I respect you, your posts, and grizzlies fandom but not cool right now. Also incorrect. Warriors, cavs both launch the 3 ball
be honest. we lost a Max player, all star center in Dwight Howard as well as another former all star who decided not to show up at all last season. Did you really see us making it to the Western Conference semi finals or being the third seed? statistically, this is where we lose. The third seed is more likely to lose to the second seed. Especially if they are Greg Popovich and the San Antonio Spurs. after last season and before it all started just making the playoffs and losing in 5-6 games was overachieving. there was no turn around, normally you would get a few lotto picks before reaching the point where the Rockets are now. that doesn't mean I see much room for improvement. I said at the start of the season we are at the Phoenix Suns team that kicked ass in the regular season and didn't make as much noise in the playoffs but they did OK just never won anything.
It's hard to outscore a team when you let them shoot 45% or better from the field, especially when the only way you want to counteract it is with jacking up more 3s. The grizzlies Conley runs the team where it makes it difficult for the spurs to get into a rhythm. The rockets don't care about that and just want to outscore you.
That's right, they do. And the grizzlies have been able to do a number on both of those teams despite the huge lack in talent. The difference is that the cavs have LeBron, who can make a basket in the half court any time and plays all woerld defense and the warriors are fielding allstar teams. Two things the rockets don't have.
Pop made a simple defensive adjustment that won this game -- he put Aldridge on Ariza and Green/Simmons/Leonard on Anderson. This did two things -- eliminated the Anderson pick and pop because now you can easily switch that play, a play that's an essential weapon of the Rockets offense AND it created a supposed "mismatch" with Ariza and Aldridge. This perceived advantage led to the Rockets having Ariza go one on one WAY WAY more than he should ever, period. The offense stalled and couldn't flow because of this, resulting in way too much Harden iso; games where Harden has to do that (and he had to tonight), do not favor us, in my opinion. THEN -- D'Antoni makes zero adjustments to Pop's moves. Anderson is rendered completely ineffective and he plays him down the stretch with Ariza, standing arms folded on the sideline like a goon, keeping Beverly tied to the bench for almost all the fourth quarter out of pure ignorance? Stubbornness? Our most effective leader? On the bench? Why. Just Sad. Meanwhile Pop doesn't have to make any counter-moves, sticks to his game plan to T and gets the proud W. Also -- check out that Green play out of the time-out that resulted in a corner 3. A genius call to put an exhausted Harden in a defensive position of weakness at a pivotal point in the game. I hope D'Antoni unfolds his arms and gets to work in Game 4. The end thanks bye.
Moreyball says the should be hitting wide open 3's and layups. Rockets are missing WIDE OPEN 3's and layups. They aren't playing Moreyball.
i don't get why people think that suns team wasn't good in the playoffs. the first year they came together they got to the conference finals and lost to the spurs in their prime. then 2 years later when amare was back, they were some infamous suspensions away from maybe beating the spurs, at which point they would have only had to beat a 4 seed utah and lebron's overmatched cavs. that spurs series was pretty much for the title, it just happened to be in the second round because it's the western conference. and they were right in it even with those suspensions. and then i think they still made the conference finals 3 years after that.
Moreyball is the best system in basketball, maybe all of sports. It took a roster with a single all-star and produced a team with the 3rd best record in the league. That's worthy of praise. In the playoffs though, a system alone can only take you so far. You still need talent to score points when the system breaks down, and unfortunately, star free agent after free agent have passed on us. The biggest thing to come out of this season is the Rockets have restored their credibility around the league. Morey finally has something legitimate he can sell to free agents and trade targets.
How many championships has Morey brought us so far? I'm still counting zero but your mileage may vary.
And that's relevant why? You can have credibility around the league without winning a title. How did Boston get Horford? That roster didn't win any titles.
When did we lose this 'credibility' thing you keep harping on? What big FA's in the last 5 years did you expect for us to sign that we missed out on? Lebron? Durant? Those were never realistic options. You mentioned Horford. His contract is also 4 years like Anderson's except its $33M more. You're really talking about Horford? You should praise the lord we didn't get him. We also dodged bullets on Melo and Bosh. we also didn't re-sign Parsons when he was our FA. Another disaster avoided. Did you forget we got Dwight as a FA? Obviously that didn't pan out in the end but that was a HUGE signing for us when it happened. Off the top of my head in the last 5 years we got Lin after Linsanity. Ariza coming off a career year as a wizard. Gambled on Asik who was productive for us. Got J-Smoove for almost nothing and he helped us. Gordon has been huge for us. Nene was a big win. Ryan Anderson was a big signing for us and a good signing on paper. Obviously he flopped but there were other suitors for him. So that's 1 superstar and a few starters/key rotation guys that we were able to get. This year Morey built a team with plenty of talent and we have a lot of weapons while maintaining plenty of flexibility (typical Morey). It's not about FA's passing us up. It's about execution (lack thereof) and missing shots.
3 games in, his girlfriend complains about premature ejaculation, I tell her don't worry, he does this with everything
Good post. You summed up exactly he way I see it. The refs were a factor last night. In the playoffs they sometimes "let them play" and swallow their whistles which hurts us much worse than most teams if we can't hit the three balls.
