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Morey Staying = Victory for Smallball

Discussion in 'Houston Rockets: Game Action & Roster Moves' started by Imanimal, Sep 15, 2020.

  1. Imanimal

    Imanimal Member

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    This is the best news I have heard in a long time....another year of smallball!!!!!! Can’t wait to see 36-year old Tucker covering 7 footers and shooting a bunch of threes. Next year is the year Harden finally gets his trophy!!!!!! Thank goodness we kept Morey.
     
  2. tycoonchip

    tycoonchip Member
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    Well how about you start calling the Embiids and Jokic and christian woods and tall 3 pt shooting centers that want to come here for what we can afford! Make sure they can defend guards too! Small ball wasn't because of Morey! Small ball was because we got Westbrick!
     
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  3. riko

    riko Member

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    Small ball simply won’t work if teams take away you’re three ball away like the lakers did with us and on the other end feast in the paint and off the offensive glass. At the very least if you are going to go small have a versatile big who is above 6 foot 8 for rebounding purposes
     
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  4. T for 3

    T for 3 Member

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    Are you joking? The guy wrote a play about it for god’s sake!
     
  5. harold bingo

    harold bingo Udoka Only Fan
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    The other team can't take away the 3 if you have 5 guys that can shoot. Westbrooks inability to shoot really screws up the whole small ball thing.
     
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  6. Juxtaposed Jolt

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    If you don't like it, then gtfo.

    No one is asking you to stay here, either as a lurker or as a poster.
     
  7. T for 3

    T for 3 Member

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    The lakers took it away without Westbrook on the floor too, though. I’m not disagreeing with you that WB is not ideal for the system, but it’s not like you took him out of the equation and everything worked. Hell, we went 7 games with Okc and WB didn’t play half the games.
     
  8. riko

    riko Member

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    Yes but overall small only works if you have a team that has Curry and Thompson like shooters. Even they had Green and Looney who can rebound the ball and are above 6 foot 7 . Then there was a 7 footer called Kevin Durant. You are not wining with a 6 foot 5 Tucker as you’re center.

    The sooner we move on from this silly gimmick era the better
     
  9. Invisible Fan

    Invisible Fan Contributing Member

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    No one wanted a contested three. Rivers totally passed up open shots when he knew he was cold.

    Just a theory...midget ball defense makes your legs flat late game or late series.

    I didn't see PJ do that happy feet post defense in the last two games. But maybe it's because I wanted to forget those last to games.
     
  10. Rocket River

    Rocket River Member

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    Agreed. Rockets had shrinkage.
    The coach is suppose to coach them through it.


    Seriously. How much power do we feel morey has?
    Has he truly hampered every coach we had?

    I don't think so. They asked and he tried to get them what they wanted. Or what the owner wanted.

    Rocket River
     
  11. TheRealist137

    TheRealist137 Member

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    We need someone like Bam Adebayo
     
  12. Ramo$e

    Ramo$e Member

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    SMALL BALL = MDA

    slightly different....definitely not the same thing though.

    MONEYBALL = Morey (this is only true some of the time, Morey will pay you if you are worth it, see now why Rockets/Morey were hesitant to give House what he was asking for to begin with? He couldn't even finish the playoffs)

    It is true however these two concepts do not bold well when implemented congruently. Money ball often over looks players intangibles/heart. Small ball in general, as the name suggest, over looks height in favor of spacing and mobility. Not at one point when MDA was here did I ever feel like I was watching the 2000 Suns we were always a step too slow and shot way more poorly. Nash was a all time great the ball never stopped even when Nash couldn't get pass his defender outright he still got others shots or dunks.

    Morey was here way before MDA and we didn't always play small ball. We played Money ball. Which is just smart basketball. Finding open shots, TRY to hit more 3 than 2's because they are worth more, but it's not LAW. The players are the ones having trouble understanding, play your game but make HIGH BASKETBALL IQ decisions.

    Edit: Chuck Hayes was a small ball/money ball hybrid but he was just a good player all around no matter his size. The original thickness.
     
  13. Cstyle42

    Cstyle42 Member

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    We need to sign centers get over this bs.
     
  14. ThatBoyNick

    ThatBoyNick Member

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    But we suck
     
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  15. harold bingo

    harold bingo Udoka Only Fan
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    I disagree. We actually put up a lot of 3s when Westbrook was off the court, it just didn't seem like a lot because Westbrook played so many minutes. Here are the per game stats from the lakers series. With Westbrook off court the rockets shot 63% of their shots from 3, and shot 39% on those 3s. So I don't think they were really able to take it away all that well. Also, the rockets won the minutes without Westbrook on the floor (overall for the series) so I think it worked okay.

    [​IMG]
     
    #15 harold bingo, Sep 15, 2020
    Last edited: Sep 15, 2020
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  16. topfive

    topfive CF OG

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    (This post brought to you by a game-winning block only moment before.)
     
  17. Moahst

    Moahst Member

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    Are we really sure that small ball was Morey's idea? Seems like that was more of a Mike D'Antoni thing .
     
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  18. Reeko

    Reeko Member

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    U do know the Rockets were trying to get Christian Wood at the deadline right? Seems to me like they just weren’t able to get a decent big at the deadline after the Covington trade and deemed scrubs like Hartenstein and Chandler not worthy of playing.
     
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  19. T for 3

    T for 3 Member

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    Don't those stats show that we took significantly fewer threes with him off the court? Regardless, my point is not really as much about the volume as it is about the fact that there wasn't some incredibly stark difference in the offense with him on or off the court. There were times when he was off the court and the Lakers defense was stifling, and there were times when we made a run with him off the court. I am only arguing against the contention that if he was off the court we had a world beating offense that would have run through the Lakers, and he, alone, is the reason small ball failed.
     
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  20. harold bingo

    harold bingo Udoka Only Fan
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    Oh, well I agree with that. The offense was better without him, but not that much better and not world beating. The rockets obviously still lose if he doesn't play.

    The reason there are less total threes with him off is because these are per game stats, and Westbrook plays for most of the game. The rockets shot about 80 shots per game, and Westbrook was on the court for about 60, which means he's only off the court for about 20 shots. So even if the rockets are getting a ton of great looks and shooting a ton of 3s without him, that's only going to be like 10-15 3s per game. So during those short stretches, the rockets were playing their small ball game of hoisting well over half their shots from 3, and making them at a good clip.
     
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