LA's def nothin impressive. we need2 worry about our def more imo since LA's offence could be a HUGE PROBLEM.
yea they play a very aggressive defense (sorta of like a 2-2-1 zone) in the half-court where they would just go hard at the ballhandler. we really need to make quick decisions. however, they give up A TON of wide open shots b/c of this kind of defense. i hope if we're missing, get the ball and penetrate. but this defense can be solved.
It essentially works against teams who can't shoot or don't get alot of points in the post. I think their defense will get exposed against Phoenix and Golden State.
that's why it's misleading b/c the teams they have faced are mediocre teams (portland got a shock b/c oden went out and it's the first game), clips twice, denver team that plays zero D and was actualy a very close game. had melo didn't suck major in that game, denver could have won it. i agree that good shooting teams will expose them. but our team has the superstars who know how to handle the double teams very well (hopefully yao doesn't turn the ball over much tonight). this is where we miss shane. since the lakers PG isn't very quick, if shane was healthy, we could go big here and spread the court. you can put tmac, shane , artest/barry, scola/landry, and yao out there. we put up our size v. their size, but we also have shooters. i wouldn't use this game to judge where we are. however, i would like to see our level of intensity, have we improve the defense and rebounding over the past off-days... we're still looking to improve.
The only reason the Rockets are only down 10 midway through the 3rd is the turnovers forced and some 3-point shooting. But they're half court offense has been completely owned by the Lakers defense. Particularly the starters.
There's absolutely zero semblance of any type of offensive set..especially with the starters. In one sequence, Rafer brought the ball up and Yao wanted to get position at the elbow but McGrady was adamant on taking that spot to post up Kobe...which then forced Yao to shift down and out of position.
So, how did we do? Like I said in the OP, I thought this game would be a very good test for our half-court offense. And we failed it, miserably. I wish we could play the Lakers 20 more times this season just to break some of our players' bad habits.
First 10 minutes seemed to be alright. Rockets depth being a supposed strength, it was the Rockets 2nd team that really got overmatched by the Lakers length and transition offense. Then from there the bad habits of the starters got exposed when they got back in. Rockets were pretty much pathetic 2nd quarter on.
I disagree. They turned it over 8 times in the first period, and we took advantage of that. But our half court offense never looked good to me.
You called it, durvasa. Not only were the Lakers successful at disrupting our offense while we were incapable of making adjustments but the Rockets' team defense was pathetic on top of that. Those factors combined make it easy to see why we got destroyed. This team has plenty of work to do on both sides of the ball.
But it wasn't like all our points came off our turnovers. Bynum is physical but I still don't think he has a chance at stopping a healthy Yao 1 on 1. They still doubled Yao, so that was telling. A healthy T-Mac will be able to dominate Radmanovich. Brooks can blow by any of their guards as he was a contributor to getting the 16 point lead. As for the half court offense not looking good, has it looked good in any of our games? I wouldn't say the Lakers defense had a lot to do with our offensive struggles. We're still trying to add motion into our offense, and we were just plain gassed anyway, while the Lakers had a very favorable schedule.
They didn't double Yao. What they did was get physical with him with Bynum and whenever Tracy had the ball on the wing,it was strongside zone. I stopped conting how many times Odom or Pau just came over to the side with Mcgrady and left scola or ladry by themselves to guard against tracy creating. Ariza was too atheletic for Barry which we knew. We have no one that can guard Pau or Odom. Its not that hard.
