no mention of Hamilton by anyone, he is on a tear to get a second contract bigger than his qualifying offer. he will ball for sure off the bench as long as he doesnt try to do to much with the ball. Lin im worried about but im expecting him to snap out of it eventually, i dont know what mchale can do know he has tried everything, starting, 6 th man, off the ball, on the ball, in the pnr off cuts. i still cant work out his post allstar form at all. asik has played better than ever, his finishing has improved greately along iwth his stone hands slowly gradually improving over the coarse of his tenure here. his defence against the Blake Griffen, LMA's is our biggest advantage that no other team can deal with. he will win us a few games in the playoffs if given the chance. Cassipi is what he is a streaky shooter who is a sneaky good offensive rebounder, but his IQ on the court is all over the shot, he is going to try and shoot his way into our rotation, which i cant blame him when we give him spot minutes. Dmo is way to hard to figure out aswell. he should be the teams starter but his inability to stay out of foul trouble is the only thing holding him back, he has a huge ceiling is it all just clicks within the next 3-5 years. then everyone else is just filling a spot being an asset. all in all, dont expect the bench to play together like they have for the last month, harden dwight and parsons will all be 40+ minutes unless they get in fould trouble, so only expect max 3 but normally only a couple bench players in at one time
when does a strong bench ever swing a series unless they have a 6th man of the year candidate who should be a starter like harden in okc or manu in SA
and yet you still gotta love all the responses from people who didnt watch the game but still comment as if anything out of their mouths is the obvious right answer
Agreed. Asik does his job - rebounding/defence. Lin is the scorer, Dmo is the versatile, mobile big with a mismatch, and Hamilton is the young and athletic slasher. It is a good bench, in theory, but they just are not doing their jobs. It will pass. I hope.
I agree. I know he can't make a lay-up or finish near the rim on offense or, really, do anything on offense besides set really solid picks and grab offensive rebounds (which, by the way, are important things that he rocks at) -- but that was true last season as well when we all loved him. He looks sluggish out there, but as LPH points out, he is still getting his conditioning back from being out so long, and he will be ready come playoff time. And, even now, he is having a really positive impact on defense and on the boards. If the man could finish around the rim he would be Dwight Howard. THAT's why we overturned heaven and earth to get Dwight and why, with Dwight replacing Asik, the Rockets are 3rd in the West instead of 7th or 8th.
Asik is still trying to get his footing. I'm not too worried about him because defense doesn't seem to be the problem, usually.. The key is Lin. He has been struggling and so it hurts the rest of the bench because of it. His offense creates the offense for the rest of the other guys. Hamilton and the rest of our shooters get open looks because his penetration and kick outs. It shouldn't be all on him to run the offense but that's our system with the bench. If he struggles, the bench is going to struggle by design. The one thing I wish Lin would do is just be aggressive and attack the basket at all times. When he is on the court, he gets scared of taking bad shots or making bad turnovers so he stops in the lane and turns it over anyway. If he would just complete his drive, at worst its a missed shot or a block, usually not a fast break starter like his turnovers usually are.
And to think we had people posting here saying DH wasn't that big of an upgrade over Asik. I love what Omer brings defensively and on the glass, but his offense, even at his best last year pales in comparison to what DH can bring to the game. I was shocked to see a number of folks upset that we were courting Dwight. He's exactly what we hoped he'd be. It just makes Omer look that much more clumsy after watching Howard all year. Also Asik is obviously not in tip top shape yet. He looks very soft.
Seriously? All the time. More times than not in fact. I mean, I could go down the list of recent examples or examples in Rocket's history, but, it goes on forever. Ray Allen with the Heat last season. Boris Diaw in the same series. Barea a couple of years before that. The effect Anderson had in Miami when they signed him. Robert Horry forever. Indiana was killed by its lack of a bench last season in their series with Miami -- and you can see all the work they did to address that this offseason. Capable bench players swing the results of playoff series all the time.
You obviously did not watch the game. Did you see what the bench did in the first half? They just sorta maybe bailed the starters out.
There are no back to backs in the playoffs. Many games are played on two games rest. Sometimes more. Look for all the starters to get more than 35 minutes a game and Harden, Parsons and Bev to get 40 or more. Benches are much less important in playoff games. The only exception is when a bench player can be a spark plug in a game. And that person for the Rockets is ... Asik! Well, maybe not a spark plug, but certainly a defensive anchor.
The bench guys got the team back in the game in the first half by finally playing some of the defense that the starters failed to play. The bench group + Harden also did pretty well to close out the 3rd quarter. The real bad stretch was the start of the 4th, when the group of 4 bench guys plus Parsons just couldn't get the offense going. Overall, the bench guys actually had a positive +/- this game. Not too worried about them. The scoring is lacking but it's mostly just Lin's post Allstar break slump. None of the other guys were being counted on to be volume scorers anyway.
I watched the game in its entirety so yes, I know Casspi played the last minute and Garcia not even for a second. I still mention them because they form part of this deficient bench, if not the most glaring of the deficiencies. My argument is not based on today's game. Try and keep up..what are some of you 11 years old? And don't fool yourselves, this Rocket bench sucks for the most part. Now I know how we got it in the first place. This bench is the price for landing Howard. Morey will get this fixed in the offseason. However, for now amd moving forward into the playoffs, I'm criticizing the very dissapointing underachievents of the bench, personified by: 1. (Mr. I'm 6'-9" but don't ask me to negotiate single a rebound) Casspi, 2. (Mr. This dog won't hunt no mo) Garcia 3. (Mr. Soft as socks) Dmo, and lastly but absolutelly the no. 1 reason.. 4. (Mr.When in doubt just lose your dribble) Jeremy Lin. I have no knocks on Asik, other than he needs to dunk the ball in order to avoid point blank duds. Hate me for telling the truth if you must fellas.
Sigh. This is probably not worth the effort but: 1: Casspi is averaging 7.6 rebounds per 36. Jones is averaging 9.4. Parsons is averaging 5.4. 2: Garcia is playing for the vet minimum. $4.6M less than the average salary. Did you really expect serious production from the guy as opposed to just hoping for it like the rest of us? 3: You should have noticed that D-Mo has become a rock out there on defense. The guy seldom makes mistakes, and I have not seen him being backed down in months. He also looks to be Asik's size, about 265 pounds. He also is averaging 8 rebounds per 36 and 13 points. And he is way better on defense than Jones since the beginning of the year, and certainly joins Howard and Asik as the best defensive players on the team. And before you go all screaming girlie on me you should actually research Bev's defense. 4: Lin is in a slump. Don't get your panties all gnarled up over it. I don't hate on you, I just wish you did a little fact checking on your posted comments.
