I blame Ime for this, there’s no direction out there. The players don’t know where to go or when to cut. Alpi thinks he’s the closer but KD wants to be the closer.
I don't understand why this issue only started in December. The bigger issue right now is how shockingly bad the defense has gotten.
@Reeko glad this game has started better given your West Coast investment. Just hope we keep it going!
You just spoke too soon. We are falling off a cliff yet again for the hundredth time this season. This team needs to stop going to Sengun as the point guard at half court when they need to calm things down. It does the opposite every time and the team unravels when he starts whining to the refs and not getting back on defense.
Glad to see they finished what they started. I was playing Mexican Train with the family and just checked the score.
I like it! our players gotta show ownership... quit expecting Ime to always be the heavy... i mean somebody's gotta tell Bari he aint KD... lol! Amen told Reed he'd punch him in the face if he didnt take the shot - Reed needs to come back and tell Amen that he's gonna punch him in the face if he takes another 3... lol!
Teams realized that you could beat the Rockets by pressuring the ball when they don't have a proper ball handler in there, it was obvious to a lot of us on day 1, took the league a bit of time to figure it out. We are a FLAWED team, every single player on our team is flawed, we don't have a PURE LEADER - and we don't maximize our guys strengths and hide our weaknesses. Flaws. KD is old can't get rely on him to initiate - bad passer under pressure. Sengun is slow - not a great defender - and coasts from time to time Amen - Can't shoot, not a great dribbler Tari - not a great dribbler - hustles but can't create his own or other shots Bari - can't dribble Reed - Poor defense Okogie - Can't create on dribble DFS - No dribble either Adams - can't shoot, useless outside of 2 feet from basket Out of all of our 9 rotational players, only one....ONE can dribble well and that is Reed, and his dribble is not the best - it is at most average. The best dribbler on the team is Davison and he can't get a sniff..... So, the team lost FVV - and didn't do anything to bring in another PG, or creator, doesn't have to be a point, can be any position as long as they can create for themselves and others. Until we get that hole fixed, either by Reed playing a lot more and getting better, or Davison, or trade, or through the buyout, we will be susceptible to pressure on our ball handlers.... A better overall PLAN and system would help, but it wouldn't get rid of the problem entirely.....got to have someone that can create on the floor for others....and themselves. DD
Not a bad take. I think you're underselling Amen's ballhandling a little bit. I think him and Reed are both guys where sometimes it looks good and sometimes, not so much. It may develop for both of them, but the odds of it suddenly looking like a finished product this season are slim. Somewhat missing in all of this discussion is our lack of spacing. It doesn't have to be this way, but given how often Ime runs double bigs and/or lineups with both Okogie and Amen, it's still been a problem this season despite the addition of KD and Reed's emergence as a good/great shooter. The issue is that it makes us predictable. Having KD or Amen or Sengun initiate on the perimeter wouldn't be so bad, if they had four dangerous shooters around them to make the pass out of a bad situation simpler. It's just an extra layer of predictability, teams can show help or full-double or pack the paint too easily against us. We can't go through this whole season with both lackluster spacing and developing ballhandlers and expect to make real noise in the playoffs. We have to fix at least one of the two. On the plus side, the returns of DFS and Tari may help fix the former issue on their own.
Not a big fan of making this sound like Durant knows what to do, but otherwise, thx for posting. notice he agreed with my post-game comment in Nuggets loss on the odd Sengun step-back three. Sengun and JS failed to execute the pitch-back option of that play. Which we’ve done before. There isn’t one Rockets fan here or on Twitter who saw that … Roosh even replied one of my post saying that Cam Johnson blitzed back to stop it … lulz … it’s so *sigh* that ppl like Roosh and Frank (and credentials guys) have to dig in and deny when I post something that they just didn’t see, to protect their BBall IQ, I guess here’s my post-game analysis of that play … just like the OP video of this thread
I think to understand our offense better, it is important to note (wrt dribbling) that Sengun might be the best dribbling center in the league … hence why we run a lot of actions with him in high post … it’s helpful to consider why we do that. When not doubled, he is a serious dribbling whirling dervish, which is a perfectly fine ISO, imo. Our improvement there is about double teams. Also, an important thing to note wrt Amen is we clearly want him to stress the defense early in halfcourt sets with his downhill pressure. You’ll see Adams set early drag screens (same he does for Reed) which still have time to convert to him giving up the ball and taking the dunker spot ,,, but first we look for the easy layup, or easy 3 by Reed, in his case. So we often double-dip on our Amen threats on the same possession, Amen both as downhill threat and then still moving to dunker spot. ofc, nothing I’m saying addresses the OP vid’s point about late-game failures, other than my previous point that the vid was too nice to KD, imo.
Or just quickly install some sort of a press/trap break. I mean they had like 10 days off recently. The problem with the NBA is it’s apparently assumed that no one will pressure the ball and players freak out when it happens. And I’m not talking about the player with the ball. It’s everyone else. Either they’re slow to react, or more worried about getting to their spots. It’s the extra stuff you’re going to heal with when you lose your starting point guard at the last minute.
Young team has growing pains? Color me shocked. All this whining, let's see what we look like after the all-star break before you guys get your panties in a bunch.
