The end of last nights game simply magnified a problem that has existed on this team offensively for quite some time, the lack of cohesive offense sets that don't involve James Harden driving to the basket or Dwight Howard in the post. For the love of God man can we please institute some back cuts, curls, pick and rolls; something - anything to allow guys to move without the ball for easier looks at the basket? With the zone defense being allowed now its to easy to load up the defense on James Harden and force him to pass the ball, without ball movement its going to get increasingly harder to get quality shots as defenses adjust to how they play us. Oh and in my stocking I will take some ball handling skills for our wing guys not named James Harden.....or apparently Nick Johnson :grin:
I want balanced scoring, ball movement, block parties, decent perimeter D and overall good basketball for the holidays.
All I want for Christmas is healthy players and fans to stop complaining. We're 15-4 with our towel boy starting at the point
The pick and roll will return when either Dwight or Terrence returns. Right now the only big that is an offensive threat is DMo and while he is fast he doesnt have the explosiveness off the pick and roll the way Dwight and Terrence do which is key factor. The other guys are not offensive threats whatsoever so the helper doesn't need to worry as much when coming to double team. That has been a huge part of the offense that has gone missing since the injuries. PnR generally leads to layups for this team or wide open corner 3s which is the types of shots the Rockets want to take
You nailed it. One of the major reasons why is that Jones and Howard can handle the easy above the rim pass for the dunk. With a Harden - D-Mo P&R Harden is reduced to the very difficult bounce pass. This allows the second defender to double Harden, provided he is positioned in the passing lane to D-Mo.
Wait didn't somebody mention Dorsey had a lingering nagging injury since before training camp and just started getting completely healthy and able to explode to the basket once again. I have no idea why Tariq Black isn't considered explosive, he's got all the tools and can probably do a couple pick and roll runs a game.
We run pick and rolls almost every single play in the entire game. Back cuts happen very often throughout the game. And a guard curls off a screen every single time the guy in the post catches the ball. What games do you guys watch?
I was ganna say this... Our entire offense is either ISO, post up dwight or one of our many pick and roll variations with the pick and roll occurring the most
lol true. i think the point is that we aren't very good at half court offense, or our offense relies too heavily on our 2 stars creating for everything. we would either 1 or 2 more players who can create for themselves and others OR a half court offensive system that isn't as basic as the current system. also, all we really need is home court and health.
Exactly. We run a pick and roll constantly, every single time down the court. And we have a lot of variations of it. We also set screens throughout the play, everywhere on the court. Flare screens, brush screens, ball screens, down screens, you name it. Screen and roll every single time. That is our whole offense more or less!
I'm pretty sure that Nick Johnson's game winner was a designed pick and roll to DMo. The defense collapsed on DMo (3 defenders) and Terry considered shooting the ball before noticing that Johnson was wide open at the 3-point line. Johnson got the pass and of course drove to the paint.
Amen. Half the complaints in this thread are about problems that don't even exist. We don't PnR? We don't do back cuts? Our perimeter D is lacking? What the eff, have I been watching a different team?
By the grace of God the ones on ROOT Sports :grin: we run picks but not the traditional pick and roll or pick and pop, we don't run guys off of screens and pass them the ball for the open J. Since when did the pick and roll only end in dunk for the roller? The mid range jumper is always an option if they can shoot. My point to all of this is you need to have options outside of James Harden because he does need to rest, and you cannot afford to go through these dry spells we are so prone to against the good teams, they will eat you up. I hate to use four letter works on the GARM but watch teams like the Spurs, etc. they can always get an easy basket or open jump shot. Three pointers are great and statistically you have better odds given the extra point but some nights the jumpers from range are just not falling and you need other options to keep the defenses off balance.
That is absolutely not true. The Rockets run the R&R, with some post play with a healthy dose of DDMO thrown in. The Offensive strategy is centered around making the best use of Harden's skills and strengths. It is also somewhat centered around the high post pick for the guards. They actually have a whale of an offense.
