It happens against scrub teams too. The Rockets just have too many flaws that can only be addressed by talent upgrade.
Will someone on the coaching staff please tell our big men what a "Hedge" is. I know Terry is a horrible defender, but my word...we defended the pick and role about as bad as you possibly can. What's Terry supposed to do when our bigs don't hedge? Of course he couldn't stay with Parker...because he was being screened. Our big men have to fully commit to going over the screen and stopping Parkers drive. From there on it's about everyone rotating correctly. However, our big men just let Parker go off the screen freely. Harden couldn't drive tonight because the Spurs big men did a great job of hedging and cutting Hardens initial drive off. That's just great coaching. I wonder if the Rockets players even know what a hedge is...
In the playoffs you have to win on the road, that's what concerns me the most with this team. Being able to beat GS, Clippers, Portland, or Spurs on the road. We will have at most a nine man rotation in the playoffs. That means Joey or Prigs are going to get minutes. Not good.
We really missed Bev when Parker was tearing us a new one, and DMo when we couldn't buy a bucket. We really are cursed with injuries, aren't we?
Jones was a big disappointment last night. At times it looked like he wasnt even in the game. Dorsey is just garbage. On his best days he will give you 5 rebounds and hit 1 or 2 free throws. Teams will use HackaDorsey as much as possible and it will give us a headache. Maybe he should stop working out and take some ballet sessions, I dont know, he is way too fukin pumped to throw free throws. Terrys defense is subpar and ofcourse Parker will abuse him. Pregioni was a bit better on Parker, but clearly we need to put more pressure on the guy. We can beat the Spurs. MilkHair needs to do some adjustments, some players just dont work against them.
What is that old saying, you don't know what you have until is gone? How big was missing D-Mo and Bev in a game like yesterday? Bev's pesky d slipped some this year, but he is still 10x better on d than our jurassic park pgs. D-Mo would have scored on important tines in the game instead of the fts airballs from Dorsey, a momentum killer that some refused to admit, all the while providing nothing on either side of the ball. Say what you will about Capela, but the dude already rebounds, and block shots better than Dorsey, let alone the paint protection when D12 was resting. Changes need to be made, bring in Johnson and Capela. Honestly, I don't know for sure how replacing the current starting pg and backup center will work out, but I know the current setup will fail against top teams. Unless McHale is willing to try out some of the y
Losing Dmo for the season and getting whipped by SA in what was essentially a playoff game has really killed any enthusiasm i had for the post season. I can see us dropping and playing SA and getting swept.
Wake up call. But we looked like the better team in the 1st half. So there is optimism there. We need to tighten D on PG, and get Dwight more touches. Think we are better even not at full strength. An eye opener, but adjustments are easy. No more Terry on Parker. More Prigioni. More Dwight Howard. And we likely win this game. Jones has to give something.
Of course there's reason for optimism. The Rockets didn't get blown out from the opening tip like the Spurs' last 2 opponents(Warriors, Thunder). They were up 8 halfway through the 2nd quarter at San Antonio, so they know they can play with these guys. The Rockets were horrendous defensively and on the boards. They got nothing out of T-Jones or Brewer, limited Dwight's minutes to 22, and Harden had a quiet night. Meanwhile, Parker hit 70% of his shots and their bench outplayed ours. That's not to say the Rockets can't lose tomorrow night, but I'd be shocked if they came out and had another clunker like that.
Tony Parker doing Tony Parker things <iframe width="854" height="510" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BD30uFL6YKI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
"We won't miss Bev" they said. "His defense isn't good anymore" they said. "It's not great anymore, but it's much better than Terry" I said. "Oh well, Terry's shooting will make up for his defense" they said. But they were wrong. Get ready for every PG in the Western Conference to light up the Rockets in the playoffs.
I'd just let Tony Parker do whatever he wanted... make them a one-man team. When he was scoring all their points early, the Rockets were doing just fine. Its when everybody else gets involved that they really start to get on a roll. Eventually, by default, they'll try to get others involved even if we continue one-on-one coverage of Tony... as its their nature... and the defense should be in a better position to cover their 3 point shooters and Leonard. Its the Rudy T method of how they ended up beating the Suns in 95. Let KJ do whatever he wanted, but stay glued to everybody else.
This is why we HAVE to play Dallas in the 1st round or else we are screwed. Rondo is not an offensive threat.
I no longer like the SA match-up with Dmo and Bev out. In fact, I no longer like any of the playoff match-ups with Dmo and Bev out. The only one I think we now have a shot at winning is the Dallas match-up and that is nowhere near a given, either. This just isn't the Rockets season. Did well enough in the regular season but it's all falling apart now it seems.
Let's get more and more upset at Keith Jones. How does the mofo still have a job? He's horrible in every way. Get rid of him.
What is the point of the minute restriction if we are not going to titrate up D12's minutes. He only played 22 min last night. If you want his conditioning to get better you have to increase his minutes game by game, even if we are getting blown out.