Can't believe they we didn't trade that trash jabari at the dead line. He's inconsistent and bad on defense, we not winning anything with his sorry ass
From the early season record at half time - 2nd seed to 4th seed at times. Roster construction is another story. Stone has been hiding behind Udoka and Tilman for a lengthier period. His standard copout statement : We like what we have.
I think this is a good viewpoint of where the Rockets are at. They overwhelmed teams with the athleticism, aggression and pace at the start of the year and then Jalen had a really nice stretch. Injuries and a tougher schedule caught up with them now. Fred returning and Jabari getting back in the swing of things should help, but they are repeating some of the patterns they showed last year with this roster.
There are no great follow up solutions. Continuity and relative health are only going to get you so far.......
You won't win very often without that effort that's for sure...see tonight and the 2 Nets games ..there are others. Ime said we had to "upgrade our competitiveness and IQ"...he knows the score with his team.
There was also a phony sense of strength.....yes the Rockets are a good young team that outperformed the expectations. But you see that they are not a real strong team when pieces like Jabari or Fred who are no star players mean so much to the team.
They should not be playing Reed at all. Reed is a negative the entire time he is on the court. Teams take advantage of him every time. That was a precious 8 minutes that should have been given to Holiday or Jeenathan.
What a POS game to lose. Was yesterdays win so tiring? Can't make excuses for not beating a top 5 pick lottery team at this stage of the season. You either want it or you don't.
Observations: - the amount of attacks on Jabari here are pathetic, PATHETIC! 2nd game back, back-to-back, been out weeks. Calm the **** down! - we did not play good defense, very little to do with effort. We had so many breakdowns, ball watching, not sticking with 3pt shooters, allowing cutters to just get to the basket, triple-teaming freaking Kessler at one point that lead to a wide open lane for George / Martin. - we did not take advantage of the mid-range and hot shooters. - we miss FVV as none of our guards are really decisive enough, have the ball handling skills to attack at will nor is our spacing what it needs to be at times to have space to get a good shot off. Then we end up with these 1-on-1 situations that 90% of the time lead to awful contested shots. - we did not even play that well against the Twolves so this is not surprising. - Ime’s shortcomings and the roster is showing. - Cam Whitmore was really bad, Reed had 2-3 good moments, which leaves everything up to midget Aaron who of course decided to go all villain on George. Resulted in at least 4-6 points and unnecessary FTs when they were in the bonus. I guess his behavior is to the delight of our coach but it cost us, DEARLY. - Jeff Green was amazing, should’ve started and always needs to play. - cannot expect Jock to be in rhythm at all with the way his minutes have gone, neither with Cam, but that guy is just a lost cause at this point. - Jalen & Sengun tried to carry us, but it was not enough. - Brooks is not bringing much at this point.
Going from 2nd in the West to passed up by the Lakers - who now have better future prospects as well because they have a 25 yo all-time great HOF player - is certainly a lot to accomplish on the month of February
This team isn’t good. First half of the year was clearly fake luck on defense. We clearly have no defensive identity anymore. Play-in team at best.
Glad I fell asleep on this one. I had a feeling the L was coming. There's really no need to over analyze every little aspect of this team. As a whole from the top down, they're just not good enough. It's really that simple. They don't have any high end superstar level players or anything really even close. Ime brings a lot of good things to the table, but he has his warts as well. Fred coming back will help, but this team is still going to be limited by the overall talent level. Unfortunately Jalen and Sengun have not taken the leap at this point to truly put this team into the upper echelon. It's a team full of role players with a couple guys masquerading as tier 1 options.
What in the SWEET F*UCK?! How do we keep losing to these absolute ****ing scrub teams? This team simply isn't ready yet. Maybe next year. We'll make the playoffs. No problem there. But you can't be losing to Brooklyn twice and Utah if you're supposed to be a threat in the West. Guess this really is a team that peaked too early this year. Absolutely ****ing inexcusable man. Just completely inexcusable to lose to Utah. I don't give a **** back to back or not. This team ****ing sucks.
Transition defense sucked. Also didn’t hard show or hedge on those screens. They killed us with a simple guard coming off a screen for a dribble drive or pop. We went under most of the time or dropped back with Sengun disrespecting their shooting. Plus our perimeter D dropped back so much instead of aggressively attacking them beyond 26 ft.
We need a "What are we gonna do in the next 18 games" thread, predicting some pessimistic results. It worked previously against cavs, celtics etc. This team does not lose to the opponents, they lose to themselves.
