ClutchFans Game Thread: Rockets @ Lakers 3/31/2025

Houston in 6 as in regular season games left.

 

Lol

 

Yeah not much to say about this one that hasn’t been said though I’ll give my most important things to fix:
- Sengun complaining about fouls - we get it dude, you got fouled a bunch in the 1st half and didn’t get a single call, but that’s going to be the play-offs. If he doesn’t unlearn that, he’ll frustrate a lot of fans.
- Green needs to understand angles a bit bitter, because he throws up wild shots at the rim when he’s guarded closely. Rather he try to put the breaks on at times or pass it off instead.
- Green on these 12-14 second solo sessions that lead to bricks more often than not - cut them out!
- Passes at big guys ankles and passing to Sengun when he’s surrounded by 2-3 guys and hasn’t got his man properly sealed - stop throwing those!
- On defense, maybe guard the hot shooter for crying out loud
- On defense, maybe don’t have Green and FVV guard Luka
- Stop reaching so much and jumping on fakes, you are not going to block those shots anyway. Though Green did get Luka in the 1st half, but those are 1 in a million.
- Ime: why the **** you play FVV 40 minutes and on a night where very few shot the ball well, why not go to Aaron who’s been shooting well and went 3-6 from 3 last night?
- Ime: you have a bench, use it!

Refs were definitely on some bullshit and why can they decide to review a play at the end of a half without a challenge or anything happening specifically like ball going out of bounds?

I expected a loss so it’s all good, just we need to show we learned from this for the next one. Beat them next time and this one is forgiven. If it wasn’t a back-to-back and a stubborn coach, we could’ve won. Cannot believe I have to my trust again in a guy who believes playing 8 guys is fine, even when legs are dead and someone is not bringing it.

 

i definitely do no want to play the Lakers in the playoffs. it's a guaranteed loss with how the officials call games for them. absolutely insane but predictable calls all night.

Luka Foul at the end of the half.
Tari Tech.
that lakers TO when thompson has the ball.

....that being said, we didn't have to leave the corner 3 open all night long.

 

No he needs to develop a outside shot and more well rounded offensive game. He doesn't even lead the team in scoring, yet we're over dependant on Sengun? More excuses lol

 

5 vs 8. Gabe and dfs having other worldly games. Our backcourt sucked and we were still in it lol. This lakers team is garbage

 

Agree on all of that and hate the Ime strat of giving up on one shooter completely.

Reddick ate his lunch.

DD

 

Here is what I believe. The NBA asks coaches to fix certain games to setup certain match ups in the playoffs. The refs are also in on this. Certain players like FVV, Harden, CP3, Lebron, Steph etc...are in on it. Once they sign these contracts they're aware of certain games to not play well. Once the playoffs come you will see crazy rotation decisions, stupid Harden-esque turnovers, bad officiating all to get the finals match up the nba wants

 

I've noticed Dillon starts making terrible decisions when he gets into scuffle or refs screw us on a call like when they called Tari for that tech. He took 3 or 4 ISO shots down the stretch he had no business taking. Jalen turtled and Sengun had butterfingers so I can't put it on Dillon too much but I expect more from him and Fred. Dissappointing composure down the stretch. Playing the Lakers in LA, especially on national TV is always going to be aggrevating.

 

All of this

 

We are letting too many pre teens that don't respect history to have accounts on Clutchfans.

 

...only got to see about half of the game - will have to watch it again, but from what I saw:

- it appeared we dared their role players to beat us and Vincent and DFS had unbelievable shooting nights
- It felt like from what I saw, we mostly did a pretty good job on Luka and Lebron
- the offense again looked like trash(what's new)
- Fred seemed invisible out there. He was largely deferential and I did't see him make anything...so why did I see him with so many minutes in the box score?
- Sengun has to get more range - that Lebron block was because it was so obvious where Sengun was going. A little hook or floater probably wouldn't have been blocked as easily but the thing is - his range is so poor he is always looking to take a post up opportunity as close to the basket as possible. Lebron read that perfectly - credit to him.
- the team did look like they had dead legs

....personally Im not scared of LA in the playoffs - they played super hard and relied on some streaky shooters to barely pull it out - I don't see them sustaining that over a 7 game series.

 

The refs will be even more brutal in the playoffs. Doncic and Lebron will absolutely live at the line. One of GSW or the Lakers will be in the WCF as a result. So it is written, so it will be.

 

Didn't watch the game cause it was blacked out in Las Vegas (go figure), but I agree I'm made a mistake by benching Green most if not all of the 4th quarter. Despite having a sub-par game, Jalen Green is the one player that can catch fire and win the game for us. FVV is not it. Perhaps it's time to move from the latter this offseason.

 

Yea Aaron should have played. No reason to only play 8 dudes tonight that was dumb. Oh well

 

When we passed the ball, we looked great. When Green and FVV kept trying to do it on their own during that 3rd quarter stretch, we looked like trash. I don’t understand how Alpi scores on his first two possessions and then doesn’t shoot again until almost the end of the quarter, iirc. When someone’s hitting shots, keep feeding them. Don’t wait for them to go cold and certainly don’t think it means it’s your turn to try and get hot. Too much selfish play last night.

 

Why is it dumb? We are 6 games from the playoffs. We’re not going to have a 9 man playoff rotation if we are healthy.

 

Just when I thought I had seen it all as far as blatant bs officiating, I see the end of half shenanigans...

- Half expires with no calls made on the floor
- Crowd boos
- Refs review something even though no call was made on the floor, even announcers confused on what is reviewable at that point
- No challenge from LA because no call was made
- They automatically just assume a foul was committed and only review if it was committed before end of half
- It wasn't even a foul

 

JJ Redick on coaching rebounding: ''I told the guys explicitly, If you are on Sengun & Adams, you are not going to get the rebound, it's your job to box out, it's somebody else's job to tip the ball to a teammate or get the rebound"

 

And why would we not have a 9 man rotation if healthy? OKC played 13 dudes.

One of our strengths is that we are a deeper team than most out there. In my opinion we should take advantage of that also in the playoffs.

Especially if some of the guys off the bench could help more than some starters. You can argue Holiday and even Reed would have helped off the bench last night as opposed to playing FVV 40+ minutes.

Teams also thought you can’t win rings shooting three pointers. Maybe we are the deep team that breaks the trend of playing only 7 guys in playoffs. It’s actually kind of stupid when you think about it. Everyone out there exhausted barely jogging to the other end of the court lol. Just put in the great deep bench you got and run them out of the building if they don’t adjust.

Just my humble opinion of course.