It makes no sense for this team to be so bad defensively

It’s effort. Period. It makes no sense that they’d lose by 49 tonight either. Certain members of this team have checked out.

 

People who think they are tanking? Sorry no they are not! They are really this inept. The ineptitude of this team is staggering

 

The defense is top 10.

The offense is bottom of the NBA.

As in the worst.

Wrong hill to die on.

 

You're going off the assumption the team doesn't quit.

This team has a hell of a lot of quit in them.

It's why they'll never be Rockets fan favourites like the Lowry/Scola/Landry years.

 

I think you hit the nail on the head
it is an Effort thing

I dunno if they trying . .. . so busy trying to pad their stats
Showcase themselves

Make no Mistake. . . . talk is talk
but JOHN WALL WANTS OUT! He does not want to be on a losing team
a tanking team
a team of the future.

Rocket River

 

People still don’t realize that this team has quit the season? Stop talking about how they shouldn’t be this bad at X, Y, or Z. They’ve QUIT!

the Rockets are the equivalent of some teenager who bothered to put in their 2 week notice at Burger King instead of just leaving and never coming back...that kid’s not gonna give a fck...they’ll be at the register with zero customer service getting orders wrong and everything...the players dgaf...they are only at the games because they have to be so they can collect their check

 

yup... we're pretty good on D and the switching works for our limited athletes. the issue is, this team can't shoot for **** and it's so bad that we might see shooting % improvements if we just attempted globe trotteresque half court shots.

 

Wall is sad his bff Boogie is gone no doubt. He don't hide it very well.

 

Offense feeds defense. What has been happening is that our defense can only hold up for so long after missing shot after shot and ruining offensive possessions where we get as good a shot as you can get. When your top players miss WIDE open threes (Wall, Oladipo, Gordon, and basically everyone else has been abysmal), when they can't finish near the rim, miss mid-range shots, throw the ball away or turn it over, etc. then the defense at some point will collapse, and at least last night, give up. The pathetic thing about last night is that the Grizzlies weren't playing great offensively. They missed plenty of open shots, and their best players were having an off night. And we still got CRUSHED.

 

I do think the upcoming trades will bring some energy back. PJ is dogging it and shouldn’t be getting minutes if the team wants to win. Tate should start and PJ should sit, He’s not talented enough to not try. I don’t anticipate another losing streak longer than 5 games, but I will be rooting for them now.

 

You answered yourself.

 

Last I checked, they were top 10 in defense and near the bottom in offense.

Of course, if you are losing over and over and a tanking culture starts to set in, it’s hard to be motivated to put in the work required to be good on that end of the floor.

 

Defensive Rating

Season(32 games) : 109.9 (10th)

Pre Trade(9 games) : 111.1(22nd)
Post Harden(23 games) : 109.5 (6th)

Post Harden until extended Wood injury(12 games) : 102.2(1st)

Last 15 : 113.1(17th)
Last 10 : 118.3(26th)
Last 5 : 117.2(26th)

I think if you look at these numbers you would say wow Wood is the difference between best defense in the league and ****. Definitely a big loss to the defense, but I looked a little deeper into what level of offense we faced over that 12 game stretch and were key pieces missing from the teams we faced.

Offensive rating of teams faced during that 12 game stretch(bolded if team was missing key rotation pieces)

22nd, 22nd, 15th, 8th, 25th, 12th, 20th, 7th, 6th, 29th, 29th, 19th

My conclusion, missing our only defensive force in the middle is hurting us, but I think another reason our defense has statistically looked better than it might be in reality is the level of opponent faced up to this point along with tougher opponents missing key offensive weapons.

 

How many games has Wall and Oladipo played together? 5? 8? They both have been sitting out a bunch at different times... almost none of those games have they played with an NBA center not named Cousins which tells you they have no backstop at the rim...

They win or they lose. It doesn't ultimately matter that much. This is about building a new team and figuring out what we have...

 

Well Dipo is always injured and to be honest he dosent look to invested in the Rockets

 

I may be wrong, but I think this is all pretty simple. Made baskets allow you to get your defense back and set up. When you have a dozen extra possessions a game (or more) that you are scrambling back after another brick, it doesn't really matter your talent. The statistics catch up to you.

 

Of course they should be. We seem to be okay on the perimeter. We scramble hard and recover well. But the other teams just always seem to knock down tough three pointers. But our defense is had because we have NO interior presence. Even Wood is a bit of a lightweight down there. Cousins was a big body and could at least knock some people around. But we struggle to box out (mostly effort from what I’ve seen — but also partly bc of height)