Seriously, wtf? This team isn't doing anything if it's only capable of stopping bad teams from scoring. And they couldn't even do that against Sacramento and Minnesota, at home. These last 5 games, including San Antonio, has been the worst defensive stretch of the season in terms of points allowed per possession. We're not good enough to let up on defense like that.
When we were playing stellar defense earlier, I was concerned we wouldn't have it when the playoffs started. Not looking good right now but there is still time too fix it.
I wholeheartedly agree. I'm shocked our D was this bad after 3 days rest. Rox better tighten the D up, and tighten it up soon.
what the hell happened to the ball movement on offense also? these guys look flustered lately............
Well for starters, it would help if Rick Adelman wouldn't have benched his best one-on-one defender, Shane Battier, just to match his minutes with Ginobili's. Finley's been on fire lately and what does Rick do? Put Luther on him. With the exception of maybe the Golden State Warriors(since they start 4 guards), a quality team should NEVER alter its starting lineup based on their opponent. Force the other team to match up with you.
Because Battier didn't start! Battier is the core of the rockets defense! As an announcer said, the rockets should have played Battier 45+ min.
I saw Luther Head starting as was like WTH? You'd NEVER do a move like that if it was a playoff game. But its not like the D looked bad cuz of that move. Its been looking bad for 2 weeks now
It was pathetic. Everyone (for the exception of Scola) had a terrible game. No ball movement, taking tough shots, lazy D (and I mean lazy)... nothing worked. This is not the kind of basketball I'm used to seeing from these guys. Everything about this game was a let down. Bad substitutions, utilizing your bench too late... bad, bad game. Answer me this, folks: When something isn't working, you try something new, right? Why not use your damn bench. ****, I'm frustrated!
Mutombo is no longer seemingly denying everything at the rim anymore. He's likely tired as hell right now, and we didn't have that problem at the start of the streak. Also, teams are starting to expose Scola more and more in the pick and roll (Boozer will eat him alive), and the overall lack of team size becomes mroe evident when we play bigger teams.
Just be glad this wasn't a playoff game. I'm sure this is would fall under another experiment for Adelman. At least he knows what DOESN'T work in case we meet the Spurs again. I don't think we would see this kind of same performance in a playoff game. Hopefully Rick and the Rox will learn from this game.
Michael Finley: one shot inside 10 feet of the basket. That guy killed us in the first half with his shooting. What can you do if a guy like that makes all of his jump shots?
That's not the point. Ginobili is 500,000x more difficult of an assignment so Battier is needed elsewhere. My point is with a spot-up shooter like Finley all you can really do is stay in his grill and contest all of the shots, which I thought we were doing well. Sometimes a guy like that is going to kill you no matter what you do.
Mutombo did a ok job in the first Half and play Duncan pretty well in the second half, the damage was don in the first half with the Spurs shooting and has nothing to do with Mutombo at the rim. We did not get burn this time for the lack of size, actually both team went small a lot and Duncan just have an ok game. The problem was high pick & roll defense and hot shooting. And when a team are hot for the perimeter then it open the door for the cutters and rollers and hurt the pick and roll because you are now force to go over the screen and respect the shooter. When SA like Houston make his shoot for the perimeter they look unbeatable, when not they look old and slow. This SA team is the same team that NOLA blow out of the building a few weeks ago the difference now their outside shooting is falling.
Battier didn't have a good defensive game. And, the slippage in defense isn't just a one game thing. We didn't defend Sacramento and Minnesota well either.
Defense was bad, but you also can't expect us to win with Mac going 5-22. If you would of told me that without even looking at the score I knew we would of lost.
