ClutchFans Game Thread: Rockets @ Kings 12/21/2025

It’s not on Ime I never blamed him for the mistake itself. I actually don’t blame him for this game.

still its odd subbing in a guy that just returned after a month for 1 second after non playing a half. You have to gel and you can tell tari went brain dead

 

When we had JVG, Milkhair this stuff would happen all the time

not as much with Adelman/MDA

that being said the loss last night was on the players mostly, Jabari decided to go brain dead. Adams playing would have helped. Reed played soft in the second half , conditioning or no conditioning he’s a ****ing nba player

you can blame ime for constructing this roster, it’s no surprise it’s made with his guys who are all poor shooting forwards

@Arnel

 

Checked the score and saw we were up early on a back to back and knew were cooked lmao

 

Yet we look great when he doesn't play and Amen has some of his best games when KD doesn't play. KD is efficient but that isn't the end all be all of everything. It's fools gold.

 

Wow. Absolutely ridiculous Amen had bis best game this season with KD playing vs Phoenix. He also had a complete stinker vs GSW when KD was out. It has nothing to do with KD but the level of rim defense that the opposing team has.

YDKB, Ime Bag Licker.

 

I agree with this. Adding KD could be the missing piece if he is used correctly. Durant PG is the most idiotic thing I have ever seen a coach do. Last year the excuse for Ime is we didn’t have shooters, so he had to rely on defense and slow down methodical offense. Now the excuse is he doesn’t have a PG. It’s all BS.

We have Jabari, Reed, Durant, Okogie, Tari all shooting well from 3. When we are moving the ball around we are dominating. When we revert back to ISO or double bigs we suck. I’ll go back to the Utah game, we were up by 25 without a PG. We were without a PG when we beat Denver (really twice), we were without a PG when we took OKC to double overtime. We were up 12 in the fourth without a PG last night. The reality is we have 3 guys that can initiate the offense well in Amen, Reed, and Sengun. Ime in his infinite wisdom hands the ball over to Durant at the half court and says lead us to the promised land, even after he saw how that has worked all year (not at all) and particularly just two games ago against Utah.

Add on to that, he is playing Durant over 40 mins in a back to back and taking Reed out when he is contributing and leaving him in when he is being whooped on every possession. Every bench coach in the league, would’ve made sure that nobody would leave there man alone at the 3 pt line in that situation. For god’s sake can we teach the guys how to inbound the ball?

 

Very odd. So odd that Ime shouldn't have done it IMO. I say that as someone who likes Tari more than most folks here.

 

He’s going to somehow argue this is all Durants fault.

 

Plenty of blame to be spread around to most everyone. The real issue is roster construction with how this team plays. Heavy ISO ball with subpar ISO players in KD and Sengun, and a lack of shooters to space the floor for them to operate. Sure, getting back FVV would help with TOs. DFS may help with floor spacing to some degree, etc, but this team is primarily winning on talent.

Where are the adjustments from Ime? It is infuriating. For example, clearing the floor for KD up top and waiting for the double to create a 4x3 has not been working yet Ime keeps spamming this in the crunch time. KD is quite honestly a horrible passer, and not an ISO scorer unless he gets to his spots in the midpost. Try something new on offense because it is not working at all right now. Ime has mentioned for the past two years that the offense would evolve and become more complex (less predictable), but the eye test says it is even more stagnant in terms of player and ball movement than last year.

 

I get it that Tari didn't play much in the second half because of his minutes restriction. Putting him in at the end was a panic move. If you trust the rest of the guy until that point, might as well stick to it.

And even when healthy and playing well, Tari does have the tendency to commit some bonehead stuff in crucial moments. That's a known fact.

 

LIGHT THE BEAM

 

There have been a lot of issues, not only last night but throughout most of the season. The most mind boggling issue is the consistent turnovers during inbounds plays. I wonder if Ime has paid any attention to the issue since it is so basic to basketball. Nobody seems to have the permanent responsibility for inbounding and receiving the ball, and most players just stand around uselessly even when there is defensive pressure on the inbounds, instead of having the players pay attention and provide help.

Another major issue is the lack of adjustments to counter the swarming defense on KD and Alpi, especially during crucial moments in the game. This kind of defensive scheme started showing since the first Mavs game, and opponents have repeated it over and over again. The scheme has often resulted in KD committing turnovers. It is effective because opponents already know that the ball handler will force a pass to KD at the top of the key every time during crunch time. All the defense does is quickly swarm him as soon as he gets the ball to force turnovers.

Another issue is the lack of awareness of helping the ball handler by providing picks and screens, especially when the defense is putting intense pressure on the ball handler. Last night was a glaring example of it when Schroeder was constantly harassing Reed while he was bringing up the ball, and there was no one to set a pick to free up Reed to ease up the pressure. Alpi, the big, was uselessly standing near the paint instead of providing picks or screens for Reed against Schroeder. Adams is extremely efficient at this, and he can maybe teach Alpi and the other bigs how to do it and to constantly make sure that they do it as a fundamental part of basketball. It is amazing that with so many coaches on their bench, if anyone is teaching this at all.

The very predictable offensive play by the Rockets to have someone bring up the ball and hand it over to KD on top of the key is similar to the Texans' incredible propensity to be predictable by having a run play called just about every first down. I wonder why coaches of both teams don't even realize this.

 

dum dum taking accountability. Nice to see that.

 

I legitimately regret staying up for this game

going to have to choose more wisely on what’s worth sacrificing my time for a 12-1am endeavor

 

I really appreciate how Tari took responsibility for the **** up. But, the whole team was unclutch. A win or loss shouldn't have come to that with a 15-point lead.

 

Lachard: I wanted to take a look at the Rockets last possessions when they were up 112-107 with 1:43 left in the game.

They went 0-5 with a turnover in their last six possessions.

The first possession like all of the late game possessions started with Kevin Durant at the top and Kings double teaming him. This was the right pass and right shot it was just missed by Jabari.

They get the offensive rebound and actually made two good passes and got a good shot but Amen went to the reverse instead of going up strong at the basket.

This time Alperen is double teaming and he makes the right pass to Josh who has a wide open 3 and just misses it.

The next possession started again with Durant at the top and this time he dribbles into the double team. Part of the issue was the poor spacing and Sengun being above the 3 point line which made it easy to trap KD.

Next possession again KD is trapped Rockets are deep into the shot clock so Sengun had to get a shot up but he tries to draw a foul instead of just shooting with his normal motion

Last possession to win the game KD gets a great look and again just missed the shot. All in all a mix bag of bad decisions and missed shots on good looks. Still only one game and not the end of the world but something that has to be fixed sooner rather than later.

 

The reality is that the Rockets have been getting their butts kicked often since the middle of November when their PG, Reed, is off the court, whether the Rockets run KD Iso, Sengun Iso, let Amen initiate, double bigs, etc. When Reed was smoking hot, the Rockets were still crushing teams. Reed coming down to Earth has meant the Reed as PG minutes are not always great (e.g., last night, good first half, bad second half) while anyone else at PG minutes still generally suck (edit: team-wide suck, not necessarily the PG).

The Rockets are shooting 30% from the middle of November when Reed is off the court. Some of that is bad luck. Some of that is usually having 2-4 non-shooters/low-volume shooters when Reed is off the court. Reed and Holiday are the only efficient, high-volume 3-point shooters on the team, and the vast majority of their minutes happen when Reed is on the court. Tari is making a bid to join that club, but he needs a much bigger sample for me to believe it.

 

reported

Spoiler

also thanks for the transcript. ain't nobody got time for that twitter shitte