they're the best starters for the rockets. terry isnt anywhere near bev's defense and he also gets more assists. plus he's on a shooting slump. im fine with starting brewer for now but since he's so skinny he wont be able to guard the biggers wings for a whole game like ariza can. plus ariza's is doing too much, once mchale figures that kostas and brewer need consistent minutes to give harden and ariza rest, his shooting will improve. maybe start brewer for two weeks so ariza can play less minutes and get his shot back, then put him back in the startinglineup
That's fine, but don't expect it to pay major dividends THIS YEAR. Show me a list of champs that made major changes during the second half of the season. We already know about the Rockets and Clyde. Let's see the rest.
Do they have to be champs right away? How about get out of 1st round and make it all the way to the WC finals? Didn't MEM surprise us all that first year they got rid of Gay?
We went 17-19 because of injuries, not because we suddenly stopped playing well. Also, Rudy made numerous key decisions during the playoffs, basically reshaped the Rockets during the playoffs itself. First he phased out Pete Chilcutt, who was getting owned, and inserting Chucky Brown more. Then he began to play Robert Horry as a stretch 4 more, playing more small ball with 3-guard lineups. Rudy made a lot of smart adjustments that really minimized our lack of a PF and our depth on the perimeter. To just call 1995 championship as "Hakeem beast mode" is a great disservice to the rest of the team and Rudy's great coaching. That team truly is the perfect case of how little time means to chemistry. If players play well together, they will play well together. The fact that Robert Horry never started at PF and Ellie never started at SF except spot duty before the finals didn't prevent us from 4-0ing the Magic. If players are good and complement each other, chemistry will happen quickly.
No way. No need for changes or more playmaking in the rotation. With James, D-Mo, and Dwight, that's three guys who can make plays in the starting five. add JSmoove and little doses of Canaan, Papa and Shved and you have tons of playmaking to go around. The team needs to just structure and have more discipline. Ariza and Bev should be starters, but they need to just learn to get rid of the ball faster and look for our primary creators, including Dwight. Dwight needs to get in rhythm, he's way better offensive player than what he is showing right now. Bev and Ariza are great 3 and D complimentary starters, exactly what we need. Just more structure and discipline and we'll be fine.
As I said. Good point guards will do whatever the hell they want. The lack of a second playmaker when Harden gets shut down is ridiculous. Beverley needs to go.
We have that guy but McDumbass sent him down to the D-league - Canaan is better than Terry, better than any other backup PG we have and is our best 3pt shooter on the team - and the ONLY other guy that can create a shot for others and himself. Mind boggling that we looked great with him as a starter, and since he came back, we have somehow decided that a pasty Schveddy balls better than Canaan..... UGH !!! Size matters but not if you are not as good as the shorter guy. DD
I agree that Bev's days are numbered. As a starter anyway. I don't think they will totally get rid of him. The Rox head coach is too bad for them not to have at least a good floor general out there especially when Harden isn't playing like the best player in the world.
We're not going to go very far unless we get another play maker. We're just not. You shut down Harden, or Harden has a bad shooting night, and we're done. As much as a I love Patrick Beverly, he's not a starting point guard on a championship team. He needs to be a 15-20 MPG give-it-all you got defender. This stuff of having to pace himself to play 35 minutes won't work when it counts.
I actually agree with DD that this team has too many one dimensional players. This is especially so in the starting line-up. Only D-Mo, Harden (when he wants), and Dwight (when his head is in the game) play both sides of the ball. You can't have 2 of your 5 starters logging heavy minutes that can only play well on defense. Ariza is way too important to this team. Elite pg's will score at will and create for their team easily even against Bev. And he contributes next to zero on offense. We need a major upgrade at PG.
Exactly, if you are going to play Beverly at PG, you need a SF that is a good offensive threat. If you are going to play Ariza and SF, you need a PG that is an offensive threat. We lack balance. DD
I'm actually willing to take it one more step forward and say that a big reason we look so ****ty on defense lately is because our offense sucks. When the other team can basically relax on defense due to our offense sucking, they have a lot more energy on offense. All the bricks we shoot lead to easy transition buckets for the other team and our transition defense sucks anyway. When you score easily, the other team gets dejected and your defense looks better by default anyway.
Basically This. Last year Beverly's lack of offense wasn't as noticeable with Parsons taking on the task of being the secondary playmaker.
I know this is not your thing, but have you actually looked into how Canaan is playing since his injury?
What great or even decent playmaker will come here and willingly turn himself into a spot up shooter? What good player will willingly watch Harden hog the ball all game long? Conclusion: a PG who's smart enough to be a good playmaker is too smart to come here.
Bad assessment overall. The Rockets have quite a lot of plays the ball is not in Harden's hands. This is especially true lately. Also, you have just as little knowledge on what any player wants to do as any of the rest of us, so it's irrelevant to even mention that.
I think you nailed it. When harden is on the bench (or is playing extremely passive) and Bev is the primary ball handler/facilitator, this team just can't get any offensive rhythm going... He just doesn't seem to have the awareness to find the right guy in the right spot. More often than not, his passes seem to result in a turnover, either because they are too late, too early, in the wrong spot, or he just throws it out of bounds. He's a great hustle guy, although his defense seems to be slipping the past several games, and he can hit the open 3, but distributing the ball is a weakness of his. Unfortunately, instead of minimizing his weakness, Mchale seems content playing to it, much like Dwight post-ups ( granted, DH looked pretty good tonight in the post). IMHO, posting up Dwight doesn't seem to make this team any better; like Beverly, his (offensive) awareness seems to be very limited and he doesn't seem like a good passer out of the post. I can only guess that there must be a really good reason why we don't see more pick and rolls with Howard since that's his strength as opposed to posting up. Regarding Ariza, I think he will be fine as long as he's not playing 40+ mins per game along with having a descent distributer who can get the ball to him when he's open in he corner I just hope that Mchale addresses these issues and has our guys playing to their strengths and minimizing their weaknesses by the time the playoffs start.
