I know Brewer can't shoot. But he's a very good defender, better than Garcia for sure. And for what he did in preseason, I felt that he had a good basketball sense. Perhaps he can be used like a Chuck Hayes on the wing.
That's right. When Lin and Asik anchored that second unit, they were one of the best around. Remember all the euphoric postings about our bench being a playoff team in the East?
He hasn't shut down anyone as of late. Maybe we should have tested him against Rudy Gay or we don't because the regular season is not the right time for experiments. I always liked the Battier types who studied the opponents before the game and he always put a hand to the shooter's eyes. Maybe I am biased but I don't like one way players. They don't get enough PT because they can't score and that affects their play on defense too because they cannot find a rhythm in garbage time. Brewer does not fit here. The Rockets need players that can shoot and defend and that consistently. (Again a Battier type)
Garcia and Casspi have been absolute trash. No defense and no shooting. Our bench really needs an upgrade, Casspi/Garcia won't get us far in the playoffs.
We don't even have to trade to upgrade. Casspi is better than Garcia. Let Casspi have Garcia's minutes. Casspi plays better D even against the 4's he beat him up. Time your subs so Tjones goes out early and Casspi subs for him and when Parsons goes out slide Casspi over to the 3 spot and bring in DMo or Greg Smith. Yeah you scream DMO NO!... but DMo has been in McHales doghouse for a long time. Not sure why. He hasn't played great but he hasn't played so bad that he deserves no minutes. If not DMo than try Greg Smith or even a few minutes of Asik and Howard on the floor together again. Yeah it didn't work as starters but mixing it in for periods is worth a try over what's hapenning now. Maybe Garcia is hurt that's why his play has dropped down but the bottom line is Casspi and Dmo or Smith is better than Casspi and Garcia. Garcia is playing so soft on D he needs to shoot 50% from behind the arc to compensate for his poor play. The Pacers are good but we should never lose so bad. No trade is going to give us a vet ready to come in and upgrade Garcia. So we have to solve it internally. We tried playing parsons 40+ minutes and he broke down. That's part of the problem Parsons is not 100% Harden is not 100%, Asik is out Lin is out Garcia is probably not 100% Brooks is in a slump. Bring back Lin and Brooks is out of the equation, move Casspi over to sub for parsons and Parsons plays less minutes and gets some rest before he fully breaks down and keeps Garcia out of the question. Move the best one of DMO Smith or Asik in to take Casspi's minutes at the 4 (HOWARD IS ACTUALLY THE 4 WHEN ASIK IS IN) and you upgrade the 4 IMO or at least you can test 4 it and you can rest Harden more. Bring Asik back and you have 48 minutes of solid D at center. That solves most of our problems. People forget we had to dump a lot of players starting with PPat and Marcus Morris to make room for signing Howard. And while we got howard we were only able to fill the rest of our roster with minimum type players. One of those was Garcia which I thought was amazing since he looked so good at the end of the year. But there was a reason why he couldn't get off the bench in Sac and why no one offered him the big bucks. We do not have as good of a bench as we thought and TJones is still very raw and very young and not 3pt shooter. We could use PPat right now. Yeah CH I said it. I think TJones will get better but he is not the most cerebral player and it seems all of the defensive rotations and assignments has got him struggling on both sides of the floor. I think he will get pass that and play even better at some point just not sure if that will happen this season.
