Hey Rockets fans, I made breakdown video taking a look at why they struggle on D so much. I go into specific problems they are having such as communication. Thanks for watching and let me know what you think of their D. [youtube]j3lymo2s5c0[/youtube]
Cool video man , if you goto the embed option on youtube you can copy and past the code here so that the video itself will appear: <iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/j3lymo2s5c0" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
excellent until the last 25 seconds when you foolishly joined the MEDIA CONSPIRACY to bash James Harden as a bad defender. :grin: drop the media agenda dude, don't you know he's carrying us offensively? other than that, nicely done.
I don't really think anyone needs a video to know where this team is terrible at defensively. We all see it plain as day game in game out. No point hammering the fact in and forcing us to watch our team's embarrassing attempts at defense a second time.
A lot of the points you made have been discussed on here before, so it was really nice seeing a clip by clip narration. One thing that stood out to me and I never put together before was how we always have Dwight or Capella move that far out and guard every perimeter player like an allen or curry. It always seemed wrong but was just something I didn't think to question for some reason (probably because of the countless lapses making any defensive woe an intrinsic characteristic to our style of play.) I think changing that will go a great way. It'll always come down to the weakest link though, which is Harden. There is only so much you can compensate for him on the defensive end night in and out. We saw what happened when he was much more committed to playing both sides of the ball last year, so while we can fix many of the other issues (stupid PnR defense etc) we're going to have to address the main issue if we expect to gain any traction. The lack of communication probably stems from the undisciplined free-lance style of play, but having to anticipate a 4 on 5 defensive effort to switch onto Harden's man creates chaos on the court. When you have chaos, you have no structure and everybody is a headless chicken looking in the wrong direction. I saw that in half the clips.
I wonder if you could compare last years rotation to this years. I.e.: did the rockets hedge that high in the pick and roll in 2015?
Good stuff OP. Post more. Just a couple comments. 1. Transition defense is the type of defense you want to avoid if at all possible. There are precious few teams who are actually "good" at transition defense. In other words, there are precious few teams who actually make their opponents less efficient offensively when they are in transition then when they are in half-courts sets. So, the point is to stay out of transition defense as much as possible. Unfortunately for us, we are at the top of the league in being in transition defense as opposed to half-court set defense because of our ridiculous turnovers and the fact, as you correctly pointed out, that when Harden drives and we are four flat that we have one gimpy guy with a bad leg (Bev) back to defend the runouts. That is a function of our offense and is one huge reason why our offense has to change or we aren't going to win anything. Two guys in the corners, then Harden with the basketball running pick-and-roll with a big man rolling to the rim. That winds up 4-flat with Bev gimping back on a bad wheel to take on multiple guys faster, more athletic, and longer than he is. Secondly, excellent job pointing out our bigs hedging way out high on the pick-and-roll. Will never work when the point of attack is coming right down the middle. The high hedge was designed to be played after we turned the ball handler to the sideline. But that's not happening this season. (Which is why I have said we need to trade Bev. He simply cannot do the things he used to do for us.) So, when the opponent runs P-n-R right at us from the top it puts us in the rotation machine early. And rotation defense is a gimmick. Rotating is ok when you can get a defensive advantage...such as using the sideline to partially defend and hem-in the ball handler. Then rotating turns into organized mayhem because you have the advantage early defensively. But rotating with the P-n-R coming right at you from the top is a gimmick. It has about the same odds of effecting offensive efficiency as being in transition defense does. Not very good for any NBA team. So the answer is to not hedge the big all the way out from up top, isn't it? Here's the problem with that......Bev simply CANNOT fight over the screen anymore. We're going to get torched either way. And that's part of the reason why I changed my signature several months ago to "This is the wrong mix of players to win a championship." There are no answers with this bunch because it's not the right bunch. Even with the right coach they don't have the requisite skills to play the type of D and O required to win championships. We re-signed guys that simply aren't that good. Bev plays hard. He's a bulldog. But he's not talented enough. And now he's nicked and it's probably a permanent nick. He's not the answer for us at the 1. He could be a good backup but not starting material. Same thing with Trevor. Trevor is aging, getting worn down, and he's simply not good enough to be the 3rd option offensively, which he has been way too often for us. Power forward...another gaping hole which we've tried to fill with an inferior talent for the last 3 seasons. And then we let one of our best defenders walk (Smoove) this off season and didn't replace him on the roster. I don't know what anybody else expected but I had serious doubts about this team going into the season because of the above.
Thx for the video..pretty much explains it the woes. Especially the communication breakdwons. The Rockets look like dear caught in the headlights running back on defense. Some sort of Psychological trauma going on with these guys. Maybe hypnosis would help in removing this trauma they keep getting whacked across the head over and over again in games. Also, the Rockets being one of the worst Transition D teams in the NBA while taking the most 3 point attempts in the league is a bad recipe for disaster and it's not a coincidencea as one detriment impacts the other. Especially since they brick most of the 3 point attempts putting a ton of pressure on their sucky Transition Defense by default. It's kinda like an NFL ranking almost last in the league in passing defense playing man to man on wide receivers. Just asking for trouble. They play defense as if they scored on their possession and they can trot back on defense and gamble with all this stupid high pick and roll stuff while the other team is pushing the ball down their throat getting easy open shots. So when the other team scores it's a double whammy and it becomes repetitive like some form of traumatic basketball abuse. Other teams start doggin them over and over again. It's a formula all teams use on the Rockets. Same plays being run on them over and over again. One MAJOR REMEDY would be is to stop taking a HIGH PERCENTAGE of 3 pointers. When they take that many 3 pointers and miss them it's almost like a turnover because the other team is scoring at a high percentage off their misses. Rockets are reinforcing their own Traumas night after night, miss after miss. I look at this like a psychological condition that they need to break. A bad habit. Having said all that I'm looking forward to seeing what Goldilocks can do from the 3 because outside of him I don't know anyone else on this team that should try to shoot 3's 10 times per game with confidence.
Great post OP...send this to Jb and be tehre for a presentation cuz i doubt he can read film or adjust depending on that...also please give him a cheat cheat rotation card thank you....anyways being serious It was impossible to predict beverlys decline defensively going into the season like holic suggests , so even though we lost josh i still thought a great defensive pg with a great defensive center should keep our defense in the middle tier of the league but boy was i wrong. This is probably the worst defense ive ever witnessed in my life, and its because it happens with a lack of effort (communication,rotation), plain dumb coaching, and plain stupid players who would rather steal then play good defense and make it hard for the offensive player. Our big should never go that HIGH in the P&R, as the op pointed out with our lack of rotations the opponent will score 80% of the time, just ****in eliminate that stupid strategy, because you also take our only viable rebounder out of the paint. Id rather a 3 be taken with bev fighting to cover then a layup drill, or a wide open 3.... these are 3 things that will help this ****show of a defense 1.Dont gamble, settle for good position defense instead of gambling wrecklessly 2. Dont switch on every P7R, how stupid of a team can you get. 3.Communicate!!!!!!!!
Nothing the players can't fix themselves, transition wise & getting back. That's effort (or lack thereof) Nothing Van Gundy or Thibodeau or Ron Adams couldn't fix. LOL at John Blair Bickerstaff being the "defensive coordinator" LOL at the Rockets promoting that "defensive coordinator" Hubie Brown said paraphrasing "If you're not on board and you're not back, where are you?
Our coaches since Mchale has been here with he and his assistants have been able to talk a good game but cant really execute. It's one of the reasons I never liked Mchale. More Defense! Play Harder! That's great but whats the plan. The gambling is partly Morey's fault in that he got players that naturally gamble. Harden, Ariza, Brewer are all thieves but they not good ones, they gamble a lot. That's the problem with just looking at stats and not understanding the reason why. Ariza is top 4 in steals in the league the Rockets are # 1 but how many baskets to they just give up on gambling.
JBB was our defensive coordinating type last year - but - uh, yeah, well maybe filling a team with low IQ players was not the best idea. Where is our Shane Battier type? We have a couple of decent IQ players in Harden, Dmo, Jet -- but the rest are clueless - such a frustrating team - how can a guy as smart as Morey undervalue intelligence so much? DD
Nice video, thanks. As you mention, we were much better defensively last year and while that has a lot to do with effort, I'd like to see a comparison video showing how we handled PnR, high screens, backdoor cuts and other opponents' offense as opposed to this year. It boggles my mind how we "got it" last year, but this year, not so much.
Translation : Rockets are horrible defensivly, warriors will sweep them and make them look like fools come 1st round.
Different team, different effort level, we had DMo at Center for 40+ games, we had Papa off the bench, we had Smoov playing hard, we had Prigioni and his smarts off the bench - the team just fit better. This year, we have agendas clouding up the team game, primarily Howard and his DESIRE to get his numbers for his next contract being more important than winning to him. DD
you nailed it on this being a different team. Yep, Howard thought he was going to be THE GUY on the Rockets with Harden being the side kick. Boy did that turn on it's head...200 Mil Adidas contract and all. The stuff Howard thought would happen to him Harden stole it seems is how Howard seems to view it.
