That's one way to look at it. I just think after 70+ games together, it shouldn't take a trip through so much dysfunction so late in the season to work the kinks out.
it's not just the rockets. pretty much every team in the west who are in playoffs contention most likely feel the same way with the exception of the thunder. denver lost to chicago yesterday. lakers lost to magic yesterday. warriors lost to the heat today. grizzlies have lost to the kings, blazers, and clippers before beating the jazz tonight. every west playoff teams is a toss up at the moment.
I did like Jalen's aggression and explosiveness. He didn't settle for jumpers. I think he can become an all star reserve next year.
Nice Jalen game against a tough matchup. Would really like for him to game about 10 pounds this offseason and really work on coordination. I think thats his best path to consistency. The strength plus core stability would really help him have better control over where he wants to go with the ball and not fumble it as often. He should be on a crazy protein diet this offseason lol
Unnecessary meltdown in the 4th is something we’ve experienced a lot this season. It’s a symptom of both our terrible shooting accuracy, and the short rotations. Considering Amen’s absence, I wonder why Ime didn’t gave some minutes to Tate, if Holiday can contribute some minutes, Tate can also get us some spark. I think that FO main assignment for this offseason is to get us the Ty Jerome kind of player, we so desperately need. If we can’t develop Cam or Reed into such a player, they should be traded for one. Once we have more consistent shooting, we’ll be able to get larger leads without the meltdown risk in the 4th. I mean, with a decent shooting we’d be up by 30 and not 20 by the end of the 3rd. That’s the story of our season.
So you are worried about whether we are playing well enough to beat the competition, but you don't care about the competition? While I agree with the above post that calling a team which has won 10 of 11 a 'train wreck' is the most ridiculous post in this thread, this is a close second.
We got the W and there was some nice clutch shots, thank you Jabari, Jalen & Senguini, but some of the turnovers, lack of resistance, just bad passes and bad possessions - mainly involving Green or Sengun - even leading up to the collapse, we simply cannot afford come play-off time. They will get that experience first hand and we shouldn’t even be thinking winning big in the play-offs, but rather see it as a test anyway, but would be nice if by then we don’t have these lazy one handed passes by Jalen, these brain fart moments by Tari, the Sengun trying to spin on a guy 3 times, nobody cutting and just watching Sengun struggle and the random double-teams leading to wide open shots as well fouling shooters (though that has happened much less lately). These are the main frustrations I have had in recent times. Let’s get to 50, take care of Amen, FVV and whoever else is not 100% by limiting minutes and not playing them like tonight.
If it makes people feel any better, that's pretty much how the Rockets won against the Hawks back in late January. They had, I think, a 16 point lead with 4-5 minutes to go and proceeded to piss almost all of it away. Atlanta actually had the ball down only 2 and a wide open look at a 3 to win it with a few seconds left. We got lucky that they missed. Maybe it's just something about that matchup.
Agree, Sengun and Green still don’t appear to be ready or comfortable using all options of several of the play calls. but, “so much dysfunction” is too extreme of a phrase for me to agree with. I’d say, I’m definitely more positive Also, double big is rolling out some new stuff … like before, Coach got the defense (2-3 zone) down before even using double big, now the offense is coming. In post-game, he mentioned it borrowing from the double big history of SAS. SAS didn’t face as much zone in those days, though.
Jalen played great. Games like this one give me so much hope for him if he could ever become more consistent with them.
Wouldn't call him a "great" player. Just not a losing one. Probably good. He's definitely a weird player. He doesnt perform against great competition all that well (kinda just wish he was consistent all the way around instead of doing great against mediocre competition and bad against good competition so his numbers end up looking passable). I think he's in that Coby White/Anfernee Simons area right now. After almost a season hes back to his regular career averages of 42% from the field and 34% from 3. It's almost uncanny how inconsistently consistent he is that his numbers end up exactly the same season after season. He has carried us more this season than last though which makes the numbers seem like they're lying a little bit.
Jokic-free Denver beats us one night and then when facing the lowly Bulls the night after, if I may quote Mick Jagger, "I just don't have that much jam." I guess Denver isn't the only team to play up or down to the competition. But the Rockets still got'em beat!
While the players are the same, the team isn't the same as it was all season. Not specific to the Hawks Game Adams and Tari are getting healthier. Amen is playing more like a guard on defense and has been taking on more guard duties on offense while still cutting. While I don't like it, Ime seems intent on getting the FVV, Green, and Amen lineups to work. With JSJ hurt, then FVV, and then Amen, Ime has had less than 10 games to try to get the rotation to work the way he wants it to work with his players' current skills/health. If Ime just played rotations and had players execute as he did earlier in the season (i.e., 2024), the Rockets would likely be a better regular season team than they are now. While I don't agree with all his changes, I do like that he's trying to develop the team such that will be a better team. I'm just skeptical the kinks get worked out before the playoffs as I think some of his changes are too big for a handful of games to remedy.
True, I remember. Overall the Hawks are that kind of a team that really step up when they play elite teams. Their winning streak we just ended included a win over the Warriors, something we did only once this decade, didn’t we? We also defeated the Bulls on a close game, followed by impressive wins to the Bulls against the Lakers and Nuggets.
On a side note, I've been hearing a lot lately on how the Rockets are feasting on weak teams from national media. With the Hawks win, the Rockets have passes the Lakers in wins against sub 0.500 teams. All the other Top 8 teams have vastly superior records against sub 0.500 teams than the Rockets. As the Rockets will play the hardest schedule this year, the narrative of the Rockets feasting on weak teams seems weird. Granted, the Rockets record against sub 0.500 teams would likely be better if FVV wasn't hurt during a weak part of the schedule.
I think a little too much is made of losing big leads. In today's game, 20 point leads can shrink in no time...I feel we've both lost and come back from large leads/deficits an equal amount of times, with the majority of the time the team that held the lead still winning the game. More concerning was the last minute meltdowns against the Wolves and Nets, I hope nothing like those ever happen again.
love how no one ever mentions Jeff Green in here. He excels in his offensive opportunities everytime. it’s okay Jeff, I’m here noticing you while others bring up Tate’s name.
