[Chron] Players meeting after loss

i'll tell you what will happen. Harden is going to be in a "facilitating mood" as he humbly put it and we will see 19 points/12 assists/8 rebounds, all points in the flow of the offense. 1st team defense.

lin will have his usual game against the knicks.

and a guy WHO I NEVER EVEN HEARD OF NAMED CHANDLA IS GOING TO STEAL THE SPOTLIGHT!!!

HOWEVAH, the following game it will be back to ho hum bad habits, watch teen wolf do his thing, turn it over, stand at the three, not guard the three,send double teams to below average post players, let every position score at will. =/

 

Chandler has been disappointing, I expected him to take the next step this year.

 

His offense has taken the next step; his defense, on the other hand..

 

Because the "go to guy" there does not need and want to do defense.
All other teammates need to do defense for him.

 

Players tuning out the coaches and discussing how we could win despite them!

 

I would hope "trust" would come before "effort" as you have to play to be able to give effort in a game - unless they're saying there's no effort during practice which becomes a coaching thing.

 

They can have all the player meeting they want,but the rockets have a few issues they need to resolve. The rockets are in the same boat as the mobley-francis-Yao team in the 90s-2000s. Those rocket teams lost a lot of close games because of the same reason,defense and to's. The reason mcgrady helped those teams so much was because he was a great decision maker with the ball late in games. The rockets with mcgrady were eons better than the francis led and the harden led teams. Mcgrady,even with his faults always had a 2 or 3:1 to ratio. Harden is negative,lin is even,and howard is negative in to's. Its hard to win close games when your best players are to prone. That's why I say rondo makes more sense than any player the rockets can get.

Rondo is the guy who gets the ball out of harden's hands. Rondo is the player who will ensure during runs ,howard touches the ball. Rondo is also a A+ defender,big game player, and he has some nastiness to him. Rondo and someone like ariza makes too much sense. Not only that,both guys are + defenders. I can also say,after the season,regardless of the outcome,someone else should coach this team. Lionel Hollins and his ability to get zach randolph and gay to play defense has a lot merit.

 

It was actually a at the strip club. VIP players room only meeting.

 

Whatever the Nets did we need some of those! It seems to be working. They beat OKC today. The same OKC that flogged us by 30 points...

 

rofl what I thought too.

Harden: you guys need to put in more effort! cmon, we can win if you guys show more effort!

Team: ...

 

I think the issue is more team defense than individual defense. somethings wrong with the way the players are rotating. effort is a problem but it's also something structural.

 

These players meetings are useless. They need to hold the players accountable.

Harden: No strip club visits.
Lin: Can't be nice.
Dwight: Not allowed to smile.
Parsons: Hide his hair gels.

 

Problem is that Harden is a bit coddled by the staff it seems.

It's a young undisciplined team that really doesn't have the thirst for winning. Lin is a mediocre talent that works really hard and is a solid pg but his on the ball defense isn't very good. And overall the team is just not good at making teams work hard for a bucket.

 

Harden: We need to play with more effort

Dwight Howard's reaction:

<iframe width="420" height="315" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/R9Bh0QXVg4I" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

 

I think they need more ball movement and better possessions late in the game, not so much one-on-one stuff. Figure out how to feed Dwight consistently, every quarter. Get to BB fundamentals, picks, screens. PnR defense has improved and needs to continue to improve but you need 5 guys playing defense and sorry, Harden isn't pulling his weight enough in that regard.

 

This team is like the old Rudy T/Francis/Mobley team where they ISO ball 90% of the time (AKA Harden) and throw occasional lobs to center, Kelvin Cato (AKA Howard).

 

There's been a lot of comparisons to that Rox team lately and looking back on that team under Rudy T, this team is starting to irritate me a lot like that team did. Its just bad basketball.

 

I think Harden will probably have a good all around game but then regress to his old habits within a week. Constant cycle.

 

They'll hold another players meeting before the ASB.

 

And it'll be enough to hold over the HOFs for another month, before anyone's
"allowed" to criticize him again...