More TJo and DMo please

basketballholic · May 3, 2014

basketballholic said: ↑

That is the HUGE question. While my heart hopes they do...my eyes and my basketball iq tell me they will not.

In order for this team to win a ring this year with Jones or DMo in the rotation at least one of those guys is going to have to become an effective enough 3-point shooter that the defense has to account for them. Because if they don't the defense will fade off and water down the efficiency of Harden and our other shooters enough to defeat us. I don't know what round it will come in but I know that is what will eventually happen if one of those two guys doesn't start making the 3-ball frequently enough to become a threat that the defense has to account for and play more straight up for.

We COULD....I said COULD...... get upset in the first round because of this fatal flaw in our team...if we draw the wrong match-up.
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Ah well, we weren't going to win anything anyways. Yeah, more Jones and DMo please.

jbasket · Mar 11, 2015

edit: wrong thread. sorry.

jbasket · Mar 11, 2015

edit. wrong thread.

megastahr · Mar 11, 2015

dobro1229 said: ↑

No I dont have all day to read your opinion pieces sorry.

Again... this is all opinion. Your insinuating things (like trying to increase Jones' value for a trade) that have no backing whatsoever.

I'm asking for actual basketball analysis of what led McHale to choose Jones over Casspi/Jones/D-Mo when the TT failed, and what led to D-Mo eventually weeding Casspi out of the PF rotation, and you just give generic opinion responses made to sound like fact. You are pretty much the CF version of Sean Hannity. Emotional opinion, packaged and sold as fact.
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YAHH!! you should be more like the rest of the unbiased fact rich liberal media over MSNBC and CNN... What a freakin joke. I know this isnt what this thread is about but how moronic.

dobro1229 · Mar 11, 2015

megastahr said: ↑

YAHH!! you should be more like the rest of the unbiased fact rich liberal media over MSNBC and CNN... What a freakin joke. I know this isnt what this thread is about but how moronic.
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???

I don't even know when that quote was from but you could replace Right Wing mouthpiece for the opposite side. The formula is the same. Try to formulate your message out to the masses that you know will piss off the other side more than inform those who care what you have to say.

I think the kids these days just refer to this as "Trolling". Politics are besides the point.

daywalker02 · Mar 12, 2015

Anyone has the Jones behind the back handling the ball?

i3artow i3aller · Mar 12, 2015

daywalker02 said: ↑

Anyone has the Jones behind the back handling the ball?
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daywalker02 · Mar 12, 2015

Must spread some rep around

hakeemthagreat · Mar 12, 2015

I know he's a fan favorite here. But if DMo continues his non existent post defense and YMCA level rebounding, then we can't play him during the playoffs. Dorsey as well. They are good for a couple of charges, but Robin Lopez looked like Anthony Davis out there

KlutchQT · Mar 12, 2015

hakeemthagreat said: ↑

I know he's a fan favorite here. But if DMo continues his non existent post defense and YMCA level rebounding, then we can't play him during the playoffs. Dorsey as well. They are good for a couple of charges, but Robin Lopez looked like Anthony Davis out there
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"YMCA level rebounding" and "Dorsey" don't belong in the same paragraph. Rebounding is the one thing he's really great at.

chenjy9 · Mar 12, 2015

KlutchQT said: ↑

"YMCA level rebounding" and "Dorsey" don't belong in the same paragraph. Rebounding is the one thing he's really great at.
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Agreed. Rebounding is not the issue with Dorsey. He's a pretty good defender IMO too. He just sucks at everything else, including dunking.

cruwinas_lawona · Mar 12, 2015

Nice read:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/...e-houston-rockets-best-low-post-scorer-threat

Houston22 · Mar 12, 2015

Dee Mo for three mo

Htownballer38 · Mar 12, 2015

chenjy9 said: ↑

Agreed. Rebounding is not the issue with Dorsey. He's a pretty good defender IMO too. He just sucks at everything else, including dunking.
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The last few games or so he's been dunking the ball and making some nice strong moves in the paint.

basketballholic · Dec 16, 2015

basketballholic said: ↑

No you haven't. I've already determined that DMo could perhaps have significant value next season if he will work on his jumper and become an efficient 3-point shooter.

However...if he continues to develop as a post player...in my opinion he will wind up being a middle-of-the-road center in this league. He'll become a worse Al Jefferson...all offense, not as good on the glass as Jefferson is..and almost as bad as Jefferson is defensively. DMo is never going to be an ace defender like you are projecting with advanced metrics. When he has to play the defensive 5 with a true power forward he fails.

So in my opinion the best thing DMo could do for his game is become an efficient shot-maker. That will allow him to play the 4 alongside a true 5 and his defense will look a lot better playing with a defensive stopper behind him.
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basketballholic said: ↑

I agree with this. I think DMo has surpassed TJones in defensive presence. And I'm surprised that has happened. But DMo is getting to spots, taking charges, being a nuisance for the most part.

TJones is getting played by the opposing offense when he is out there. Offenses are starting to concentrate on isoing him and getting him involved in pick-and-roll defense where they can take maximum advantage of his poor decision-making. Just watching the Heat game...they started the game by getting a switch-off with Jones on Lebron and Jones and Harden trying to defend Lebron and Wade in the pick-and-roll. (Disaster)

However....giving DMo every benefit of the doubt....he cannot stretch out to defend the perimeter. He's just not a good perimeter defender. He is much improved in the paint but on the perimeter .... just as piss poor as Jones. I wouldn't have any more confidence in DMo out there getting played in the pick-and-roll then I would with Jones. Both guys are going to get worked in the playoffs in isos and pick-and-roll coverage.

On this point I sadly disagree. While we have enough offense against the lottery teams and lower echelon playoff contenders that don't defend well...we do not have enough offense against the better defensive teams .... such as Miami.

Those guys (the teams we're going to have to beat to win a championship) force the ball to our weak spot....the 4 spot. They force our weakest player to have to make decisions. Or they force us into playing 4 on 5 and taking more contested shots while they leave our 4 man open all the time. Good defenses simply don't care how many points Jones scores. They want Jones scoring a bunch while they take away Harden, Howard, and Lin. That's why it's critical in my opinion for us to find "small ball" or "shooting" lineups to work and that's why it's critical in my opinion that if we're going to run a guy out there at the 4 that is going to get lost on the perimeter defensively and is going to shoot under 30% from the 3-point line then we might as well get the strongest defensive presence on the floor at the big spots that we can get (Twin Towers) when teams go with two bigs on us.
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basketballholic said: ↑

Badump badump badump badump

Casspi is the best option with our starting lineup if we aren't going to commit to true small ball.

True small ball is 2 point guards in the backcourt and Harden and Parsons or another SF up front around the center.

Casspi is not a 3. He's not fast or quick enough to to play offense or defense at the 3. Casspi is a small, quick 4. Yes, his release is slow. And yes he guns up too many shots when he is playing from the bench. But...when he starts with the starters...different story altogether. Casspi is given the same wide-open looks that Jones is given that Jones turns down. And Casspi's slow release is a lot more effective than Jones even slower release. Casspi is good enough that he forces the defense to dive out on him which opens up the dribble drive for him. Honestly...Casspi is the best fit at the 4 alongside our starters if we aren't going to go small. He hustles, plays hard, and he's got the better skill set to fit the starting unit.

Casspi at the 4 (or even Parsons at the 4 with Garcia or Hamilton at the 3) are better starting options than Jones.
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basketballholic said: ↑

Yes, Casspi does have a slower release. LOL...what kind of release does Jones have? Jones' release is slower than slow and the defenders don't want to close out on him. They dare him to shoot it...which he doesn't most of the time, thereby forcing our offense to try to run a secondary play with the clock running down.

Casspi is not a great finisher but he is good enough especially when playing alongside a rebounder like Dwight.

Jones/DMo don't give us an edge on the glass or defending the post either. LOL

No, he doesn't have more athleticism and handles than TJones. He has more overall basketball skill including the #1 key skill, the ability to shoot a basketball, that Jones does not possess.

No, he doesn't move the ball when playing on the scrub unit. He chucks it. Now...that's a given. Do you really think he'd be chucking it up with the starters out there or do you think he would be more selective knowing that if he chucks it he's going to sit down for a long time??????

True. Very limited sample sizes for both Casspi and DMo with the first unit. But what we do have is a very good sample size of Jones with the other 4 starters going against playoff contenders. We know what that looks like. We know the numbers, the advanced metrics, everything we need to know. Our starting unit cannot consistently trump those other starting units and in fact we are under water against the playoff teams in the West and the top 3 contenders in the East. So....when you look at the lineups....who should be considered for replacement? Harden? Dwight? Parsons? Bev? or Jones? (not Rocket science here).

No, McHale is not anti-Semitic. (That wasn't worth commenting on really. But you shouldn't have even suggested it.)

Here's what has transpired this season. Jones got dinged in preseason. We played the last 2 or 3 games of the preseason with Howard and Asik starting. They looked ok and with Casspi being plugged in behind one of the bigs for shooting/spacing they looked really good. We dominated Memphis in the preseaon with the Twin Towers. I think we beat the Spurs with it too.

Then we started the regular season and looked ok but we got beat by the Clips. McHale tried to run Dwight on Blake and Asik on DeAndre. Wrong matchups. Asik has the quicker feet out on the floor in space. Should have been the other way. Asik on Blake and Dwight on DeAndre. We lost. Then we lost a fluke game to the Lakers with the Twin Towers. Bad shooting, etc. Just one of those early season flukes. Then we lost to the Clips again with the same combinations, no adjustments made on the bigs. We then lost to Philly with Harden out injured and Asik only playing limited minutes. The Twin Towers was declared a failure and Jones was handed the opportunity to start. I suspect mostly because Casspi was doing well coming off the bench behind the starters and they didn't want to upset that second unit chemistry and scoring punch. Because Jones had really done nothing to deserve being promoted to the first team. It was simply a matter of Asik's attitude being bad and McHale declaring the Twin Towers a failure.

Jones however did come out of the chute with the starters shooting 10/21 (47%) on the 3-ball up until December 1. That early shooting streak along with his rebounding and help D cemented him in as the starter and he has remained there since despite shooting a terrible 19/73 (26%) on the 3-ball from December 1 until now. If you will recall we had a lot of discussion back in November and early December about if Jones could continue shooting the 3-ball that well. We all knew he couldn't maintain the high 40's but some of you thought he could shoot 33-36% the rest of the way and wind up in the high 30's for the season. I didn't believe that. Just looking at his form I knew he was going to eventually crash back to earth on his shooting.

But.....we won enough games with him starting that his shooting really hasn't become an issue. And to compound matters Casspi's shooting went south with the bench brigade.

Also, if you will recall, DMo wasn't playing any at all. The only reason he started getting minutes is because he requested a trade OR at least to be sent to RGV so he could play. Morey approached McHale asking him if he planned on giving DMo minutes because if he wasn't Morey was going to let him go to RGV and play. It was at that point that McHale started giving DMo minutes and DMo has played well enough to continue to get minutes.

Well, with the emergence of DMo that further pushed Casspi out of any rotation minutes and he was relegated to mop-up duty...where he has turned into an obsessive chucker. (I hate that about him. He plays absolutely stupid out there in mop-up.)

So...Jones is riding the coattails of what he did the first few weeks of the season and we have won enough games that McHale hasn't made any changes.

(There's another dynamic that I believe is in play here. I'm putting this in parentheses because I know that there are a lot of you that will disagree with this. But it is my belief anyways. When Jones should have been benched he was not because if he were benched his trade value would have gone in the toilet and Jones was the player we were dangling alongside Lin to possibly move Lin's contract. Just my opinion, but I think Morey talked to McHale about keeping Jones in there to maximize his trade value. Trade never happened though but it's still a possibility as soon as June 30th. So we really can't afford to crater Jones' trade value by benching him. We've got to continue to run him out there and hope he throws down some dunks and looks as good as possible with the starters. The reason I believe this is we are going against the metrics by continuing to run Jones out there for so many minutes. This organization is much smarter than that. We're still trying to get a 3rd superstar. If we had our 3rd guy and Jones was one of the rotation, I believe he would have already been sat down.) That's all in parentheses because it's my opinion and I can't back it up. It's conjecture on my part and I know most of you don't believe it.

The truth is Jones has been playing very bad for a long time now. It's not as noticeable on a really good team when we are playing lottery teams. But it shows up consistently when we play great teams. Jones is essentially a garbage man offensively with no ability to shoot a jumper consistently from anywhere on the court. Jones DOES NOT want to shoot the jump shot even when the opponent leaves him wide open. And defensively Jones simply cannot hang with ANY of the top 15 power forwards in this league. He's gonna get iso'd up in the playoffs against them by our opponents and he's gonna get sent to the bench with foul trouble.

Now...do I believe Casspi is a great player? Absolutely not. But Casspi is the superior shooter to both Jones and DMo. It's not even close. I happen to believe that for now Casspi should be the starter however. Because with Dwight in the middle you need the best possible shooter at the 3 to maximize Dwight in the post and to maximize the effectiveness of Harden/Dwight on the pick and roll. And Casspi simply does not give up that much more defensively than Jones or DMo gives up.

I believe for us to be a championship contender that McHale is going to have to get a very short leash on the 4-spot no matter who is out there. If he starts Jones he can't afford to keep Jones out there if Jones is getting torched by the opposing PF defensively. He's got to bring in Asik on the bigger PFs or go small ball and move Harden down or Parsons over on smaller 4's that are spreading us out. By the same token if Jones can't hit a shot and the defense is funneling the ball to him...McHale has to go yank him and go with a shooter..either go with small ball or get Casspi/Garcia/etc. in there at the 4. And in my opinon, when you look at Garcia, Casspi, Parsons....Casspi is the guy best qualifed to fill that spread 4 spot. He's a little bigger and stronger than Parsons and definitely bigger and stronger than Garcia.

DMo......he should be given a look with the starters. He has played very well alongside Asik. I really think that is where he should stay for the benefit of the second unit however. Because his post game can be used there. DMo's post game really can't be used if he is on the floor with the starters. He really needs to space the floor to add more effectiveness than Jones. We wouldn't be running plays for DMo in the post with Dwight in there. We could run plays with DMo in the post with Asik and the second unit.

In finality, I don't think we have minutes for more than 3 bigs. 2 of those bigs are Howard and Asik. Howard and Asik have to get 30 minutes each for us to contend for a championship. That means they have to absolutely be out there for a few minutes together. And I think we will see this in the playoffs especially if we get Memphis or the Spurs or the Thunder or the Clips. Those 4 teams are going to necessitate us running Howard/Asik out there together to stop their bigs.

When you consider this along with knowing we have to play small-ball a lot of times to stretch the floor I believe in the playoffs we are going to see at least one of Jones/DMo's minutes severely limited. Frankly, with the way both guys are playing right now...the odd man out should be Jones, with either Casspi or Asik becoming the starter and either Casspi or DMo as the 3rd big alongside Dwight/Asik. Will it happen? Probably not. I suspect Jones is our 2014 version of Chucky Brown...the default starter that plays 20-30 minutes during the regular season, who continues to start in the post season and averages about 10 minutes a game before he is jerked.
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Casspi sure looked good tonight. I still think he'd be a great option as a stretch 4 around Howard/Harden. I'd trade Terrence for him tonight if I could.

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More TJo and DMo please

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More TJo and DMo please

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