ClutchFans Game Thread: Rockets @ Hornets 1/25/2013

nope, it is YOU who did not realize who we have in the past,, you (and many LOF, not saying it all btw) don't have high standard like old Rockets fans,, international celebrity? pffftt, Yao Ming was more famous than him,, and you know what? he ACTUALLY one of the best center in the time he played, not only in 20+ games,, and you say excellent basketball player??? yikes man, we as a Rockets fans have seen many Rocket player better than him,, to put the word "excellent" on eremy Lin after watched Olajuwon, Drexler, Barkley, Francis, Yao, McGrady on the Rockets is worth triple face palm,,

seriously, i don't hate Lin, but sometimes LOF (not all) is a bit overboard,, hope Lin can keep this efficient performance,, and having steal party again out of Deron pocket tomorrow,, :grin:

 

Just got done watching the game on league pass. What a great game. Great ball movement and everything seemed to flow great. Now that was fun basketball!

 

He's a troll dude. He's just saying it to get you riled up. It worked. Even me, an avid Lin supporter, couldn't stand him, and that's saying a lot.

 

Where'd that quote come from?

 

http://www.rotoworld.com/headlines/nba/198275/deron-williams-expected-to-play-saturday

 

is it a coincedence that after finalizing the All star games reserves line up we started playing like a team?

 

Unfortunately, i wasn't able to watch the game yet. Based on what you saw, do you see changes in the way Jeremy Lin is being utilized by our coaching staff? Did he get more opportunities to facilitate and run the point guard position instead of the usual shooting guard role that he has on this team?

 

My bad, that was the wrong link. Here's the right one..

http://www.rotoworld.com/player/nba/1597/james-harden

 

Ah ok thank you.

 

Quick thought

Lin seems to do well in games where he pressure his man rather than give them space to operate. He should play more like Toney Douglas in terms of aggressive on defense. I think it will get help him keep up his aggressiveness all game.

 

Heck yessss! Hopefully I'm right !

 

It was a decisive win. So naturally they played lin to his strengths. They still have iso james that makes it a non-blow out game. On that stretch, we nearly loose the game. They do iso james again at the end, fortunately, lead is wide enough that nola can not come back. What pissed me off was that i did not see tjones and starters played a lot of minutes on a b2b. If they dont do iso james in the middle of the game it could have been a blow out which means rest and tjones sighting.
My concern for tomorrow: coaching staff and james believes the iso james is great with james today at stellar box score numbers. What they fail to see is the other 4 guys energy when they do it. We have great defense because everyone is energized and involved. Go watch the replay if you can and observe the dynamics of all 5 players on the court.

 

Sorry, but I don't fully agree with some of your points.

#1 Ideally the spacing for the offense is better if your shooters are hitting the threes efficiently. However, better spacing may or may not leads to better ball movement. It depends on the offensive strategy, the players & how the offense is being run. Btw hitting threes is not the only way to create better spacing (for eg creating multiple screens, not just on the ball screens, but off the ball screens as well).

In this game:

1st Q: made 1/3 three (33.3%) (note: the three that Delfino made at the last sec was discounted since it had no impact on the ball movement in the entire 1st Q.)

2nd Q: made 2/6 threes (33.3%)

The team wasn't really shooting the threes well in the 1st & 2nd Q, but ball movement was great for the most parts in the 1st & 2nd Q.

3rd Q: made 4/6 threes (66.7%). Consecutive threes were made after Lin was subsituted in the middle of 3rd Q, in fact 4/4 threes were made up to that point, but what happened after that? Ball movement became stagnant due to iso heavy offense & TOs. The lead was quickly reduced from 19 to 11. Harden was replaced by Lin after he allowed an easy driving layup followed by another jump shot by Rivers (all within 15 secs).

4th Q: made 3/5 threes (60%). For the most parts ball movement was not good at all.

From the above, there really isn't a good correlation between shooting the threes well & better ball movement for this game (it maybe the case for some other games though).

#2 Harden's bad defense on Rivers was what got him benched in the 3rd Q. He also did not run back in transition defense, which the commentator rightly pointed out.

#5 Harden is no doubt the best scorer & the franchise player of this team, and I don't think people took Harden for granted. After all, the stats that he puts up every game is what got him into the ASG in the first place.

However, his game is not complete & he still has weaknesses eg his defense, he is TO prone & sometimes his iso plays tend to freeze out his teammates like in the 3rd Q. Actually I don't really think his iso play is a weakness, more like a double-edged sword. When mixed in the plays & used properly, it can get team going when shots are not falling. But he has to find a balance between playing within the system (& trusting his teammates in the process) and going iso.

In any case, being the franchise player does not means people cannot offer constructive criticisms. After all he is just 23 & this is his first year as a franchise player playing starter's mins. Time is certainly on his side and on this young team as a whole. He & the team certainly have rooms to improve. As of now, he is a very very good player. But if he can learn from his mistakes & turn his weaknesses into his strengths, he can be a great player.

 

My take on this game, I think there is a significant shift on the "live & die by the threes" strategy. The team shot an average of 28.5 threes per game prior to this game. In this game however they shot only 21 threes. Notably:

Patterson attempted only 1 three out of 11 fga
Harden attempted only 3 threes out of 15 fga
Chandler attempted only 1 three out of 13 fga

Most of the threes were allocated to the teams' best 3pt shooters namely:

Delfino attempted 6 threes out of 9 fga
Morris attempted 4 threes out of 6 fga
TD attempted 3 threes out of 4 fga

I think this is a good move in that it allowed the players to play to their strength rather than trying to mold them into something they are not, at least not for this season.

In particular, Patterson grabbed 5 offensive rebounds, something he could not have achieved had he camped out beyond the arc all game.

Just my 2cents.

 

Lin's super defense on Vasquez.
He scored only 2 pts

 

I never like the concept of "live and die by 3s" because when the Rockets bricked enough 3s to build a Great Wall of China, the outcome was reflected from the recent losses, when opposing teams just camped under the basket and collected rebounds.

Got to mix up the offense to keep the opponents guessing.

 

There was a lot to like about tonight's game. The ball movement was nice to see. Let's just remember the Hornets are terrible. When you're putting Austin Rivers in the game when it matters you know your team is terrible.
Hope for good things tomorrow night. Hard to have a ton of energy on a back to back.

 

Haha, did Ppat really yell "GIMME DAT SH** N****" audibly on the broadcast? I want a video of that

 

The Iso hero ball is like an embedded virus inside McFail's genetic finger print.
He will never be able to get over it. It's so painful to watch. It's funny to watch James holding that ball faking pumps for 8 seconds, then bricks it or being pocked away his ball.

 

As a Lin fan you support whatever team he is on and to have people say Lin has been playing terribly has been somewhat confusing. His 3 point shooting is 2nd worst in active starters only behind Montage Ellis, shooting a measly 28%. But I've watched Lin since Harvard and all the Dleague games and his 3pt normally sucks anyway. He's more of a lower 30s vs a high 20s guy. But anyway I just wanted to point out great rotation today by the coaching staff, they utilized the bench a bit more, hopefully more next time, played fantastic defense, Patterson was the player of the game, Harden started doing iso plays and got benched when we were down by 2 after leading by 10, then Lin's team work and ball movement got everyone involved and brought up back up to 8(should've been 10 with Parsons last play at the half). 3rd quarter the bench kept us around and when we started struggling at the 4th, the key was the D and NO turnovers they kept us in the game. Still a lot of room for improvement, especially in late game energy and situations but today was a good team win and that's all that matters.