Danuel House and iman Shumpert have been completely unplayable so far in these playoffs. Slow feet, hesitant, unsure of where to go, or what to do with the ball, usually out of position on defensive rotations, etc. Both of them either need to do some serious soul searching, or glue their asses to the bench. Capela hasn't been much better, but at least there were signs of life from him in Game 2. House and Shumpert were DOA.
Capela has certainly been terrible, but there's a reason for that. They are fronting him and sending a defender from the corner as soon as Harden drives. The issue here is not Capela as much as it is we are not punishing their defense. Harden sometimes spends 3-4 possessions trying to get Capela that shot. Paul is utterly garbage at setting Capela up. There is no point getting Capela that shot if it requires that many turnovers. The whole point of that shot is it's extremely high efficiency (normally). If they are intent on denying it, something else has to be open. Defenders don't appear out of nowhere. If Harden has a player chasing him, another between him and Capela, and a third one (usually Klay or Durant) waiting to deny the lob, that means someone is open. It's usually our corner guy: What Capela can do to help here is stand a little further and get a running start. That means if he doesn't run for the lob, his defender is too far to bother Harden. If he does run up to it, he is no doubt going to get up higher than whoever is fronting him and possibly get the foul too. Most of the time, they are going to deny Capela. So Harden needs to hit our open man or stop and pop. A forward motion floater is not going to cut it with all the momentum he has + Durant/Donkey coming at him. You have to acknowledge that if Harden (who shares almost every minute on the floor with Capela) doesn't punish this defense, Capela is going to look bad on offense no matter what. On defense and the boards, there's no excuse for Capela's play. Most of the game he is the tallest, most athletic big out there. The other thing is, it might be the case that this is just a bad match up for Capela. Doesn't mean Capela is useless. This Warriors team is not even going to exist next season. The regular season and 28 other teams still matter. I've been saying we need to start Nene. If it's going to be a dog fight inside, then post play and a squeaky mid range shot starts mattering again more than the ability to get an alley oop. Nene has been playing well. They will iso him, but he will also be able to beat single coverage fairly easily when our offense gets bogged down.
Lets look at GSW defense. They Trap on every drive towards the basket. If the ball handler runs underneath the basket, they simply look for the pass-out. Just on that alone, several TOs Double Harden/CP just past the half-court line Play very hard 1-on-1 defense, to which there has been no counter, but relates to all our possessions once we setup half-court offense My counters for each: Start CP and Harden on the wing off-ball and let Capela drop off the ball from the top and set screen. It has been the most effective play for Capela in this series, a high PnR. We should go to that several times. Let Rivers or Green run it up with CP/Harden on full-court possession. Don't put CP or Harden on an island bringing the ball up alone w/ PJ or Capela on the in-bounds. Use off-ball CP or Harden to screen for a shooter or Capela, not the on-ball star player Let Harden post-up just inside the 3-point or mid-court to be a triple threat
Yeah, I can't say it better. When he was sick in game 4 against the Jazz, absolutely should not have been out there, and singlehandedly cost us that game, all I heard was that it was because he was sick. I didn't know he was sick until afterwards. I just thought I was watching Clint being Clint. When I heard he had two viruses, I was able to relent a little bit and just throw the blame on our coach for playing him in that state. But I didn't believe it all had to do with sickness. I'm still mad that, up 3-0, our coach chose to play a half-dead, infectious player instead of seeing what the other big men on the team could put together. And we STILL don't know the answer to that. We do know that healthy Capela's putting up exactly the same +/- on the court as he was when he was so deathly ill. Your data does indeed prove what the eyes were seeing. My eyes also saw the Warriors looking to switch to him defending them as much as possible last night. I'd say he's no more than a bench player against Bogut right now, although we absolutely know that's not going to happen.
Stop turning the ball over. Rebound and box out well. House needs to get his head out of his as* MDA needs to actually figure out his rotations Shump doesnt need to even sniff the hardwood. LAST BUT NOT LEAST...... CLINT CAPELLA NEEDS TO EITHER PUT UP OR SHUT UP......the biggest mental midget we have on this team. If he doesn't grow pair...then he needs to just gtfo out of Htown. Cant win with french pudding here.
Defense - Stop stepping up on Draymond allowing the lob to Iggy for the dunk. Dray isnt going to shoot that floater and so what if he does. Don't leave Iggy alone in the corner and allow him to shoot. He's been shooting fine all year and in the playoffs. You can sag off to help on drives, but you can't leave him completely alone like he is Draymond. Box the **** out. We can't get beat by simple pin down screens for Curry and Klay. Rivers looked lost on defensive assignments out there. Offense- Get into sets quicker Set better screens for Harden when trying to switch Curry on to him. Harden needs to make the pass quicker to the screener if they double or if they try to jump back to their original assignments. Maybe run more Gordon screens so Iggy can't leave him to get back on Harden. If he does, Gordon can shoot the 3 or drive. House has been left free in this case before cause they know he ain't doing ****.
Agreed and it seems like the last couple of seasons, they dont really attempt to fast break anymore. Basically the Run as one" mantra totally got abandoned. It's just like how Utah completely abandoned their defensive style that got them to the playoffs. We need to pick up the pace of our offense and not be so iso heavy
Do you think we should just...start Nene...lol @stefanb , I think Nene will get killed out there for too long because of his age. But given what the data is showing us, we might not have a choice. I really wish we had Nene two years ago...sigh.
Replace D'Antoni with Jeff Van Gundy.... CP3, be more aggressive and take the ball to the hole. Work faster during the shot clock. Rebound and box out. Lower the turnovers. Continue to play good defense.
He could start but I don't think Nene is capable of playing for more than like 5 minutes at a time and probably not more than 15 minutes per game. And the biggest problem we have anyway is the Hamptons 5 lineup, or whatever you want to call it, and I don't think Nene can play against that.
It's simple, yet complicated. Limit unforced errors. Box out and don't allow 2nd chance points. Do not play Shumpert, Faried. Limit Greens minutes. Continue playing Nene, despite the Warriors putting him in pick and rolls, he has done a good job when out there. Communication. We know the Warriors are moving on their picks, the Rockets have to be damn aware of it and be ready to switch immediately. Ignore missed calls, they have led to easy transition points for the opposition. Stop passing up open shots, just take them and live with the results. We live and die by the three that is part of our identity. Considering that we are down 0-2, it is probably time for Mike to go with his patented short rotations. Harden and Paul need to stop trying to target the vulnerable defenders. Every time their man is setting a pick, the defender is staying put and trapping which is making us make mistakes. Paul and Harden want to force the issue, but I think they just need be more opportunistic and not continually seek the vulnerable man if it's bringing extra help defenders. Shot clock awareness. I can't believe our players are not aware of the shot clock. We cannot have Eric trying to create for anybody else but himself. Too many unforced errors on his end dribbling the ball like a chicken with its head cut off. Timely timeouts, Mike needs to make an effort not to waste possessions. If he sees his man getting trapped or the offense not looking like they know what to do, call the time out. Let Durant and Green have theirs, focus on stopping Klay and Curry. The Rockets need to stop helping off their defender to stop a Draymond penetration. Let him take the stupid floater. I prefer he tries to make that then giving him an open player ready for the lob. Stop forcing the lob to Capela, it's rarely been there this series. No need to force it. The Warriors are hardly dominating us, unfortunately the lack of attention to detail on our end versus the focus on the Warriors end has cost us 2 winnable games. I get that we can blame the refs for game 1, but even with the bad calls we still could have won that game if we just focused on the small details.
To your point about Harden and the corners, people have tracked his passing, Harden hates and usually does not pass to the L corners. Warriors know this and are taking advantage of it. I think its because it requires his right hand to so so.
The Rockets were switching on defense off of soft picks that were 30-40 feet from the basket. We don't need to do that, and GS knows we will keep doing it. It is just really stupid. MDA still hasn't countered the defense that gives Harden the lane challenges him in the paint. Any type of motion would stop that from happening. Even running for 2-3 minutes would likely make the Warriors play him honest. Those are two areas where I think simple changes would make a difference, but I do not see it happening this late in the season. As far as what the Rockets can do better? CUT DOWN THE TURNOVERS. The Warriors took 14 more shots than the Rockets and that is the only reason they won. The Rockets out shot them from the field and from 3. Everyone is freaking out about the rebounds.... the Warriors only out rebounded the Rockets by 5. Ideally the rebounding between the teams is even........ but we can live with a -5. Unfortunately the Rockets are in an 0-2 hole but the two teams have overall been fairly even... the Rockets just had poor officiating in game 1 and in game 2 Harden was hurt and the Rockets were sloppy with the ball. The Rockets realistically have like a 10% chance of winning the series now. However, they are capable of winning the series if they take care of business at home and send it back to Oakland at 2-2. This series only has solidified my belief that the Rockets are going to add length at the 3-4....... even at the expense of shooting if they have to.