Who should come off the bench, Ariza or Battier? I think Ariza should come off the bench. Battier has a better denfense than Ariza. Both Martin and Brooks are not good at defense. They need to play together with Battier.
I agree based on tonight's game, the rockets really need to improve their defense, with a lineup change, or they will never beat a good team, heck even a bad team!!!
Ariza cuz he players better with Kyle Lowry and Battier is a good defender so he can play with Martin, AB and Scola
i agree so far, i rather have Ariza running on the wing with lowry and battier's help D next to martin/brooks.
Battier is a better suited starter for this team. He doesn't need to shoot giving more shots to better scorers such as Martin/Brooks/Scola (and next year Yao). When he does shoot he tends to be a more efficient scorer as he understands his limitations. Ariza is a much better transition player than Shane and with Lowry (who never stops running) running the point he can get alot more points that way. He will also be running with Hill, a mobile big who runs the floor well and Chase who is rookie with great potential.
Ariza. Battier, as it is known, brings the intangibles that Trevor does not. I'd rather go to war at the beginning and at the end with Batman. Ariza is a great role player off the bench, and he still gets more minutes than he would on any other team.
Ariza, Battier works better with Brooks Plus IMO Ariza has more offence than Battier, this way he can provide some offence off the bench
It should depend on who we are playing e.g. Kobe and Lakers - then Ariza because he plays Kobe well IMO.
I disagree, with Chuck Hayes starting, we are better starting Ariza. This team can't afford to have to 2 non-offensive players in the starting line-up. I went to tonight's game and you could easily see that the offense flowed a lot better with Ariza. When you have at least 4 good scorers, the opposing defense can't cheat off your offensive liabilities. Yes, the defense wasn't quite there, but a lot of that was Lopez dominating Chuck Hayes. This unit has barely played a game together, so give them some time. The only way I would have Battier starting is with Yao. Most of our offense would go through Yao, so you can afford to have your SF not putting up shots. Most teams get great production from the SF position, so it wouldn't hurt the Rockets to upgrade for next season.
Something to think about, Scola had a career night playing with Ariza in this new lineup. The addition of Martin has really open things up for Scola, but now adding Ariza will help even more. Battier just seems to run to the corner and opposing teams can just play off him. They can easily cheat and help double tgeam the post. Ariza is a threat to score shooting or driving the ball, so the oposing teams must keep him in check. This will give Scola more one on one opportunities.
Like you said, it's been one game. The offense wasnt exactly struggling prior to this game and prior to this lineup, but the defense was. It's too early to say if ariza will consistently play better with scola and that they'll pay off each other better. However, it's not too early to say defense is a problem.
Coach Adelman made some comments about the Ariza/Battier question during his post-game conference: (on starting Trevor): Shane has told me from forever that he’ll come off the bench. I told him I’d try it but I don’t know if that’s better for our team. It changes Trevor’s role somewhat because now he’s got to guard the toughest guy out there at the start of the game. But the other thing with Shane is he gives me a lot of flexibility. We knew they were going to play small tonight and I was going to counter with it in the second half. Shane gives me a lot of options and I want to see what Trevor and Aaron and Kevin do when they’re on the court. That’s something we’re going to keep looking at and in the second half I changed it around. I didn’t play Chase until the end but I wanted to see Kyle and Aaron together and I’m just going to keep trying things and it worked out; that small group played really well and was active playing with Aaron and Kyle. http://www.nba.com/rockets/news/scola_simply_spectacular_rocke_2010_03_13.html I thought the point about Ariza having to guard the tougher assignment as a starter was interesting. Kind of sheds light on how he sees the roles of Ariza and Battier being different.
I'm okay with Ariza starting this season. I think Battier would fit better once Yao gets back since that would give us 3 deadly 3point shooters in Brooks, Martin and Battier to surround Yao and Scola. Can you imagine those three getting wide open 3's ???!!
I would say it depends on the match-ups, who would better guard the opposing team's top scorer. With our starting unit of Brooks and Martin, we need a guy who can provide help defense for them.
One thing I noticed in last nights game is that shane seemed to be playing with more energy and explosiveness coming off the bench. It could be the couple days rest between games but Im hoping that a fresher Battier playing fewer minutes will bring us more of a defensive spark off the bench. Im anxious to see how it works in the next few games. Shane this season seems to play better when there is at least 1 day of rest in between games, but plying fewer minutes from the bench may be a kind of addition by subtraction. Regarding Ariza, I like everything about his game except for the shooting %, which I am guessing will improve with Yao back. Legit NBA starter/role player when not asked to shoot a lot.
