Reed needs to be leaned into and told he is a number 1 or 2 option, when you are open let it fly. Kevin Durant needs to be told he is a 3rd or 4th option and to stop crowding the floor at the top of the key. DD
he’s never been an explosive dribble drive guy. he does shoot but he takes the wrong type of shots. A leaning running jumpshot from 15 ft is not a great shot. Handling the ball full court then immediately running to the corner to shoot a pullup from 15–18 ft not passing to anyone is not a great shot. Play within the team’s offense dont try to do too much. Focus on catch and shoot. He hasn’t been good at this lately. Move around screens and get open.
i think we all need to let reed go. DD likes him. he is dead. I love reed, but it's done. DD crying for him in the reply's reed might get traded.
I just look at the way players play. One play in that critical 9-11 pt okc run his man simply went off a high screen which he decided not to run through and try to get close to the ball handler but instead just stopped. Maybe miscommunication with i think sengun. Both guys stayed back and the guy hit a 3 in our face. other one he was supposed to guard corner 3 but ran to the middle to help the driving player with okogie already helping. Ball was passed to corner another 3 in our face But the one play that was silly was on offense when he just stood there at a bad angle on the 3 pt line instead of moving to the wing to get the pass back from sengun which resulted in a steal but luckily they missed a 3. i keep telling yall these little things matter and they add up and they are the difference between winning and losing. The trade doesn’t make sense. Forcing Sheppard into the lineup doesn’t make sense. No pg doesn’t make sense. Nothing makes sense right now for this team.
Yeah, I agree with you that the little things are what make OKC the team they are and us the team we are. Houston does a lot of things right actually but it just takes one guy blowing an assignment or miscommunicating on a switch and good teams will make you pay for those mistakes. You can get away with those mistakes against bad teams - but against the best teams and ESPECIALLY in the playoffs - it really separates the real contenders from the pretenders and we make too many mistakes to be considered a contender right now. Speaking of things not making sense - I'm not totally understanding the zone either. I think Jimmy Jackson said in the game that Houston was playing a zone to stop OKC scoring inside so much but I'm like - they had a double big lineup! If you can't shut down the paint with double bigs, what is the real value of your bigs? And why run out double bigs and then ask them to play the outside of the zone? Adams and Sengun struggled to put pressure on OKC's shooters while in that zone. There are things happening in the game some time and they seem to defy logic and the results are "meh" - so why are we doing them? For example, I know the stat line for Bari tonight was better than it has been in the recent past, but I thought he was not a winning player tonight. Guys scored on him often- he doesn't seem to make anyone uncomfortable out there as a defender...and when the ball comes to him he seems like he is increasingly thinking his pump fake is going to get him some space but often times he is passing up decent shots just to take more difficult ones like KD - but he is no KD!
OKC just beat Wemby and his henchmen with the Zone.... and Spur beat the Thunder with their style of generating Turnovers. Bari was better than Sactown Bari or Portland Bari.....he is just another pedestrian dude out there if he cannot make shots.
....so far '2025/2026 Bari' is overall not a starting level player. The problem is, with DFS and Tari perpetually injured, Bari keeps getting minutes just in case he happens to go on one of his highly infrequent "quick 8 pt runs".
Yeah I dunno. I have to review the tape to see why they played zone. Bari did some things well but a lot of mistakes lots of stupid TO’s. I think it comes down to we are just sloppy with a lot of things. Not precise or efficient. Seems like we never get a clean fast break as most of our players not named Amen or Tari can get separation. Amen himself missed a lot of shots in the paint or just threw up wild shots. Our inability to score on the break off TO’s is one of our biggest deficiencies.
The reason Ime loves the Zone is because it allows our personnel to conserve energy on the defencive end. There's less running around screens and chasing the ball. This is because we have a 37 year old KD and someone like Steven Adams which allows them to play more game time without being gassed out. There was a stat that showed Houston runs one of the highest minutes in Zones and also one of the lowest running meters or something as a team defencively. The problem is our Zone is putrid. We're not even able to stop penetrations since our zone is played so badly, i've not seen us use the zone effectively but Ime loves it and continues to implement it.
Totally. Most trade scenarios are very unlikely to happen and this one is just like the other. It’s just what my intuition tells me about how the team really thinks about Sengun behind closed doors. I’m sure they love the guy and really like that he’s their first all star in the post Harden era which means something. I just know the makeup of the brass and Ime’s mindset and I’m pretty dead certain they’d be very on-board if they could make a deal like that happen.
How is Reed supposed to "play within the offense"? This would imply that ANYONE is ready to set a screen off the ball. But we have none of that. There are no concepts of vacating an area so someone can drive or going backdoor/cutting to the basket and THEN setting a screen, etc. It's the mindless ball screen out top, and "spread the floor" via 3-point spacing (notice I didn't say shooting). I know many want to blame the coaches, but it is a player's game. They have to come to the coaches and say, "Can we try something else?" For example: why oh why can't Durant or Jabari (or BOTH, since a double off the ball screen remain legal) set up Sengun at the rim or for an easier shot? Or while we're droning away with 3/5 action (Sengun and Durant), have the other 3 guys involved in some kind of secondary action (cutting, rotating, or screening for each other, etc.). Immediately, the help D can't just camp and clamp down. Add a drop of movement to this team on offense and watch what happens to Sheppard and Jabari. They will look so much better. When an offense is stagnant, players can talk, review tape, use a whiteboard, and improve. It's on them, not on the coaches, to fix things.
hopefully the new guy can keep his sanity watching this team brick everything and struggle to score like it’s 2005 because these games lately got me like after watching 48 minutes
