Honestly. The past two weeks or so, we've gotten off to sluggish starts and our defense is so lackluster. Are guys just tired? Is it the rotations? I'm honestly baffled at what could've changed this much on that end of the floor.
The guys just don't take Mac seriously anymore. Also, Dwight has been playing with. A different attitude since smith got here.
Also almost all of our players tend to overhelp, leaving their mam to get a wide open jumper or open cut to the basket.
Dwight Howard is not playing like Dwight. He's not been himself protecting the rim since he came back. Bev is actually not a good defender. Josh Smith looks fairly lost. That's 3 of the 5 guys starting who are sucking at defense. This team would do better with people who are good positional and team defenders. It's just annoying at this point that our team defense has regressed so much. It was the best when Bev and Dwight weren't playing. Hmm. Dwight im willing to give a pass to because he's probably still hurt. And well. He's Dwight. Bev though... Ugh.
Not sure why all the blame is on dwight, harden has gone back to old ways last few games with his d. Ball watching and swiping from behind, no wonder we stink
Live by the defense, die by the defense. The Rockets' over-reliance on an opportunistic defense has been exposed. The stuff works against the Hornets without Al Jefferson, but so much not against more competent offensive teams.
Dwights rim protection before he got injured was at 37% since he's returned it has steadliy climbed and is now a 41% and he isnt blocking as many shots as he did either. The knee has limited his mobility as you can also see on offense as he has struggled to finish shots he normally makes or dunks in his sleep
I actually think its because of the offense. Terrible bricks and turnovers leading to fast breaks and getting our guys tired and defeated emotionally. You can see bad body language from the guys after several minutes of awful shots. What's the body language goes sour the guys start getting lazy
This. And he tries to induce guys into taking shots so that he can try for a block rather than standing tall and discouraging the shot in the first place. He isn't getting to nearly as many of those floaters and layups as he used to. Also that weird lineup we had with Terry, Harden, Brewer, Ariza, and Dwight was awful. Nobody knew who to guard. Anderson and Freddette got lost for open 3's on back to back possessions.
ding ding ding! It really looks like we should swap DMo back to starting to give the starters more balance. Josh Smith will actually get more scoring opportunities in transition with the bench since they look to get up and down more.
Sean Elliot was all over this during the Spurs broadcast, when we played them. He said the Rockets play hard defense, but not smart defense.
