Ime Udoka calls loss to Warriors "one of our softest games since I've been here" 12/5/2024

Ime can be such a drama queen sometimes "everything we've done to have a DECENT record" hahaha Come on Ime we have much more than a decent record. No one is giving more effort or grabbing more rebounds or loose balls than this roster, give your team credit for what they do well.

They looked tired out there and they made some stupid decisions trying to climb back against a team they should have crushed. Blame them for this loss they deserve that but let's get to the lessons. Same vibes as last season. Ime yelling for better effort from a bunch of people who would swear to god that they're giving everything they have and their effort measures higher than almost any team in the league. Until he figured out he has to change the mix of shots. Same is going on right now. Hope we don't have to lose a bunch of games for Udoka to make or request a change.

They just need better spacing Ime so if you're out of ideas with the roster you have, then it's time to ask Stone to acquire a shooter immediately instead of waiting for the deadline to consider trades. Can't just sit there and hope someone has a hot night from 3 to save us. Watching other teams successfully pack the paint every night to stifle the offense can get demoralizing for the wings. Big men can always get their points in the paint but our wings have one of the most difficult paths to the basket in the NBA. Everyone's taking swipes at them on their drives. Rim protector lives in the paint. We're playing at an extreme disadvantage there.

What we desperately need is a second reliable and consistent way to score when Sengun/FVV is not working. Best way to do that internally is generate as much spacing as possible, making drives much easier for Amen/Green especially.

We got this. Happy to learn these lessons early.

 

Yeah I am not on this soft ****, Ime needs to take a look in the mirror when Kuminga and Wiggins are destroying you, maybe don’t throw a line-up out there that has Aaron Holiday and Reed in there?! ****ing guy.

 

Sharing the ball? The team's overall assists per game is down and everyone's assists are down this year except a slight uptick in Sengun's. You don't even need to look at stats for this - even I, just a fan watching from home, can easily notice just by eye test alone how our assists have gone down and everyone somehow gained a tendency to iso more. Overall bball IQ definitely went down this year. We somehow managed to turn even Amen into a iso-happy tunnel vision kind of guy at points. Tari always had that inclination somewhat but even he went away from being a team player the last few games and started playing hero ball to a noticeable degree.

If anything, it's clear that sharing the ball more is something we are definitely not intentionally working towards, or even if we are, it's been failing miserably for a while now. And that makes me think - are Udoka's moves intentional, or does he maybe stumble into things that work in games or half-heartedly try things without much purpose and intention? Or is he arguing for one thing but incentivizing another? Is it possible that giving FVV the longest leash possible to do whatever he wants, and maybe praising that in the locker room is starting to hurt the team and giving the guys the wrong message?

There are lots of issues with the team that's making it hard for Udoka to be creative on offense, sure. But it's also naive to assume at this point that all this inconsistency and this severe lack of offensive identity is entirely on the players.

If I had to start somewhere, I would once, just once, like Udoka to come out in one of those pressers and admit some responsibility for something even if it's like a tiny little thing. Just say x went wrong and I take responsibility for that. It's mind boggling to me that we haven't heard a single statement like that from him. Very, very concerning to me.

 

Jalen is closer

 

That unfortunately is not a good thing.

 

*** u

 

Who are you, one of his dry-humping pals?

 

This is the dude that thinks our current team is better than the 2017-2018 Rockets.

 

Sengun was a mess and his defensive liabilities get worse & worse. Play Landale

 

I thought the Rockets played pretty "hard"/tough on defense in the first half.

They were just so offensively inept they couldn't do anything with it. It was back to "welp we suck maybe we can get an offensive rebound and that's our offense"

They seriously sucked, terrible shooting, missing shots at the rim, not too many actions other than "Sengun you run up to the hoop" - it was bad.

 

Of course he is, he closed himself.

 

Maybe, just maybe this play hard one on one defense and crash the offensive board and run back to stop fast break is not sustainable.

It's not just physically demanding, but also mentally exhausting.

 

The proposition is not very good. Reminds me of McHale or JVG days a little bit. We were 29th offense under Silas. We were like 27th offense last season. We're now in season 2 of Udoka, and we are 15-20th best offense in the NBA only if we grab a historic amount of rebounds every single game.

I mean, I know we don't have high end offensive talent but right now we have the 3rd worst TS% and EFG% as a team in the NBA (while playing a relatively easy schedule so far). Do we really have the 3rd worst overall offensive talent in the NBA? We have maybe the 3rd worst shooting team, but not the 3rd worst offensive talent overall. I don't know if I believe we've optimized the pieces we have.

IMO we really need an experienced offensive coordinator or lead assistant. It's the only area Udoka can use some help.

 

At one point we were shooting 33% from the field. If Stone doesn't get a top 15 shooting guard in the offseason we should hang him then burn his corpse just in case.

 

This team is like a football team with 6 quarterbacks.

"If you have two quarterbacks you have no quarterbacks."

 

Such a weird take coming from him, he doesn't encourage players to share the ball, he actively rewards selfish play and punishes team based play.

The Rockets average the 3rd fewest assists in the entire league with the most FGA's in the league.....by a pretty wide margin.

Reed Sheppard has had to deal with losing minutes for passing the ball and creating shots for others rather than just chucking up his own shot every time he touches the ball like Udoka wants.

While Udoka has done amazing things with the defense, he's flat out incompetent when it comes to NBA offense and it very much shows.

 

We've acquired plenty of shooters. They somehow forgot how to shoot once they put on the Rockets jersey.

 

If they let up at all defensively or crashing the boards they would be lucky to win 35 games. Our shooting is horrific. We can focus more on offense and less defense. But what offense works without any perimeter shooting or any true #1 option that they can lean on? Princeton? Corners? 7 secs or less? None of it works when you can't shoot. That back cuts work because teams overplay shooters and that opens up cutting lanes. If a team can't shoot, why would anyone overplay shooters who can't shoot? Teams can sag into the paint and shut down any offense that we try without any shooters that teams have to respect.

I'm just venting man. If there is some mythical offensive guru that can make this offense look passable I'm all for it. But any coach worth his salt won't get beaten by a team shooting 20 whatever percent from 3 and no true #1 superstar option.

 

There are some glaring personnel issues in this team and that is part of the problem. They cannot shoot from the perimeter, they lack a true franchise player to carry them on offense. At this point they are relying on defense, depth and extreme effort.

There is also no simple solution either - other than someone like Jalen becoming a star, and that looks less likely each game.