Coincidence or are our backup big men not a threat?

It was pretty abysmal in the second half. Look at the +/- for the bench as a whole.

 

really missed jones. good thing the spurs went light today. because there defense wasn't bad either tonight. would be real close at full strength

 

Wouldn't put too much into it as this game was the Howard 'game'.

 

Defense > stats

 

Adrien is better than either Black or Dorsey. But he's not a 5. Adrien is def better than Garcia. The guy can't buy a shot anymore.

 

Good thing Dwight started wearing Knee Pads

Any more bumps and Black would be the starting center.....

 

The Rockets looked like they were out of rhythm for the first 2 quarters of the game. Howard was dominating inside against the back up front court of the Spurs. Had Duncan and Splitter both been in, even with a spirited Jones, Howard wouldn't have had so many easy buckets.

Harden took awhile to get going and the rest of the Rockets outside of Terry, Harden and Howard looked out of sync.

DMo - if I recall correctly he didn't take many shots, didn't really have to with Howard doing whatever he wanted
Black - rookie back up C/PF,, definitely more defensive than offensive
Capela - Rookie, super raw - was probably so nervous he couldn't think straight, missed all 4 FTs
Dorsey - really? I don't think anyone is expecting him to be anything but a practice player/filler in a potential trade (maybe?)

 

As good as we are playing, we still has a flimsy bench.

We are where we are because of three guys: Harden, Howard, and Ariza. Jones, Beverley, Terry, Papawhatever, and Canaan took turn contributing. That's it. That's 8 guys.

 

That's pretty much all you need.

A coach isn't playing all 15 guys in a game.

8 guys is a pretty standard rotation with a couple others getting a few minutes here and there.

 

The only thing we really need is a backup center. Once you get to the playoffs, depth starts to matter less as they play less minutes. We just gotta hope everyone stays healthy and relatively fresh.

 

The nice thing about being a top five defensive team is that you certainly do not need offensive performance off the bench at ever position. Therefor the Rockets are just fine with D-Mo's defensive effort, great rotations and ability to close out on the shooter. Just chill and see how the team develops. Putting up red flares of panic is somehow so unbecoming.

 

No doubt that this team will get stopped early in the playoffs without at least one NBA quality big off the bench. Dwight and TJ can't do it all.

I'm sure Morey is aware of this as much as anyone and has some tricks up his sleeve. This team is so close to clicking that another couple of tweaks from Morey and we SHOULD beat any team in the league.

 

You are assuming players don't get injured.

Also, we still don't know if Papa and Canaan can perform consistently. Heck, we don't even know if Jones can. If you have an 8-man rotation where everyone of them you can depend on playing their roles night in and night out, especially in the playoffs, then you have a championship contender.

For now, I only have that kind of confidence in Harden, Howard, Ariza, Beverley, and Terry. I hope one or more of those other guys, particularly Papalickanow, will grow into consistent contributors.

 

Not an offensive threat. Not really an offensive presence even, going by last night. However, I think they're all still pretty jittery with their offensive play being on the big stage and will hopefully calm down as time goes on. That will lead to softer shots, smarter moves, and more points. It won't be a lot, but I think it will increase.

The main thing, though, is that everyone was playing pretty solid defense even as they struggled to score. The Spurs weren't able to take big chunks out of our lead, and thus our bench outlasted them for an entire quarter. That was the most the heartening thing I saw last night. If our starters can build up the lead, and our bench can keep the bleeding to a minimum while the starters rest, I'm alright with that.

 

it's 6 games into the season. all the guys you listed, other than dmo, weren't even in the league last year. give it some time

 

You assumption is that other players will not play consistently even though early records show otherwise. Jones or the other players don't have to play consistently every night. As long as we have five reliable players, all you need is for the others to have 2 good games each on a playoff series and that should be enough to give you a very good chance of winning.

 

It may not be great that they aren't going to score a lot, but what's worse is that our interior defense really disappears when Dwight is out.

 

Clutch, or rather his guest, mentioned this in the podcast he released a couple days ago. I have to agree with them, it will definitely catch up to us at some point.