The "Big Men Crush Smallball" argument has absolutely won.

I think people actually do understand small ball. Your point is well taken, but you have to have consistent shooters. If you don't have the shooters, then small ball becomes irrelevant. The rockets don't have those consistent shooters that can hit the 3 night in and night out. Bring back young big men that can play small or large and let harden do his thing, otherwise, ditch the small ball concept.

 

We didn’t shoot enough 3’s.

 

I think once they didn't get great enough looks, they forfeited.

 

I'd like to see Covington and Capela play together. Get er done, Mike Zarren.

 

I think the argument is you can play small ball in spurts and it works extremely well, but doing it all game is suicide. Takes too much out of the players since it requires a LOT of movement on D.

 

Because the alternative was worse. The Rockets were a worse team with Capela instead of Covington.

 

I think the biggest problem is that other teams catch on quickly and copy the strategy. It's kind of like the 3>2 thing, years ago the rockets had a pretty big advantage because they were the only team taking 40 3s while every other team was taking 15 3s. Now every team has realized this and they all take 3s per game. The league average 3p attempts per game was 18 only 10 years ago, and now it's 35. So the league has caught up. The strategic advantage goes away if the other team copies the strategy.

Morey tried to get another advantage, similar to this one, by playing "small ball" while other teams were playing traditional centers. Like @Josh Smith pointed out, it took the lakers literally one game to realize "why don't we just not play our centers then." I think if every team insisted on playing centers against us that we would win the championship. But the problem is that our "small ball" lineup is actually not that good, comparatively. Even if we did beat the lakers, the clippers could play a better small ball lineup than us. And then the celtics small ball lineup is probably better than ours as well.

You can gain an advantage with strategy, but if the other team matches your strategy, then talent will win. The rockets lost their advantage of strategy after game 1 (JaVale and Dwight combined for almost 30 minutes this game, it's no coincidence we won that one).

 

Big men < small ball < medium ball

(Medium ball meaning, guys who have length, can defend multiple positions, and can make plays better than big men)

 

NBA playoffs: Lakers embrace D'Antoni's vision, out-small ball Rockets

Ramona Shelburne is all like:



OP needs to go back to Atlanta/Detroit/Houston/Los Angeles/China/New Orleans

 

Even without javale and howard, the Lakers are not exactly small. They have a lot of length and they HUSTLE on defense, which is the most important factor. AD is 6'11, Lebron is 6'9, Green is 6'7, Kuzma is 6'8, etc. Rockets game predicats on drives to the basket and 3s. Right now, we're being out rebounded and nobody besides Harden and Gordon are successful at getting to the hoop. So basically the Lakers took away half of our offense. Additionally, we're really not he greatest 3-point shooting team, so of course we're not going to win the series.

 

Rockets don't get small players on purpose - if Morey could have snagged Paul George instead of Russ they would have gladly taken him. If they could get Kevin Durant or Joel Embiid they'd gladly take them. They take what they can get, and in terms of outside shooting and perimeter defending, it trends small rather than big - that' s just physics man.

 

Sorry, but... if you're starting Anthony Davis at any position, you're clearly not playing small ball.

 

Lakers are playing small/medium ball so I don't get this post at all.

 

AD is not a typical 5.

Hell, he has stated over and over often enough that he hates playing the 5, until THIS series.

 

Your quote of Clutch completely refutes your argument.

 

AD is the same height as D12...
Just cause AD doesnt like to play center doesnt make him any shorter... its still 6'10 AD vs 6'5 Tucker... lol

as I've said, the Lakers may have gone small-er - but they didnt go small... 3/5 of their starting lineup were taller than anybody we started... and Green was the only guy in the rotation who was at least 6'8 vs their 4 rotation guys at 6'8 and up (AD, Bron, Kuz, Morris)...

62 pitp... 62... smh...

 

Both Morey and MDA have been on record saying their system is not based on height, but skill.

"Small ball" or "micro ball" is a media misnomer.

Rockets do not refer to their system as small ball, only media and fans do that.

 

Yes, it is a misnomer.

BUT:
1. It is a fact that "skilled" players are usually smaller players. That's because the bigger you are, the slower you can move. That's just physics.

2. There are exceptions, of course (LeBron, AD, Durant, etc.) But players who are both big and skilled and mobile are rare and are super max top 10 type of players. They are extremely difficult to get if you are not one of the large markets.

So what do you get if you don't have those exceptional players and want to put 5 "skilled" players on the floor at all time? You take players 6'8 or smaller because the pool of skilled players in that size range is much larger.

There's a reason why traditional basketball always had big men. If the other team has bigger and equally skilled players, you at least can counter with having a big but not as skilled center to defend the basket and try to design the offense so that the big man can be somewhat useful. If small ball is so obviously advantageous, it's pretty strange that for half a century nobody had ever thought of it.

 

I mean...I really don't think Clint is guarding AD, he never has before.

 

Not a small ball thing.
Yeah this is simply about one team outplaying the other.
Honestly, we lost this series in Game 2. We and the team both figured if we erased a 21 point deficit, Markieff was shooting like he was a Curry, and Russ produced the worst individual playoff game ever, and it was a winnable game then we’ve got this series. Somehow we just don’t get it. I understand we can’t expect to win every game, but we have to play to win every game. We simply don’t show that, and I think a lot of people are in denial about this.