There are 2 kinds of bench depth. 1) Regular season 2) Playoffs Rockets can dance around 8-ish guys for regular season but that turns to 6-ish guys in the playoffs. Meanwhile, the Bucks have *9* PLAYOFF guys bench depth. And Giannis is only playing around 35mpg in the playoffs. THAT IS DEPTH. Rockets goal for this summer is get to *8 PLAYOFF WORTHY* rotation guys.
I still honestly feel like we were deeper than 2018 (comparing May-May). But everything fell off a cliff. Even commentators during the series were remarking that our bench was supposed to be our advantage. When Clint was nullified we had to go to Nene and Faried more, but didn't. House and Gordon should've been our bench punch, but Gordon played as a starter and was streaky between being totally passive and aggressive. House went in the doghouse and died. He was supposed to be a spark/X-factor. We continue to have zero PFs rostered in any capacity.... it's either SF or C with Morey. Pretty has been since Jones/Motiejunas left.
I think thats a recipe for a disaster though. House had 2 games in this series to prove himself and he looked shook in both of them and when the margins for error were so small, I dont know if you could chance it. With Faried its like, dude could not stay on the court, liability on both ends, Im not a big believer in throwing guys out there just for the sake of it. I think when coaches start doing that it means they are desperate and dont know what to do.
Faried's condom broke at the wrong time 8 months ago. He and Rivers should've been unsung heroes in this series. He's the LRMM what-if for this year. I almost don't feel like typing f bombs.
It was pretty laughable when the pro Giannis crowd tried to act if the supporting casts were similar or even in Houston’s favor when debating MVP.
What bench? MDA doesn’t look past #7 to often in the playoffs. We could of had the top 5 bench players In the world and DanTony would only play the 2 of them at most. What DanTony needs is two superstars to come off the bench as well or learn better rotations. We’ll see what happens when we #RunItBackAgain
Green shooting them three's early like rockets had game six in the bag. Only problem was for green, he should have drove more in second half instead of those back to back three's and misses which even Iggy answered with his own three point field made as did Thompson. That was six point swing in less than 30 seconds! Ariza might have been smarter in them situations. MDA lost confidence in the bench as soon as rivers called in sick missing that game in the Utah series. I think that was freaking game 1 of a Damm series. At that point, I'm sure MDA decided that he was not about to let series hang in the balance over rivers, a million dollar free agent. Rivers was arguably the most skilled bench player and probably most valuable bench player, and he let us down with the no show in the jazz series from the jump in game 1. Far"weed" definitely had no business making statements to the media about Ramadan especially after he missed three games late at the end of regular season during the push for getting number 2 playoff positioning. Gordon let me down with the mental mistakes, technicals, and fouling 40 feet from basket in game 6.
It’s hard to determine how much of that was our guys letting us down vs GS shutting them down. We will see what GS does to the Bucks. That will tell us a lot.
Like i said i'm really not sure Faried and/or House would've worked, but what i know is that we had guys being big negatives still out there for big minutes/moments, so why not try others when who was playing was literally doing for all the series what we're saying those two would've probably done? I mean, i'm not a fan of throwing guys out there just for the sake of it either, but we had guys being big negatives for multiple games and minutes, not sure trying someone else would've been throwing out there guys without a reason.
Like the Rockets 7-man playoff rotation, Rockets also run a out a 7-man coaching staff. Mike D'Antoni Matt Brase Brett Gunning Roy Rogers Jeff Bzdelik John Lucas Irving Roland
Fair points, but I think Green is there in case he gets hot and there was no alternative to Clint/Nene, yea I think Faried was that bad on defense.
Just looking at Bucks getting production out of guys like George Hill and surviving without Giannis, makes me wonder if we are paying attention and will adapt. You need to have guys passing the ball, getting in rhythm and just take whatever shot there's for the taking. They put up a lot of threes, but late you saw attack mode and inside shots from Bledsoe, Hill, Mirotic with a long 2 etc.
Rockets management and coaches are the biggest reason of Rockets subpar performance...they hire players who they do not trust, they trade for people who they do not trust or put them on the floor (Knight/Chris etc)..if the players aren't playable in playoffs why they are even in the team specially so many of them? Look at GS.. they regularly goes 11/12 players deep with players much worse than our bench..it's about the style..if Harden doing ISO for 20 sec. and then throw it to one of the role players there is no way he can have a good shooting percentage..whereas GS keeps the ball moving until someone frees up and have enough time to go for it.
100% agreed on this. MDA is infamous for the tight leash he puts on certain players. Certain guys make 1-2 mistakes and are yanked for the rest of the series. Other guys make 1-2 mistakes and are allowed to play it through for another 5-6 with no repercussions. I thought Faried proved his worth the whole regular season and more and it's a shame he was never able to play after the jazz series ... But then again, MDA is just one of those coaches. If they don't like a certain player, it's over for them, no matter how much better they could prove themselves to be over the players MDA likes.
Not sure it's about depth, but composition. We had 2 defensively strong, veteran swingmen in Ariza and Luc who could shoot the 3. They fit well for running the defensive switching scheme and spaced the floor with their shooting. Take those out and add Rivers, House, Shumpert, and Faried. Gordon goes to the starting 5 in the playoffs, making us smaller and taking out the 6th man threat. House is young and inexperienced and it showed in the playoffs. Rivers was better than I'd expected, but really more of a guard than a swingman. Luc was injured last playoffs, and Ariza choked badly in that last game. But, in all, they fit the team better than the guys we picked up for the bench this season.
Agreed. Our answer for Looney should've been Faried. We already proved we can beat GS w/ Faried so im not sure why he didn't play. If Kerr had enough balls to play a scrub like Looney, then we should've rolled the dice on Faried's energy