ClutchFans Game Thread: Thunder @ Rockets 1/16/2014

Not sure why everyone's surprised, we have seen enough of this team this year to understand that they aren't actual contenders this year. We can only hope that some of the guys mature and Morey can upgrade our bench.

Just no defensive intensity. OKC just showed us that defense is much, much more important than offense. Rockets will never be contenders until they understand this and become more disciplined on defense. Might take a season or two since we are such a young team.

Defense aside, when the going gets tough offensively, the solution is not to keep chucking threes. Dump the ball down low and get Dwight in a rhythm. He opens up a lot of opportunities to score when he gets the ball consistently. I know the refs took him out of the game with a couple horrible calls, but we weren't using him correctly when he was in.

James Harden played a great game but was strangely passive in the 2nd half. I was disappointed that when we were struggling offensively, he didn't put his head down and get to the rim to draw fouls.

Jeremy Lin is still inconsistent.

Bench contributed absolutely nothing as usual, even though DMo had a rare good game.

This is just a very frustrating team to watch, especially knowing that if we had some freaking discipline on both sides of the court, we would be an elite team, even with our weak bench.

Oh, and Steven Adams is a punk.

 

73 points in the first half, 19 in the second? WTF is going on?

 

Man our whole team is getting completely destroyed on TNT.

Barkley - McHale only talks about offense, no defense. Translation - McHale is a suk azz coach

Barkley - saying DH is not a great player, but a good player who commits silly fouls. Translation - DH is soft and is on the decline.

All of the TNT scrubs - Rockets are NOT legitimate contenders. Translation - we are pretenders, soft and no team fears us - even the spurs. yes, even the spurs.


We are going to get destroyed in the playoffs - We need to fire morey, McHale. We need dead eye shooters and a legit power forward and point guard and back up center. We need a bench. We need too many things. We suck.


Oh well, as long as Harden/Parsons can party at the T and A clubs - they be alright.

 

Isn't this McHale last year on his contract? Will be interesting to see if he gets a new contract if it is.

 

Shaq - "You have to want it You have to say you want it and not care."

Chuck - "I assumed Mchale would have a huge huge affect on Dwight Howard."

INSIDE THE NBA: MORE SHOTS FIRED!

 

McHale's head:
Parson's played 45 mins yesterday. I should probably play him 43 mins today.

Reality:
He's running his players into the ground (Parsons and Harden). I'm surprised Parson's didn't do worse. McHale is awful with player time management.

 

In terms of bigs, Asik would have helped...

Midrange game is definitely needed. More screens and off-ball movements to get just any kind of open shots as well.

 

Everyone in disbelief at this smh.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p>OKC coach Scott Brooks said the second half of that game was like nothing he had ever seen.</p>&mdash; Jenny Dial Creech (@jennydialcreech) <a href="https://twitter.com/jennydialcreech/statuses/424054105523249152">January 17, 2014</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

I agree with a lot of their points though. Last game and tonight he's been a non factor because he can't stay on the floor due to foul trouble.

Dwight really does get WAY too many offensive fouls. Seems like 2-3 a game. He also gets picked and loses the ball a lot while posting up.

 

Dammit, if we could have just doubled our 2nd half score, we would have won. Lousiest game of HORSE I ever saw.

 

What if the coach benches the court general all the time, what then

 

Ignore the Inside the NBA trolls.

The real problem, as it has been for weeks, is the Asik situation. Even when shots weren't falling early in the third, the defense was good enough to keep the Rockets in the lead. The only times things got out of control were after Dwight's 4th foul (in the third) and after his joke of a 5th foul early in the fourth. In both cases, Dwight left and there was no rim protection... meaning OKC was able to drive to the rim, collapse the defense and/or grab offensive rebounds before ultimately scoring. Meanwhile, we had no prayer at hitting the offensive glass off of our own misses.

Even with Terrence playing as well as he is, we have a whopping two big men of competence. That's not enough to beat true contenders on a regular basis (i.e. 4 times out of 7). A third guy HAS to emerge. Either Asik needs to get happy/healthy and play, or we should trade him for someone who will. Otherwise, we're wasting a season in the waning years of Dwight's prime... and that shouldn't be an acceptable scenario.

 

It's because we scored 19 points in a half. 19. How bad does a team need to be to be able to score only 19 points. We are suppose to be a playoff team and we only score that much in 30 minutes of bball.

 

Lin and Harden and Brooks, no other guys should handle the ball in a FB. watching a FB turn into transition then half court and the "starting PG" is still dribbling really intimidate every BBALL cell in my brain.

 

Now the Mavs fans are coming out on FB saying DAllas> Houston. **** those guys

 

Our players have no pride.

 

I know most everyone is going to blame McHale but the player are more to blame than anyone else. They are the ones playing the game. Sure McHale isn't perfect and makes mistakes but as players thinking about championships, you have to own what you do. Have pride in your game.

McHale can't be the scapegoat when this team only scores 19 points in the second half. That's on players for not showing up at all. You could have the best coach in the world, but if your player don't show up, situations like this happen. The coach is only responsible for so much. It's the players that need to own what they do and play the game like they actually give a damn.

That's the problem with this team. Our players fail to own up to what they do. If you make a mistake, own up to it and make sure it doesn't happen again. How many times have seen the same mistakes happen through out a single game, much less the whole season? Over gambling for steal opportunities rather than play solid? Helping off your man too much causing a wide open three? No boxing out? Missed assignments on defense? Fouling a jump shooter? Not hustling back on defense? Failing to get Howard the ball when he is wide open? Taking horrible shots or horrible turnovers? Huge amounts of missed free throws? Our attention to details as a team is simply horrendous.

Hopefully this wakes up the team. This is a new low for the season. We need something to happen. I know a lot think a change in coaching will solve everything, but it won't. Morey knows it too. If he thought removing McHale was the solution to fix the team, he would have done so already. It's the players that need to change. I'm not taking trades necessarily but rather attitudes on this team. We haven't done jack ***** yet. Stop walking around like you're owed respect or something. Like, you're too good to play the lesser teams and teams will back down to you so easily. Like you're on par with the Spurs, Heat, Pacers, And Thunder, because you aren't. Wins against the spurs mean nothing if you can't beat lowly teams like the Lakers or Jazz San can't close out games to great teams like the Thunder.

Just a horrible feeling right now being a Rockets fan.

 

They scored 19 points in the 2nd half total.

NINETEEN !

With Asik it would have been 12.

DD

 

You know what's funny (Im actually laughing right now) We always think THIS GAME is the game the Rockets learn from. there is no way they do that again... that was just too embarrassing.. then the next game to learn from happens. and then the next game happens.. and another.

 

We are going to get clowned for a long time over this one.