ClutchFans Game Thread: Rockets @ Thunder 11/8/2024

While the team as a whole has been better, the overall development has been a big disappointment.

Sengun and Jabari have looked worse than last season.

Jalen Green looks like exact same player he has been since the middle of his rookie season. He looked better merely because of a hot shooting start. His actual offensive arsenal has shown zero improvement.

A lot of season left obviously, but for guys who needed to take steps forward...it's not a good start.

 

overall development looks like sht b/c we have fvv as our main playmaker who is subpar. But he's good for the "culture"

 

Disappointing loss but expected. OKC is just the better team right now.

Round 2 is on December 2nd. Let's see what adjustments are made.

 

I had a really really good friend in college, whose name was Harold, that would often shoot a paper wad or a crumpled beer can into the trash can while shouting It's Bingo Smith! From the corner!
in the voice of a play by play announcer from (I believe) San Diego . . .the San Diego Rockets. though by those college days the Rockets were in Houston

 

Only watched until midway through the second quarter before skipping to the end because I wasn't liking what I was seeing.

I don't understand how Reed is so tentative. He looked fantastic in the one game he's been aggressive and looked for his shot.

He had an open three - albeit with a defender running out to him - but instead chose to swing it to Sengun behind the perimeter. That is a terrible, terrible play.

It was obvious from the get go the officiating was going to be terrible this game. They'd let multiple fouls go - both ways - in the early possessions, and then the one which was the least likely to be a foul - Sengun going straight up contesting - is the one called a foul. Righto.

Anyone who bags Sengun's defense, I sure hope they're quick to follow it up with Adams being even worse. He has provided zero defensive presence inside so far this season.

 

To be fair to Green, I think his drives have improved a lot in the early parts of this season.

 

I get that okc is the best in the west, but I absolutely hate our offense. Like, what offense? It’s the one thing I’ve been really disappointed about with Ime. Some of it is personnel, but some of it is just a lack of an offensive philosophy.

I absolutely can’t stand Jalen’s iso dribble dribble, take a bad shot. While his defense has improved he still looks like an AAU player to me. I remain disappointed that we gave him near max money without getting a single year of consistent good play.

bari has like no touch on his shot. This is my 3rd year watching him closely and he just has no touch. The ball is a brick. I get that he’s still growing into his body, but he also plays way too soft. When you look at Chet and JWill, it’s just so evident how far behind Bari is relative to his top peers. I think Bari will continue to improve, but that ceiling is much lower than most of us hoped.

But honestly no one played well tonight. I’m just frustrated because I don’t think the roster as presently constructed works. I hate that we don’t have many good shooters. In today’s NBA? I don’t think the starting rotation works. And I don’t see any well thought out offensive system. We’re not even moving the ball most of the time. It’s still a lot of iso ball.

 

We aren't going into the play in, unless our passing and shooting 3's improves.

No other player will be available. Udoka will have to get the best out of the team.

 

Yeah this was obviously going to be a loss if you watched that 2nd quarter and how some of our guys could not handle the stifling defense, like Reed, Amen, Adams, Sengun and Jabari. Our offense is just utter garbage and when you have Sengun yelling as soon as he makes his move and just trying to get a call rather than score the ball then you know he’s not ready. We’re just too small, too thin, too short and not good enough at shooting the ball nor handling pressure since it’s all made up on the fly on offense.

Then on defense we get 2-3 guys to overcommit or in Tari’s case just try to steal every ball so the rest is vulnerable and you get wide open 3pt shots. And they actually have shooters. Man I hate how our team never seems to have good shooters. Even our championship teams were so up and down. The 2018 team had the best collection of shooters I reckon. Anyway. I’m very disappointed in our inability to stop guys from penetrating and no rim protection. Adams is useless basically, also on offense where we have no patience to wait for a screen and throw a lot of passes low at the ankles - another big issue I saw in that 1st half before skipping through the rest of the game.

This roster will win based on effort against some teams, get lucky a bit sometimes like with Dallas, but in the end we just don’t have enough size, strength and shooting or a decent offense to get guys easy shots to win big. Did Ime comment on his own ineptitude this time or just blame Sengun again?

 

maybe I’m wrong but I always assumed Stone has been approaching team building with a three phase strategy:

1. stockpile assets via picks and drafting best player available
2. Bring in high level coach to establish foundational core of players and set winning culture
3. Leverage non core players and remaining assets to target key trade acquisitions

I don’t follow the NBA like I used to but isn’t this similar to what OKC did? SGA wasn’t a draft pick. We’re obviously still in phase 2 but 3 may very well come this year.

 

We need to play harder. The ball gets sticky.

 

Biggest disappointment to me thus far is Jabari. I keep expecting him to make this leap and to look like the player he was in college but it's just not there yet. In college, Jabari had the perfect form, his shot was money and he defended at a high level. I really thought he was going to be a taller Klay Thompson.

However, I do see developments in Sengun's defense. I know it doesn't stand out but lately he has been moving his feet more, same for Jalen on the defensive end and his rebounding.

I said in a different thread, Jalen needs to have the ball in his hands for him to take the next step, i.e Ja Morant, Jamal Murray, James Harden. I think FVV is the problem, he takes the ball out of Jalen's hands and he takes the most shots. I think they need to team Jalen with a shooter at the SG position, a Tyler Herro type player. I thought it would've been Cam but now all of a sudden, he can't shoot

 

I missed the game last night, had a planned event and too bad because I wanted to see how wed handle this.

Damn.... that 2nd quarter

 

I’m surprised at you Nook. We are 9 games in and our core players are 22 and under with only a year and a half with a legit NBA coach. FVV our most accomplished veteran is off to a terrible start. Sengun is off to a terrible start as well (this game aided by a corruptly officiated game). Our coach has thrown away at least 2 games with horrible rotation choices. This was always going to be another development year with a chance to get our feet wet in the playoffs. We got beat by the best team in the West on their home court with lots of home cooking from the refs. Big fuggin deal.

 

I do believe that the sooner we rip off the FVV bandaid the better this team will get. Even if it costs us a playin spot, the development of Amen, Jalen, Sengun, and maybe Sheppard as our facilitators will set us up for a real step up next year. It won’t happen before the all star beak unless there is an injury. It happens in Sports a lot, that circumstances rather than coaches dictate a drastically positive change. Think Brady/Bledsoe.

 

I think there is some truth to this and it’s a good plan. Two things have changed that will make Stone adjust or lose out. The new apron rules and cba rules and the lack of prime aged stars that look to be available. We may well have to grow from within. People giving up on Amen, Jalen, and Sengun this early in their careers is really stupid.

 

OKC did it right, we have done it OK, they focused on getting players with VERY HIGH BBALL IQ, we focused on getting athletes....not a single starter on our team would start on theirs.....

We have a few high IQ players in Sengun, Amen and Reed, the rest are ok, but aren't on that level.

Gonna be tough competing with them, and the Rox being Zombie brained.

DD

 

It was ugly for sure but it’s only one game, we’ll be okay.

 

Calm down, folks! Before the Thunder game, almost everyone was high on the Rockets, but now most are down on them. The Thunder are number one in defense in the NBA and they are primed and ready to compete for the title despite being a young team. I think there was a tacit agreement among posters that the Rockets are young and are a couple of years away from contending. So, given that premise, we saw how much more progress these Rockets have to go through before we get excited about contending. Of course, there are flaws in coaching and among the individual players, but let us give them time to grow and find out for themselves how to play together and compete at a higher level. The journey will be filled with ups and downs so let us all settle down and just enjoy the ride. We shall overcome.