D'Antoni is the worst coach at adjustments. He could have started Green against Zubac. Also, he could have played Chandler 10 minutes off the bench.
I think Houston has some good players but he doesn't how to use. Actually he can change the strategy to play, but only small balls in his brain. Small ball can win some weak teams but never can win championship except you can guarantee the players can shoot 50 percent 3 points accuracy like Lakers game.
Adjustments are fine but you want to impose your will and force teams to play the way YOU want. If we play a big then they have imposed their will on us. Idk what adjustment we need to make to get our guys to shoot better than 7% from 3 with 6 minutes left. ...let's face it, we need to make some damn shots.
This is the very reason why this loss should have been expected but at the same time is no big deal. If this was a playoff series I would be scared but not now. This is the only way to get thru MDA's stubbornness. We have to get the ball and bodies moving as a way to get good high percentage threes or even layups sometimes. You cant initiate the offense the same ole way you are letting the defense off the hook and you are not taking shots where you have the best advantage. Russ cant be stopped (he missed some wide open layups most of them he was fouled no call but I won't get in to that)James has to stop dribbling so much waiting for the double team and get rid of the ball early in the shot clock so that he can get it back with an advantage to go to the basket or hit the three or move the ball for a wide open three.
For a 7-minute stretch or so in spots, yeah I think it might help Harden regain some of the scoring rhythm he's lacking since the game plan switched to space-drive-shoot. His drives have dropped in scoring efficiency; he spent most of the last 3 seasons lobbing to a rim-runner as a part of the offense, and now that's 99% gone (there was one to JGreen tonight). I can't say for sure whether that's correlative to his 3pt% as well, but the eyes don't lie- something ain't right with his game and I think he knows it. Russ has been largely stymied at the cup for the past 2 games now, in contrast to last month- like with everything else, smart guys on the other teams (both players and staff) watch enough video over the past month to figure out what's coming with the gameplan. It's no longer new. Against an athletic, well-coached team, if the other non-supermax guys aren't hitting lights-out from 3, there's nothing to save them. Sure, the last two games are a small sample size- stipulated. But I don't think it's as simple as Harden letting Russ go beast mode as the more assertive and aggressive of the two. I think he needs a big man to feed now and again so he can see his analytics stock start rising again, and with that, added mojo.
As Chris Webber said, all playoffs team will shut down rockets 3 pointers. 3 adjustments interior defense Offensive rebounds Bench chemistry
