ClutchFans Game Thread: Rockets @ Grizzlies 3/29/2013

What do yo mean they didn't do much? Can you be more specific and not so general. What exactly is not so much? I broke it down in previous post, ableit detailed but not detailed enough, on what some of the problems were. You can elaborate if you want and we can have a real discussion.

 

In your analysis of why the Rockets lost, more than half your paragraphs involve Lin and something he did wrong. It seems like your analysis was made more to spite LOFs rather than to objectively explain what went wrong for the Rockets.

If you've watched the past two games and not just Lin and all his mistakes you'll realize that the biggest reason the Rockets lost was because their frontcourt got absolutely abused by both the Pacer's and Grizzlies's.

Good defensive teams have learned how to defend Lin and Harden and are forcing the ball into the PF/C to make a play. Everytime either of them try to get into the paint the defense's collapses and pretty much just leave the PF wide open. That's why D-Mo gets so many open looks.

Until the Rockets get a reliable low post threat, which I think D-Mo could be, Harden and especially Lin are going to struggle to find space in the paint against good defenses.

 

True: the repeated mentions of salary and alma mater are quite irrelevant.

Some people want to distribute minutes according to players' contract value. I don't even need to comment on the wisdom of that idea.

Also needless to say: a team of never-went-to-college NBA all stars would kick the asses of a most-educated NBA all star team.

As for the OKC comeback: the weird thing about the past is that it will never return. T-Mac scored 13 in 33. Don't you wonder why he didn't just do that every game?

 

Good analysis. But you left off Harden's horrible stretch of defense in the last minute of the first quarter.

Tony Allen has the ball on the wing. Harden is sagging off him and fronting Randolph on the high post. Tony does the right thing and penetrates to the whole as Randolph pops out. The Rockets rotate correctly with Beverley collapsing and forcing Tony to kick it out to Bayless who is quickly closed out by Beverley. What does Harden do? Instead of recovering to his man who is at the top of the circle and one pass away, he camps out in the key, ball watching. Bayless passes it back to Allen for a wide open long two which he misses.

On the ensuing rebound, Beverley pushes the ball up to Robinson, who couldn't handle the pass in traffic. Bayless gets the ball and somehow, Allen manages to get behind Harden for the easy lay up. When Beverley made the pass, Harden was still in the backcourt and Allen was in the front court. But when Bayless starts the counter attack, Harden is back pedalling, watching the ball while his man just takes off.

On the last play, Harden is caught ball watching again. The Grizzlies run a double high screen for Bayless. Robinson is in decent position to stop any penetration by Bayless. Harden, is in good position to help too, but is ball watching. Tony does a back cut and gets the ball for an easy lay up.

All this happened in the last minute of the first quarter.

 

Does anyone understand why Delfino guards the 4 and Parsons guards the 3 when we're playing small ball? Not that Parsons is big enough to guard Z-Bo anyway...

 

Troll? Its complete opposite of whats happening.

 

Exactly

 

"Tony Allen has the ball on the wing. Harden is sagging off him and fronting Randolph on the high post. Tony does the right thing and penetrates to the whole as Randolph pops out. The Rockets rotate correctly with Beverley collapsing and forcing Tony to kick it out to Bayless who is quickly closed out by Beverley. What does Harden do? Instead of recovering to his man who is at the top of the circle and one pass away, he camps out in the key, ball watching. Bayless passes it back to Allen for a wide open long two which he misses."

First of all, Harden wasn't sagging off and fronting ZBO as it's more of about both them running into each other at that exact position, or perhaps ZBo was trying to screen for Allen is more likely. Recovering to his man? Harden was in the right position albeit a bit further in the paint than usual to protect the interior. Everyone in the NBA knows Allen is not a perimeter threat so there's no need to play tight on him when he's on the perimeter.

"On the ensuing rebound, Beverley pushes the ball up to Robinson, who couldn't handle the pass in traffic. Bayless gets the ball and somehow, Allen manages to get behind Harden for the easy lay up. When Beverley made the pass, Harden was still in the backcourt and Allen was in the front court. But when Bayless starts the counter attack, Harden is back pedalling, watching the ball while his man just takes off."

This was a completely broken play. Allen was at mid-court when Beverley already launched a pass to TRob. Allen made a heads up play by leaking back to the basket anticipating a miss from TRob. That was a better anticipation play by Allen than Harden not getting back. Also, Rockets transition defense doesn't predicate on who that players defends in the half-court has to be the same player he defends in transition.

"On the last play, Harden is caught ball watching again. The Grizzlies run a double high screen for Bayless. Robinson is in decent position to stop any penetration by Bayless. Harden, is in good position to help too, but is ball watching. Tony does a back cut and gets the ball for an easy lay up."

In this play, Harden could have positioned himself lower on the block, but he was playing high to prevent the penetration from Bayless. Bayless could have easily beat TRob to the basket if Harden didn't play the driving lane. If anything, I blame Delfino for being out of position and not packing in the paint a little tighter from his position.

 

Yeah, it seems like this will be an issue for us. Slowpace physical, defensive teams with defenders who can lockdown Harden will screw us everytime. We suck in the halfcourt other than Harden. If he gets locked down, then who are we relying on. Our other two leading scorers, Parsons and Lin, are only transition players. That's why it's so important we get another star player, so it's not just a matter of them having a defender capable of locking down Harden, but you also gotta worry about Dwight in the post or whatever. The sad thing is he tried forcing it in the Pacer's game and that went bad, then he tried deferring all night this game and that went even worse.

 

And this is where your obvious hyperfocus on Lin shows it's true colors.

There were defensive breakdowns throughout the game, however it was team wide. And a significant part of it is that the Coach left the team with a ridiculous set of match ups.

Harden had numerous plays where he was ball watching, and players were able to make cuts right behind/past him. He also failed to raise his hand to contest on multiple perimeter shots.

Lin got caught on screens and got burned when he overplayed close outs a few times.

Asik was in an impossible situation. He's our only competent big, and you've got TWO all star bigs on the Memphis front line in Zbo and Gasol. You expect Asik to be able to cover them both ALL THE TIME? Smith, Robinson and Montejunas were in foul trouble all night, and they were horribly mismatched.

Expecting Delfino to cover Zbo and Gasol is beyond ridiculous.

And we KNOW Asik has poor hands and weak finishing, we knew that when we signed him. And you're bashing him for this Now? This is just stupid. You might as well start complaining that Dwight doesn't shoot 90% from the FT line this season.

My issue was not with sitting any individual player, it was sitting the ENTIRE starting Unit.

Can you honestly say that your *best* chance to win is leaving Harden, Parsons, Lin AND Asik on the floor after the Bench has played over 10 straight minutes and are averaging less than 20 minutes per game? That our chances would not have improved by putting at least ONE of them on the floor?

Read my post this thread, I said the problem was sitting all FIVE of the starters. THAT is a strategically poor decision no matter how you want to spin it.

Yet for you, it's all about Lin. Every post it's about Lin's mistakes and errors. Yes, Lin makes errors. He's also in the same boat as the vast majority of this team.

YOUNGEST Team in the NBA. LEAST experienced Team in the NBA. You expect they'll have great Defense after less than one season playing together? After they've lost BOTH their starting PF AND Back up PF in a trade?

Think about this... Zbo and Gasol are in the paint, they have an Elite perimeter defender in Tony Allen, and we have NOBODY other than Asik that can match up effectively with them.

Zbo and Gasol completely owned us in the paint.

Conley didn't own us in the first quarter, Zbo and Gasol did. Maybe you'd better take a closer look at exactly WHO was scoring on us and start that.

http://popcornmachine.net/cgi-bin/gameflow.cgi?date=20130329&game=HOUMEM

And an interesting note in terms of match ups... Conley put up 6 of his 13 assists in the 4th quarter. Against the "energy" guys. The only reason he didn't go off on the Bench sooner is he was SITTING when the Houston starters were out.

As for complaining about the Coach, if you can't see that McHale has made numerous substitution errors throughout the season then we're just going to have to disagree.

Sitting Asik when we need him to get critical rebounds in losses. Or how about playing Parsons and Harden for 10 minutes in the 4th when we're up by 25? Or subbing out Lin when he's shooting well over 50% and defending well.

It isn't just my opinion on McHale, former players have castigated McHale for being clueless.

I refer you to THIS interview... http://www.rockymountainnews.com/ne...need-be-wary-minnesota-wednesday/?partner=RSS

Maybe McHale is some brilliant coach that is getting the best from this young squad.

On the other hand, has it occurred to you that MAYBE the Players are winning in SPITE of McHale? That they are winning on sheer Talent and BBIQ?

McHale, the Coach who does NOT call plays?

From the Horse's mouth... http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/8989580/is-rockets-gm-daryl-morey-plan-working-houston

McHale is no Popovich, and to compare his moves to a Popovich or Jackson is truly insulting to those of us who really are hardcore Basketball fans.

 

You can't blame the guy. This has become the focus on every thread, post, subject, in this ENTIRE garm.

 

You can say that again. I think some here start to defend McHale, not because he's a good coach, but because it goes hand-and-hand with the trolling on Lin.

 

How much you make is the bureaucracy aspect of the game, after it’s all said and done, competitive nature dictates that people don’t want to lose. Yes they are overpaid but there are people in this world who do thing for the competition and passion. I know it’s hard to comprehend but even if you are making millions losing it a b****.

 

Quite a stretch there.

You are criticizing McHale's tactical decisions, even when great coaches have made similar decisions. Show how the decisions were dissimilar. "McHale is no Popovich/Jackson" doesn't convey anything.

 

This whole McHale is not Pops reminds me of when Lin airballed that 3 during the Miami Heats game and all the defenders where saying that Kobe, Lebron, etc all airballed 3s before.

 

If I'm hyperfocused on Lin it's probably the same reason you're hyperfocused on McHale. Out of all the things Lin did or didn't do, you can only point out "Lin got caught on screens and got burned when he overplayed close outs a few times." Really? If Lin wasn't ball-watching, Conley wouldn't have gotten that extra step on him on one instance and I believe you're talking about the backdoor cut as the other instance. Harden ball watches so does Lin but I didn't mention anything about Lin's ball watching. So essentially Lin is the best defender and the only way he can get beat is if he's "caught" in screens. You're oversimplifying. In any case, there are plenty of things you wrote that I should respond to but I'll keep it simple for now.

Do you really think I'm completely clueless about McHale's history as a GM and coach when he was in Minnesota and how his player called him a bad X and O coach. No matter how bad he is, he's been in this game long enough to know more than you and I. His Xs and Os might be bad back then, how do you know if it's just as bad now. This is his 2nd year with the Rockets and he coached probably a total of two seasons in Minnesota counting the times he took over mid-season.

McHale has never ever sat his entire starting lineup speaks to the severity of how poorly they played regardless of how bad McHale is the coach. You Mchale is out to sabotage this game and not wanting to win as bad as you and I. There are instances in the NBA where a coach sits the entire starting lineup. It's nothing new. It happened before. Remember Popovich recently sitting out his starting lineup in protest of the rough schedule. Albeit for a different reason but he did anyways. So does he not want to win?

As an objective fan, I couldn't stand any of the players yesterday. They were absolutely horrible in every way possible. If McHale doesn't sent them a message now, wait until when? The playoffs.

You're so worked up by how McHale limits Lin's playing time that you can't look at this specific situation objectively. That's it.

 

All LOFs are hyperfocused on McHale and absolutely think Lin does no wrong. And even if Lin did anything wrong, you can all just point to one thing and that it's screen but not the player. The screen is just as evil as McHale. Lin can do no wrong

 

You're being a huge hypocrite. You write long drawn out posts with the sole purpose of defending Lin.

 

I wouldn't say every time or all of those type of teams. The Bulls weren't a problem, and they are that type of team and have a great perimeter defender.

Tbh, the Memphis game wasn't even that slow until the Rockets bench got in. And despite Harden's no-show, the starting unit didn't play horrible offense overall, they were pretty good. Memphis simply abused the Rockets starters' defense (or lack thereof), had a brilliant offensive game, got a bunch of second opportunities and just showed more heart overall.

I think Memphis is the more talented team but i think the Rockets are likely to do better when they meet next time, with some motivational work from McHale.

 

What bothers me is McHale keeps making the SAME wrong decisions AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN...

I don't think anyone with common sense would have complained so much if he tried something that didn't work and then took the responsibility for his own decisions and NOT REPEAT IT AGAIN.

This is not about just this game. This is about the WHOLE FREAKING SEASON.