This team has too many players without clear roles

Everybody has a very clear defined role. Here's the list:
Fred - either move 2 feet to the side off a Sengun screen and either chuck it or throw it immediately to Sengun with no space/mismatch created.
Jalen - same as Fred but sometimes drive in to traffic yourself instead of passing it back to Sengun so he can drive into traffic.
Brooks - look angry, chuck shots, stand around doing nothing the rest of the time.
Jabroni - Stand around and do nothing.
Sengun - either DHO to Fred or Jalen to drive in to traffic, iso post up, or screen then receive a too early pass and drive into traffic.
Amen - either stand in the dunker spot and dunk, or cut and dunk. If you have the ball use your speed to create what your coach is unable to create for you in plays.
Tari - wreck ****, get easy layups/dunks if you don't miss them. if you miss them grab your rebound and do it again.
Reed - play well within yourself, but don't shoot 3's despite being a generational shooter.
Cam - drive or chuck, doesn't matter, you're not getting enough minutes to make a difference.

 

Sengun starting his offense to far for the basket. He needs to get the entry pass closer to the basket

 

That's not on him, they're not running a PNR properly. If there's no lane for the ballhandler and they don't chuck a 3 they dump it straight back to him. No separation or mismatch is created from the screen at all because they rush the entire action. Nobody's teaching them how to do it at all and it's obvious. They don't come wide enough across the screen so the defenders don't really have to switch or chase, because nobody has to chase then no help defenders come in to stop either the ballhandler or the roll man so we never kick out to the corners either because there's no open man. The ballhandler needs to come wider off the screen and hold the ball longer, it's basic **** but apparently coach doesn't know how it works.

 

Brooks and bari are not creative. To carve roles for non-creative players you need a pg that can attack the rim or have good ball and off-ball movement. We have neither.

the problem is Fred being too short combined with udoka’s limited offensive sets. It might get you somewhere with the Boston team in the east but not with this team in the west.

 

I feel people don't properly comprehend that last year's Rockets secretly wasn't all that young. Of the top 10 players in minutes last year, half were vets, FVV/Brooks/Jeff Green/Holiday/Tate. This opening game had the Rockets at 2~3 vets, depending on where you put Landale as. I think people are overrating what Udoka did with the kids last year because part of the Rockets improvement was simply Udoka not playing the kids nearly as much as the Silas years. So it's not too surprising we are seeing some of that Silas days with a return to a young rotation. The question is whether the young core can develop over time, cause if not we are going to be putting up Sag for Flagg threads by mid-season.

 

Bingo. Brooks disrupts the offense similar but not as extreme as Woods or KPJ. They don’t read the flow of the game well or who should be getting the ball when there’s a hot hand. The players that are good at this are Sengun, FVV and Amen. There were other issues with the offense last night sure but I feel those are easier to correct.

 

That's true about Fred. The issue isn't even the fact that he's short, but he can't command double teams to open the floor for others. Guys either chase him down from behind, or cut him off very easily. The only time he gets doubled is coming off screens, but now teams don't even care to stop him at all and focus on Sengun (as they should).

Reed got by a few guys and Amen can blow past people, and they looked okay running the system a bit.

If the defense doesn't collapse or have to respect the threat of that pull up 3 (which Fred and Jalen missed all night), there is no offense.

 

Our offensive system sucks.

DD

 

Both Jalen and Fred have to be able to punish teams for playing drop coverage or going underneath screens. If our starting backcourt is not supposed to shoot when they have space, then that opens up many more questions about this teams construction than I care to get into right now. We just have to make open shots. Stars make those shots. When Jalen and Fred make those shots the offense looks different. The coaches are giving Jalen the star treatment by asking him to take those open shots with space. If he doesn't take those shots then he has to be able create offense for himself or for an open teammate. If he can't do either consistently then they reassess the offensive pecking order.

 

Steve Adams return will be huge boost for this team on offense and defense

 

Yeah we should bench/trade/shoot Jabroni and move Sengun to the stretch 4 now he's a shooter as well as a threat inside.

 

I dont think its the system at all. Its the players.

What was Charlotte doing offensively that was so sophisticated?

The Rockets dont have a perimeter playmaker anywhere near the caliber of Lamelo. And last night they didnt have anyone that could get to their spots and score like Mann.

The lack of perimeter playmaking and efficient scoring killed this team.

And if you look at the best teams in the west and really across the NBA, the Rockets just dont stack up well when it comes to perimeter playmaking and scoring efficiency.

Ive seen folks wish we had Dantoni also...He may have a better offensive system but his defense would suck. Also, its not like Dantoni did much while he was here other than give the ball to Harden and let him iso and run pick and roll all game. Dantoni rockets didnt run some sophisticated offense. Lets not rewrite history.

 

Some of you need to have a reckoning with who this team is coached by.

Ime loves Dillon Brooks, he is never sittign him.

He is a defense first coach - that is his background from the Spurs etc.

He's going to ride the high defensive effort players forever (like Thibodeaux or any of the other grinder style coaches) because at least that part of the game a coach can somewhat control.

He'll even sit Sengun, the newly minted $185 million man - if it means having some defenders out there.

That was what the Rockets knew were getting when they hired him off the suspended list - it's what we have now until he's gone.

 

Our perimeter players are allergic to hitting 3's. Must be the depth perception of the Toyota center. Or they suck, dont want to buy into the role of being a set spot shooter, whichever. The last player on our team who I remember being somewhat good at hitting open 3's since the rebuild was KMart jr, but he's long gone.

 

I know we're in our blame the coach era now, and I agree Ime is a defense first guy, but I don't think that's the main problem.

Our main problem is the same as it has always been. Our perimeter players can't make open shots. That makes everything else difficult.

You can't just dump the ball off to Sengun and run the offense through him like Jokic because the rest of the team can't convert on open perimeter shots. Right now a single covered Sengun dive to the basket off of a PnR is more effective than an open perimeter shot for our guards created by Sengun.

I can't name another western conference playoff team that has as poor of perimeter shooting (when wide open) as we do. It just doesn't work.

 

You can still design motion to help, look at Amen how well his FG% is and his jumper is supsect.

We do need better shooting but we could also use better actions and adjustments to what the other team is doing.

Moving Sengun to the Mid post last night would have done wonders.

DD

 

KPJ was a killer on catch and shoot 3s... so Silas made him be on the ball constantly and never try any of those shots lol.

I do think we have guys who can catch and shoot pretty well, but our game plan last night was clearly to take shots off the dribble against drop coverage.

Jabari, Tari, Reed, and Cam I'd bet would all be pretty reliable IF anyone could collapse the defense. No one collapses on Fred because the primary defender can just block him, and people might collapse on Jalen, but they'd rather him shoot that pull up 3. Or they do collapse on Jalen and he needs to make better passes out of it.

 

Good point on KPJ, he was good at catch and shoots.

 

KJ's a 33% career 3pt shooter, your rose tinted glasses are blinding you to reality. His last year with us he shot 31%, lower than Jalen's ever shot.

 

When FVV and Green lead your team in FGA like they did in '23-24, and combine for 41 shots (13-41 FG and 7-26 3FG) in your opener, your offense is capped.

Brooks doesn't give you much at all on O, and you can only get by with him starting in a group when you have an elite creator like he did with Ja. Jabari can space but he's also not creating anything.

We're wasting a bunch of guys who make things happen (even if it comes with youthful mistakes) in Amen, Tari and Cam. Lean into all the athleticism on the roster - push the pace, take some of the on-ball duties away from FVV/Green and spread it more evenly with Amen and Reed.