Playoff ball - What else do we need and how does our current game translate?

Barring injury, I see us as currently constructed as being able to handle whatever 1st-round matchup they throw at us. If Jalen is on a decent streak and Jabari continues his recent improvement, the WC finals are not out of the question. And as much as I can’t believe I’m actually saying it, the last 10 games make me think we have an outside shot at the finals. THIS year.

I’m nowhere near ready to break up the core, but if we can leverage end-of-the-rotation guys (Tate, Landale, Holiday, Unca Jeff) for better 3pt shooting and/or rim protection, that would improve our chances at making some post-season noise.

 

Ime will have the boys ready. "youth is not an excuse" Ime Udoka 2024

 

I don't think we have the playoff experience necessary to go to the Finals. The only guys playing significant minutes who have even been there at all are Fred and Dillon. How often in NBA history has a rotation full of 20-22 year olds made it that deep?

Of course, there's a first time for everything, but I just seriously doubt it.

My expectation for this team is that we make it out of the first round, and my hope is that we somehow scrape our way to the WCF. That would be way, way ahead of schedule.

In terms of what we need most--we're already really good so not much. I think the main thing is just redundancy in case of (and to prevent) injury. In that regard, we're doing great at the forward positions, and okay at shooting guard (Cam Whitmore is a reasonable JG backup) and center (Adams has been great and Jock is, well, he's playable, and Bari can play some small ball 5 when he gets back).

I still think we need to add a backup point guard who can shoot threes and make the right pass. Holiday isn't good enough. Our hopes of getting past the first round pretty much enter the toilet if FVV gets hurt, and he's already playing too many minutes.

 

My main concern right now is that Alpi and Jalen will go soft in the playoffs.

Jalen’s lack of physicality will be brutally exposed and Alpi has to show me he won’t mentally check out for long stretches.

 

Sengun needs to fix his free throw problems & missing easy buckets

Green needs to fix his costly turnovers at crucial times

Eason needs to adjust his defensive motor to situational.

Reed needs to fix his shot.

FVV needs to run the offense quicker in crucial moments

Jabari needs to understand coming off the bench is not a slight

This team has many flaws but they excel in the most important for playoff success. Defense & effort.

 

In the playoffs all teams ramp up defense and effort, so that will make it tough with our offense that struggles at times. Reliable sources are saying that the Rockets are going with this squad this year, so we’ll see how it goes. I still think there’s a good chance at Robert Williams for later round picks and Jock.

 

I think we're still in need of some passing creativity / play making. All our passers bar Sengun (who we've neutered for the most part in this regard) are pretty robotic, 1 read, type players.

 

IME transformation adds a few years to each of the player typical development schedule.

 

I agree with those that have said I think we make some serious noise in the 1st round and probably win the 1st round. I could see us going much deeper than that, but probably not the Finals. Not yet.

But oh man , oh man, is it an exciting ****ing time to be a Rockets fan these days. We've waited a while for this team not to be a pile of **** and here we are with a non-pile of ****!

 

So glad you started this, I actually uncovered a lot of bad news recently:

- Rebounds and transition are notoriously difficult to carry over because everyone starts giving 110% on those plays just like you. This will impact Jalen, Amen, Eason severely. Memphis is a legendary rebounding team in the regular season, one of their primary struggles is theybuilt a lot of their strategy on an advantage that mostly disappears in the playoffs.

- Assists tend to drop thus assisted shots are rarer - and this is something Amen depends on heavily for his healthy efficiency.

- Brooks has a very very poor reputation in the playoffs, major red flag, horrific shooting splits in playoff career

- Obviously, old guys do better than young guys in the playoffs in general.

Of course, some will sink and others will swim. IMO our top goal should be to reduce our future reliance on rebounding by shooting better. I think everyone knows that but just in case.

 

Its the Great Unknown.

We literally have no idea what we have. We could have a dynasty on our hands. We could have 1st round fodder. It would be negligent to do any sort of major shake up until we've all seen these guys play some pressure packed basketball and then modify from there.

 

My question is- when it comes down to crunch time 4 mins left in the 4th and the offense stalls into half court sets, who or what do we do to get a bucket?

To me that’s our only weakness. We don’t have a Luka or Tatum or KD that can just get us a bucket to break the ice.

Idk we’ll see… maybe Jalen and Sengun can be that guy with Amen cutting and being our lob threat.

 

The Jeff Van Gundy coach teams suffered from this. Played with max effort for regular season success, and then the effort was matched by the opponents in the playoffs.

One difference for the Rockets is that we have multiple high end defensive wings that are completely switchable. That is the unique element that could be a difference maker in the post season.

The other key element missing is we don’t have a guy who will get the superstar whistle. This is related to having a star who can get a bucket close and late, or to break momentum of other side going on a run.

One more thing is playoffs are about matchups. The team I least want to see in the first round is Dallas, for the reasons above. Two slide shot creators, two guys who get the superstar whistle. The other team I would rather not see is the Lakers.

 

Jalen lacks physicality? lol Jalen lacks some things but physicality aint one of them. If refs called his drives correctly he'd be one of the most prolific ft takers in the league.

 

Not solvable this season unless we trade for Fox or whatever. JG, Alpi, and/or Amen will have to get better in this role over time--it's one of the reasons I think we need more experience before we're ready to truly contend for a championship.

All three of those guys have "closer" potential, though, if they continue to get better.

 

You guys realize these stars get more whistles than us in the regular season too right? They're all sitting behind 2nd place other than OKC right? I'm not worried about that, we have already learned to play through the whistle. I think all that is baloney.

Stars are born after teams overachieve in the playoffs. 90% of the stars you want would not be considered stars at age 21/22. The ones who became known as stars are just the ones who did well in the playoffs.

Someone is going to play well. We may not know who, but someone is going to play well when defenses shut down the paint completely, take away the rebounds, shut down the cuts/backdoors and take away transition. Someone always emerges like a diamond. Who can give you 20 points in true ISO when all the crutches fall?

I think people will be surprised at who ends up the Numero Uno in this scenario.

 

Rockets need to swing for the fences to land Fox. They must not get complacent because of our current record. This team is going nowhere in the playoffs as currently constructed. We don’t have a true star or a closer and made a mistake by signing Sengun into that enormous contract. Call me a hater but I do not believe Sengun can be the first option on a championship team. Ideally I would trade Sengun for Fox but they already got Sabonis so they probably won’t have interest in Sengun. But I would trade anyone not named Jalen Green for Fox, even Amen is not untouchable for me.

 

Feel like it’s has been mentioned before but we need a guy to step up to be a closer to get buckets when everyone else goes cold we saw that last night for 4 minutes in the 4qt. Ideally it’d be Jalen but he has to improve his ball handling skills to get to the rim when his shot isn’t going. He also has to improve his shot selection.

 

This.

Soft players are not fit for playoffs.