games in the last season: Overall----PTS OFF TO----FBPs----PITP 2012-13------655--------651------1648 2013-14------506--------552------1750 =================================== Overall-------Opp PTS OFF TO----Opp 2nd PTS----Opp FBPs----Opp PITP 2012-13-----------657-------------419-------------515-----------1484 2013-14-----------642-------------506-------------453-----------1544 Offensively, we are much worse in getting points off TO, get a 100 point less in fast breaks, and gain that back by getting 100 points more from inside the paint. (Could I say that the larking of PTS off TO and larking of FBPs were all related to drop in defense? as we are getting less defensive stops, and also when we are getting it, we are not taking advantage of them?) Defensively, we are giving pretty much the same points off TO to our opponents, giving out 25% more points to our opp in 2nd chance in offense, (giving out too many defensive boards there), giving out a little bit more points in the paint, but not significant. Fast break defense slightly better but not significant either. So, overall compare to last season, drop off in points out of TO, drop off in fast break points, and giving out more second chance points are the main issue, (all related to defense). I would summarized that this season, we are just playing much less active, and fight less hard, which show up all in the category that needs extra effort. I would think that's due to this team is still not yet find their identity, and not successful in integrating DH in the team. Last season we are a running team, with ball movement, hassle, and fight. This season, we tried to slow down, and try to play DH more with inside out, but we don't have much effective play yet to play half court, but we lost a lot of the running, fast break advantage. We have not find a perfect balance of James Harden and DH yet. And move Lin to the bench, and pull the key in Harden's hand and anticipate Harden to balance the offense between himself and DH is a bit risky, and I don't think that is successful. We could see the switching of Harden's focus swing from facilitating to attacking back and forth, and that affect the style the team shows. Yet no other people had any control of the team, and we are pretty much rely on James's decision, what kind of game that will be for that particular day. McHale is trying to empower James Harden to control the team, but I'm not sure whether James is mature enough to take that role yet. Untill the team find some balance and identity, and until the coaches has better control of the team's execution, I think we will still be in the current stage that we will have no idea how the team will perform in each game.
Can Greg Smith please stay healthy for two games in a row or is that too much to ask??? Not sure what this guy's deal is. He's built like a linebacker but seems to be as fragile as my 80 year old grandmother.
If it's that knee again, I think that's a pretty bad sign. It would be great if he could stay healthy for a stretch of games, though... I guess there's always the off chance he's developed enough to be a serviceable backup to Dwight (maybe? possibly? hopefully?) -- but he can't seem to stay mobile long enough to even get in a rhythm. I wouldn't be so quick to send DMo to RGV if he's about to be down again, though. Blah.
One reason 4th Quarter defense worsens is because Harden makes even less effort. Gotta conserve energy for ISO. Of course the team D is worse minus Beverley and Asik, but the players on the court need to do better.
D-Mo might be back in Houston before he can make it down to the Valley. If Omer's out still for another week or two D-Mo is your only option unless your going to play Howard 45 minutes a night which could be stupid come May.
I actually am not sure that the Rockets defense is 15 in the league right now in reality. There is a lot of evidence that two horrendous losses to OKC and IND are actually skewing the numbers. But I have not been able to nail anything down. There is a paucity of data about defense in the NBA. What fired it all off is that the Rockets give up only 0.88 PPP to their opponents, 7th best in the NBA (actually 0.8845584608). I will continue working on it.
Patrick Beverley is kind of like Jeremy Lin. He is an underdog. Everyone supports the underdog. Beverley plays hard, works hard, plays tough and consistently returns earlier than scheduled from injuries. Beverley may not be as talented as Lin, but he tries his hardest to make up for what he lacks by playing and working harder than everyone else. Any and all Rocket fans would love a player like Beverley. Whiles this team has a tendency to play with no energy and effort on random occasions, Beverley always plays his heart out regardless.
Because he's adequate enough to both give some resemblance of perimeter defense to the starting group, and he's good enough to allow Jeremy Lin to go to the bench in a desperately needed 6th man role. Jeremy moving in the starting lineup and Brooks coming in as the backup has not only hurt the perimeter defense, its also hurt guys like Casspi & Garcia getting better looks & having a faster tempo with the bench unit. Of course no Lin fan will ever agree to this because they only care about Lin getting announced as a starter & the perception of coming off the bench, and dont care to grasp the importance of having a true 6th man for a team that desperately relies on putting the petal to the medal 100% of the time for their offense to work correctly to win games. Beverley is very important to this team winning games because of what he allows other players to do for the team. That's where his real value is.
It's not only Harden's defense but the team's defense that is hurting the team. I haven't seen Parsons defend that well he usually lets his man pass by him or over helps and leaves his man alone for a put back on the rebound or a pass. Don't get me started with casspi and Garcia too. Brooks and Lin's defense isn't good either. Some games Lin has shown good effort but no consistent just like Harden. Harden'a problem is taking his eye from his man and just kinda watch the game. He over helps too and leaves too much space for his man to shoot. And actually that goes for everyone we tend to over help and then try to catch up the open man. Howard intimidates the paint but since he jumps for the block the rebound is up for grabs and non of the other players put any effort to block the man. That's why we are so bad at defensive rebounds.
LOL... get out of here. Such trolls. I'm not going to be baited by a bunch of Lin-Only fans who refuse to accept facts. You want to make people out to look like they hate Lin... it helps you reject the message by discrediting the messenger. The Rockets' starting lineup is much better defensively with Beverley than it is with Lin -- that's fact shown by the numbers to date. That's not opinion. You want to make it out to be a bias against Lin when something like this is stated, when the irony is the only bias here is yours for Lin. You guys continue to tell us things like Lin locked down Jrue Holiday when he guarded him on 6 possessions (and two of his shots, lol) and the rest of us will just talk about the Rockets. Cool? Good. Enjoy.
The two 30 point blowouts from the Pacers and Thunder are killing our team stats, especially point differential and team defensive efficiency. Take out those two games and it's not as bad as it looks.
