Looked like we ended the game with two timeouts Why? When Paul is out and Harden is on the ground in the back court why no time out? MDA....... What's up? I understand faith in Vets but come on..... We needed a good shot Rocket River
Ariza was feeling it all night so I don't blame him. MDA should've taken a TO & drawn up a play though.
Interesting things noted from this game. The Thunder have been closing games out well recently and being a good defensive team was a good learning experience for the Rockets with CP3 sitting. I would have preferred we locked in defensively and get the stops than foul Roberson. After Roberson takes the free throws it is half court offense versus a very good defensive team. Hard to get a transition basket after a free throw. I reason MDA wanted Roberson out of the game for a while but he would be back in the last 2 minutes anyway. Rockets need to practice a strategy when Harden is double teamed and he has to give up the ball so that the other players need to find the open man or a cutter to the basket, as the Warriors were able to do when Curry was double teamed before Durant joined the team. Obviously when CP3 is back that solves that problem. In latter part of a close game we should not be taking contested threes unless the shot clock is about to go off, that is a low percentage shot and you will probably lose against quality opposition. With players like Harden, Gordon and Ariza playing a lot of minutes you can expect fatigue at the end of the game to be a factor. Good time for our coaches to get back to work on the Rockets being good defensively again despite the injuries. Recently teams have been scoring way above their average against the Rockets and shooting well. MDA is trying to get the Rockets out of the habit of waiting to the fourth quarter to play harder defensively.
Even beyond the Ariza shot. we ended the game with 2 timeouts. maybe just use them to give the team a blow to make some adjustments to do something Rocket River
Rockets need more role players who can handle ball for short spurts. Smoove allowed Harden a breather when on floor together because of his vision/passing and confidence. All 4 of other starters should be able to burn teams from doubling Harden.
OKC has one of the worst offenses in the league. We just sucked defensively, can't even contain them. We're 29th in the league defensively when CP3, Luc and Capela are injured. Those 3 are a huge part of our defense with CP3 being the floor general.
