[ESPN NBA lockdown] the reasons for the Rockets' collapse against the Thunder

I was excited to hear Bruce Bowen's take, but one minute in:

"They have a guy on the bench in Omer Asik who provides a post presence"



Come on Bruce.

 

even if asik played, you cant really go to him to produce points in post offense.. you have to wonder now.. does he even know what he's talking about?

 

The reason the Rockets lose is the same reason they won. If you failed to understand it, then you don't know basketball. Rockets don't play fundamental basketball...so it's hard to predict how they do in each game. They may explode and made a lot of shots at any time and they may go sour and getting nothing in another. That is why they lose to teams they're supposed to win. They never boxed out when a shot went up...so they constantly give the other team 2nd chance shots. Their defense is passive...you have players play out of positions most of the time. Team help defense is horrendous. Even Howard is out of position when it comes to team help defense. They don't have many players that can create shots from others. Garcia, Casspi and Brooks are never known as creators. Garcia is a terrible dribbler and attacker. Brooks lack PG vision and is a horrible passer. Casspi is just not strong and big enough to play the F and so constantly getting exploited and outrebounded in the paint. He is one of the guys that don't boxed out when the ball is in the air as well. Lin is a terrible defender. He's always a step too slow when they did the pick n roll and seem to only play hard when odds are against him. He can never be a disrupt defender because he had to worry about defending his man. This is why Beverley is a starter because Beverley does much more than defending his man. I see a lot of problems with this team. But i'am going to partially blame this on Beverley and Asik being out though.

 

If you look at teams that play fundamental basketball. They always do the same thing win or lose...they boxed out ....they play the right way....take the right shots, ect.. This will give them a chance to win in every game even if they don't play well because by playing fundamental basketball, they maximize their potential. Rockets have a long way to go. You can blame this on the coaches for the way the players are playing on the court...such as no boxing out. Houston's players are not even looking to box out when the ball is in the air. Their help defense is not good at all.

 

Yao4Real keeping it real, yeah!!!!

 

I thought it would be useful to post a summary of interview, but keep in mind this was done very quickly and is pretty rough. I might have missed things.

They pointed out the 73 and 19 disparity for Rockets between 1st half and 2nd half.

Rockets relied on jump shots and getting out in transition. Had such great success with that in 1st half, tended to get away from other things, layups, penetration. Never fell back to that. Forgot about ball movement; finding open guy, right position.

57 percent FG in 1st half.
19 percent FG in second half.
0-14 3 pt in second half.
12 TO in second half

They noted that McHale said that pace was better in first half.
But they thought: what about shot selection.

Noted, element is missing – not sure it is personnel. Outside of having ideal stretch 4. And maybe PG’s complementing JH better. Personnel seems alright.
Rockets have an approach where they go for 3s or layups. Mathematical formula. They don’t go into Howard enough. Don’t allow him to get into enough rhythm
Harden is feeling himself a little bit – does not necessarily recognize the value of DH.

After scoring big in first half, Rockets wanted to do same in second half. Sometimes though … you want to sort of grind away. … Playing a slower pace, and be more efficient. Rockets don’t do that.

Partially this might be due to what JH came into NBA with – never learned to play with big who could take over. OKC was an outside oriented; penetrate and pitch team.
Never had experience with: Let’s get the ball inside to a center, and let him create for us
JH needs to get back and spend extra time with Howard and get on same page to benefit one another’s talents

Second, JH is experiencing a lot of success in Houston for his scoring. Doesn’t want to do anything else, except score. Now in H, all the popularity he’s receiving, for JH, defense has taken a back seat. Needs to take responsibility for what can take place on defensive end.

Not defensive mindset to team. As OKC got going at end of 3rd Q, you could see in faces of Rockets, what are we going to do? It has got to be collective culture.
McHale needs to coach it up.
Communicate… step it up defensively.
They have the personnel. They need a system.

Noted how Dwight said in an interview how he appreciates Stan Van Gundy – how prepared that ORL team was defensively. “Schematically, we knew exactly how to defend the opposing teams.”
ORL was great defensively even though they did not have the greatest athletes.

Defense is about two things: (1) Preparation (teams tendencies and strengths) and (2) “Want to” (effort and desire)

On offense: You get Howard a lot more touches. Take more 2 point shots when they are open. Get something going towards the basket. Something within the confines of their offense.
Have a strategy for crunch time – what you go to.

Also pointed out that fantastic stretch Howard had in December going into January when he was dominating inside and showing all kinds of post moves.

 

Need a better coach, that's what it is.

 

We simply got very complacent and then just quit. Loss of focus , no heart and leadership problems.

 

Better players also as we easily see

 

Mostly agree with Yao4REAL. We're a streak team. Loosey-goosey, high flying, hot shooting, fun to watch. But that's our only gear. We don't have a reliable gear where we lock down, play tight D, make all the right rotations, box out, and work the ball in for a high-percentage shot. We just keep playing loose and checking our heat, even from well beyond the arc, to see if it's back on. If it ain't, we lose.

Without that more reliable gear, I don't see us making it through the playoffs.

 

only good point Bowen made was Harden still learning how to play with a dominant big man

 

spot on post! This is the Rockets in a nutshell

 

19 points. #neverforget

 

Everything they said was right except the part about Asik in the post.

 

McHale offense is a gimmick offense. It's not about being more talented, playing team ball, nor playing defense. It's about out-running the other team. Morey should draft some guys on the USA track team.

 

OKC has our number on defense. It's worked 2 games in a row.

Thunder Plan:

First, shut down Howard. Throw Perkins and Adams at him and be real physical to prevent him from getting position at the low block. This reduces his post shot % by a large margin and most importantly, no alley oops. All Howard could do was attempt long hook shots from 8 feet away. Howard 5-13 FG game 1 and 4-13 FG game 2.

Second, collapse on the driver. Jackson is an excellent defender and was able to lock down Lin in both games. Sefolosha was no slouch on Harden either, but most importantly Ibaka would leave his man to double up on the driver in case they did get space. Neither Jones or Dmo are good 3 point shooter so they got left open. Lin 2-9 FG game 1 and 2-8FG game 2. Harden 2-9 FG game 1 and 6-16 FG game 2.

 

I think there are 2 things that this team could use.
1. We need a coach more like Stan Van Gundy, someone who preaches a defensive mentality and someone who prepares the team with actual set plays.
2. A player that is basically an ass hole. Someone who isn't afraid to get in the other player's faces and hold them accountable for playing defense or give 100% effort at all times. There are only two or three players that can do this and are so respected by their teammates that they can away with it. Kobe, Rondo, and KG all come to mind. Obviously we are not getting Kobe so that leaves two guys that I think that we could actually get, Rondo or KG. With Rondo I think that we would obviously have to give up Asik, a draft pick, and maybe Lin. In return we would probably get Jeff Green or Bass in return along with Rondo. Or we could go after KG, I think in this case we would have to give up just Asik in this scenario. We get a big straight up for a big. Obviously he would have to agree to come here but I don't see why he wouldn't want to. We have a much better chance of making the playoffs than the Nets do.

 

Is Rondo in the house?