Lol. I was wondering what the hell was going on in here with the Lin back injury bit because my eyes were telling me Lin was 100% there. I was like... "Wait a minute... He's fast, jumping well, and shooting FT's at a high rate. Have I gone crazy?"
The real issue with this team is Lin, Montiejunas, Casspi and Garcia all are very inconsistent on offense and defense. It's one thing to be inconsistent on one side of the floor but these guys are like that on both sides.
Daryl Morey on 610: Good with being the 4th seed? We're good with getting home court. That was our goal before the year for the regular season. We're almost there. Couple more wins to go. Stated goals before the season: home court and make the WCF--still the same goals now? Yeah, home court and I think we said advance in the playoffs. Not more specific than that. I'd love to make the WCF and shock the world there. Do you watch the league differently before the trade deadline compared to after the trade deadline? I don't watch as much, frankly. After the deadline it's intense with international and college. A lot of non-NBA watching right after the deadline. Your philosophy on late season stuff, particularly when you have injuries to Beverley and Dwight? We want to clinch home court. We do need to win a few more. After that, we do have some guys that are pretty banged up. We have a lot of young guys that need some minutes. I'd mix it up but it's up to coach McHale. Beverley & Howard? We're not worried. Both will be back before the playoffs. Hopefully they'll get a couple games in before the playoffs. With Beverley, how much concern that bringing him back before the playoffs will prevent him from being 100% in that knee in the future? None. Doctors are telling us he's in great shape so we're not worried about it. Can you quantify what he does defensively for your team? I think he's the best defensive one in the league. His competition is Rondo, who hasn't played much this year & Westbrook. Maybe you can put Westbrook ahead of him but that's good company right there. Has Harden exceeded your expectations? For sure. We thought we were getting an all-star but he's arguably more than that. He's arguably first-team NBA this year and that's obviously an amazing accomplishment. Biggest reason Omer Asik has bought in again? He's playing more. He's a very good player, obviously starting quality. He wants to play more. Pretty much every guy on our bench wants to play more. A) He's playing more and B) He's a competitor. Once we got past where he could leave the team, I think he got focused on getting out there. Was it a blessing in disguise your reserve wasn't met for Omer on December 15? We thought we owed it to Omer to look for an opportunity. We thought it got close but postmortem of those things, the teams where we thought it was close must not have been as close as we thought. I guess it really never got close based on what we've learned since our attempt to trade him. He was gonna be here most likely no matter what given what most of the offers were. Kelvin Sampson to UH. Big win for Houston. He is a tremendous coach, a big part of what we do. I understand why you might be concerned. What mitigates it, except for the offseason, the best time, he's leaving at a pretty good time which seems a strange thing to say but the defensive philosophies are put in right before training camp, during training camp and early in the season. The guys know what to do. We don't execute perfectly so maybe lost a guy to yell at them. Coach Sampson was good at that. We think we'll be alright. Toughest match-up for you guys? Oklahoma City for sure then the Clippers. We haven't performed well against them. I think I would have said that before we were...I think we're 1-6 against them this year. Our advantage is often athletically, our youth, ability to get our and run. We do better against teams that are more experienced and execution teams because we can overwhelm them with our youth and athleticism. Long two is the worst shot in the game. You're dead last in long two attempts. The 29th team, ran by Sam Hinkie, they're at 960. You've yet to crack 500. Is there ever a possibility of going too far or do you hope there is a year they shoot 20 of them? Worst shot in the game is a myth. The long twos are pretty useful to have, especially as part of your arsenal, especially if you have Dirk Nowitzki. Harden this year has added that. A lot of what you see, I guess people see it as a little bit extreme, our personnel is lined up to that. People don't realize how extreme? James Harden is and his ability to hit the three and get to the rim. When your main guy is hitting all the shots, usually that guy has a bigger mid-range game. James happen to be hyper-efficient because he's very good at driving and very good at shooting threes. Our personnel is lined up to that especially as we've added players over time. Things you didn't see coming? Biggest surprise is at the four spot. We were hoping one would emerge, didn't think both would. Both have given us quality minutes. Most of our surprises have been good. For the Rockets to win the championship, they must _____. Play better than we've played all year and get some good fortune in there. We're in the mix. Vegas has us the 5th most likely, something like that. We'd like to be first. We have a bright future but don't want to squander a great chance this year. We need not only to play well but maybe one of our key opponents not be at full strength when we play them. We'll need to not only play extremely well but get a couple more breaks our way.
I'm glad they asked the long two thing, maybe people will hear it again. The long two is a bad shot for players that are bad at making them. I doubt Morey would be upset to have Dirk on his team taking the long 2.
This. The approach to long 2's has always been oversimplified. The long 2 and mid range is bad for MOST players. That's not the same as bad for ALL players. It's like playing basketball when you were a kid... nobody wanted you to take 3 point shots because you couldn't hit them. When you get older and can hit them at a decent clip, it becomes a decent shot. Some players have a good mid range game, and those are the ones that should shoot mid range and even the occasional long 2. However, they should never be taken when contested if possible since contested shots are nearly always worse than uncontested shots unless your name happens to be Dirk.
I wonder if the front office had more say or at least encouraged the coaches to start Bev more than we think?
The long 2 is important for stars and guys that set picks. Stars generally have the ball at the end of the shot clock and a lot of times a long 2 is the best shot that they can create. For guys that set picks, hitting the long 2 basically negates the icing the pick as the pick will get an uncontested long 2. Early in the shot clock, I still think teams should be going for points in the paint or uncontested threes (especially in the corners).
some numbers per NBA.com If you restrict the data to at least 20 midrange attempts as NBA.com defines them, you have 12 guys who shoot over 50%, and 45 guys who shoot 45%, out of 352 players total http://stats.nba.com/leaguePlayerShots.html?pageNo=1&rowsPerPage=100&DistanceRange=By%20Zone&sortField=FG_PCTZone3&sortOrder=DES&filters=FGAZone3*GE*20&PerMode=Totals
Thanks JTR !! I love it when I’m right, we would do more pick and pop plays but it’s because of our personnel like morey stated at the PF spot. All you guys who complain about mchale and no plays have to understand he does a great job with working with the personnel he has to when games. If we still had ppatt type PF we would see wayyyyyy more PF based sets and lin and Howard would always have that PF waiting at top of key to kick to if the drive is not there. It’s way easier for a pG to run a offense and get more assist when you have A PF that can set screens and you can always toss to for a bailout 2. We don’t have the guy so 3s, harden drives, and howard is what we have to work with don’t blame MCHALE. Morey understands having jones and dmo pick and pop will not be efficient. I fell like morey will address this in the offseason. Basketballholic goes over this all the time on why its best to go small ball to close out games like we did vs OKC and NUGGETS. Dmo or jones were not on the floor. But like my SIG says every FINALS team has to have a pick & pop PF… I hope I’m wrong but I believe that is true.If you notice even okc and clippers have blake and ibaka picking and popping… Suns – frye, morris Mavs – dirk Blazers – LMA Okc- ibaka Clippers – griffen Warriors – lee Spurs - Duncan Grizzlies – zbo Heat – bosh Pacers – west scola Rockets - ????????????????
I agree. Late shot clock situations you pretty much have to take what you can get. And I'm definitely not a fan of very long 2's (18-21 feet) in general unless it's late in the clock. Mid range early/mid shot clock is fine as long as it's uncontested and the player shoots well from mid-range. So I'm okay with some of our players taking those shots... others not so much.
what morey is speaking on is the PF spot thats why he referenced DIRK.. what this brings is more plays to your offense...
YES. Now if we can get him to make a clarification on "set plays" and beating JVG/Thibs defenses, we can finally shut the parrots up.
I think inadvertently Morey took a shot at the Spurs with the overwhelm thing against more experienced teams with our youth and athleticism. Haha..
Long 2's aren't necessarily bad... it's just that if you take 1 step back, you get 3 points instead of 2.
And then the Spurs respond like this: <iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/fJhCjMfRndk" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
