The Rockets main strength last season was defense. Now, the D has disappeared. What happened to the D? Josh Smith and DMo this important?
Dmo definitely. He was the team's Safety blanket last season when they need to score. Without him, Rockets a 7th or 8th seed at best last season.
The defense has gone south and the perimeter shooters can't shoot. You knew the perimeter defense was going to go down a notch when you paired Harden and Lawson, but the offense was supposed to make a big jump. Hasn't happened.
The defensive schemes are absolute garbage and that's on coaching The perimeter players are playing the passing lanes way too much hoping for a steal knowing they have Dwight back there. Also the perimeter defenders are trying to funnel everything to Dwight but that doesn't work when you go small because Dwight will go for the block and there is no one to clean up the boards leaving an easy putback.
Lawson is failing to deliver and is a huge defensive liability out there. Need to try and start Bev and see if things can get gelling
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">After a Gallinari jumper over Jones, McHale switches Jones to Barton, puts Ariza on Gallinari. Barton 3-pointer over Jones.</p>— Jonathan Feigen (@Jonathan_Feigen) <a href="https://twitter.com/Jonathan_Feigen/status/665376051229384705">November 14, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>