Parsons hasn't been a real defensive stopper since his first year. Even then bigger forwards like melo and dirk gave him a lot of fits due to size difference.
Parsons should have been on Ellis using length to disrupt him, Harden on Marion, and Bev on Calderon. When I saw what they actually rolled out, I was convinced for the first time that McHale needs replacing. As for our perimeter defense, the primary issue there is perimeter rotations, often 2 people rotate to the same guy, it's not the individual defense.
I don't buy into what Sampson is saying. The Rockets lack discipline and tend to take way to many chances. When James Harden refuses to follow an off the ball player through a screen it's most likely because James is a lazy defender. James is most likely exactly what Sampson is talking about when he talks about players not caring about defense. But Beverley is an example of putting in tremendous effort and yet he ends up out of position a lot as well. The team takes a lot of risks trying to jump the passing lanes and chasing the ball. That tends to lead to wide open shots when balls are not tipped or stolen. As much as anything I think that is what is wrong with Houston's perimeter defense. Are the coaches letting them gamble on defense? Maybe. A stolen ball is the quickest way to start a fast break and the Rockets love the fast break. Maybe the coaches allow the players to take chances to start the fast break. I don't know. I do know that I wish the team was a whole lot more disciplined in their approach to defense.
Poor coaching is the first problem. Carlos Boozer is known as a defensive liability, but the Chicago Bulls are able to hide his weakness within their system, by limiting his minutes. We need to figure something out for Harden. The other problem is that Parsons and Beverley are overrated on D by the team and by a lot of fans. Casspi and Garcia are also overrated to a lesser extent. Lin still wanders a lot more than he should on D, but he doesn't do it as much as he did last season. I think you have to say Lin's D has improved from last season. Asik is a very good rebounder, but I've never thought of him as a rim protector. I don't know how he suddenly got that reputation. He was great @ outlet passes last year which helped us get a lot of easy baskets last season. When you don't have to work so hard on offense you can give more effort on D.
I actually think that Parsons did a decent job on Dirk when the two teams played earlier in the season and Houston trotted out its "small ball" lineup of Beverley, Lin, Harden, Parsons and Howard for a time. This group really wasn't employed in the game last night, probably because Lin didn't have it going and Jones was playing well. Also, they probably didn't want Dallas to also downsize by putting Dirk at the C spot since Dalembert was kind of fumbling around out there and Dallas' offense was already hot. One factor to consider: Parsons is apparently still suffering from the painful back spasms. Maybe this is hurting his defense and also causing the team to want to avoid having him work against bigger guys right now. Going forward, we'll probably see plenty of Parsons on the likes of Dirk and Melo and the team employing the Bev/Lin/Harden/Parsons/Howard group. I do agree, though, that Parsons isn't really a defensive stopper at least when he is expending as much energy on offense as he has been. It would be beneficial to have a guy who can do the job better than Parsons. Right now, we have Francisco Garcia and Ronnie Brewer as candidates. Garcia has been struggling of late and isn't making the kind of impact he did vs. OKC in the playoffs. Brewer hasn't really seen much time, maybe it's time to give him a try, but his ugly jumpers scare me (and probably scare the coaches, too).
Guess where Josh Smith's team is ranked defensively this year? http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/DET/2014.html I think Detroit stupidly signed him to play small forward. The guy is just not a small forward. Iggy, for sure, has had a great positive impact. But either him or Smith would have required a sign and trade deal even if the money is right and the player agrees to play in Houston (maybe Iggy just wants to live in San Francisco, can't control these things). These things are just complicated. With Iggy, it's unlikely that Denver would have wanted the necessary Houston trade pieces, Lin and Asik, given that they are already paying big money to Lawson and McGee. With Smith, I think the issue came down to money. Morey is reported to have met with Smith, but the $ offered by Detroit was likely just too rich for Morey to match even if Atlanta probably would have done a Smith for Asik swap. It's not that big a deal, though. The team still has the assets to acquire the piece they need. In fact, for a similar trade deal, I'd prefer the guy Atlanta signed with the $ they didn't spend on Smith, Paul Millsap, to Smith himself.
I'm not that high on millsap like everybody else is I don't think he's the piece that will put us over the top
The Rockets' problem is lack of discipline, on both offense and defense ends, that's on coaches. You can get away in the regular season when teams don't have enough time to prepare, but all of these problems will be exposed in playoff. Look at the Suns a few years back, and the Clippers last couple of years. The bad habits were already built up during the regular season, you cannot just turn the switch on coming playoff time. If the Rockets continue play like this, they will have a quick playoff exit.
Stop running so much slow down the pace and ACTUALLY run offensive plays (McHale) and the D will be tons better
It is a mix of both. We have a team of young players who take too many risks, and sometimes just get lazy on D, and it is up to coaches to fix that, which is has not seemed like they have been doing. That is what frustrates me most, they lack discipline and do often get lazy and the coaches do nothing about. Anyone can be a decent defender if they just put in effort. That is really all it takes, some effort. I am not saying that that makes everyone a great or even good defender, but being a decent one by just trying a little more goes a long way, and that is what I hope to see at the very least from our back court.
There is no question defensive prowess is a credit or a blame on the coach. - All good defense is team defense. There is only so much you can guard 1-1, as once you get picked, it becomes team defense. - Defense-oriented coach emphasize defense, runs defensive drills, call players out when they lapse defensively. Who have not seen Pops screaming at Duncan or Parker for missing defensive assignments? Guess what, they rarely miss their defensive assignment to begin with. - Yesterday's game was a great illustration. When we were up somewhere in the 3rd quarter, McHale said "we are doing well defensively, let's keep it going". Seriously? Even though we were up, we had still let Mavs score some 70 pts by the middle of 3rd quarter. - But the most important is in-game defensive adjustment. Great defense coach adjusts to opponent's game after a timeout, hence the timeout, and it tends to stop the bleeding. But not the Rockets. And it is not just for this game, it is for other games where we had big leads and lost them. Opponents made adjustments, but we failed to. - Funny you see Mavs did that yesterday defensively. During the 4th quarter, they started going to zone defense, basically making it hard for Rox to go inside, and challenge them to shoot the 3's. How could they switch defense just like that? Because they practiced defensive scheme, so when the time comes, all the coach had to do was to tell the team about the change of scheme. In short, this coaching staff does not know defense or does not care enough about defense or does not demand enough for the players to play defense, or all of the above. IT IS on the coaching staff.
He may or may not be. But he is a good player that will make the team better and moreover as valuable a trade asset as Omer Asik is given his contract while certainly fitting the team's roster better skill-wise.
great coaching and An $80 mils shooting guard with no D and has green light for iso and anything he wants. lol
The only person with enough clout to get Harden to play defense is Dwight. And I believe Dwight was jawing at Harden last night for not playing defense. Things are looking up.
http://youtu.be/1NJNHZNnY4w?t=38m32s Stan Van Gundy : Your system and your coaching is important defensively, a lot more than offensively, it just is
Great video, thanks! listen to about the 34:30 mark, where Stan talks about defense. Amazing, it sounds like he's talking exactly about the Rockets. He even calls out Morey for his mistaken views.
He actually directly refers to Morey in an interview on that issue, Morey however does accept that he's not a coach.
