This should be obvious. There was no drop in defensive intensity last year, Adelman's first as head coach. You've got the same roster, the same coach and one season out the defense has gone to Hell. Does anyone really think that Adelman told the Rockets "Don't bother with defense"? Of course not. My suspicion is that the Rockets' defensive woes are due to terrible team chemistry.
I'm not trying to criticize Adelman or hype up JVG but do you think JVG would ever allow a team of his to struggle this long at the defensive end, regardless of the state of the team's chemistry? I don't think so. He would either drill discipline back into the current unit or make rotation changes. That said, I like both Adelman and JVG as coaches. I just don't think the current roster suits Adelman's style of play. Either we stick with Adelman until the personnel turns over or Alexander should have never fired JVG in the first place.
The Rockets' players are grown men, not little boys. They proved last year that they could play defense. Same roster, same coach, same staff--one season later and the defense has gone to Hell. The players have no excuse for not playing to the same level as last season. I seriously think the problem is due to bad chemistry. Playing good defense is an exercise in teamwork and zero chemistry translates to zero teamwork.
If that's the case, a defensive specialist like JVG would have fixed the chemistry by altering the rotation, e.g., starting Hayes. He would have sacrificed offense to fix the defense because of his coaching philosophy. I agree with your point to an extent but I don't think it's solely on the players. If something isn't working on defense, a good defensive coach would have been able to fix things one way or another, especially when you're talking about a team that has been stellar defensively for years.
Two words: Tom Thibodeau. God damn we miss him. If my memory is correct he was let go because RA wanted to use his own guys. What a mistake that was
Besides the point that you don't have the same roster, they also happen to be another offseason removed from the JVG-era defense focused coaching. So it isn't necessarily Rick saying forget defense, but it is certainly some combination of (i) him running a worse defensive scheme, (ii) him not emphasizing it nearly enough, (iii) bad chemistry, (iv) new rotation and players (Brooks, Landry, Wafer, Artest) who are either horrible individual and team defensive players or don't fit into the team defensive scheme as well as you'd hope/think.
Less emphasis on defense by coaches than in the past, struggling with changing lineups, lack of practice time with the full roster, inferior defensive players in the rotation ... lots of factors.
I agree with Badger. 1. Rick's high offense Kings were always top 5 in defense. 2. Like JayZ750, pointed out, we have bunch of new horrible defenders. Players like Landry, Brooks, Scola, Wafer, Barry. 3. When the team never have a set rotation, it's hard. Even though Brooks is not a great defender, when Barry was in since Brooks was sick... the whole defense was just horrible. Players weren't used to helping so early. Players weren't use to just switching and rotating every 3 seconds on defense. Just one rotation change can make a big deference.
Start Hayes and everyone would be complaining about the terrible offense right now. It's a trade off no matter what. Last season the Rockets put together a 22 win streak where the largest single contributing factor was incredible team chemistry. They also played excellent team defense. This year they're losing to scrubs, their chemistry is awful and the defense is just as bad. I really don't think it's a coincidence.
Like someone said on this board a while back. Last year our defense looked good because the players on the team still carried the mentality that JVG taught them because it was the 1st year without him. In the 2nd year the player generally switch from the identity of their old coach to the identity of their current coach.
I really have to question how critical the lineup is. By and large it's the same group of guys that played together last year.
If you are going to use Jeff's history of his defense, might as well use as Rick. As mentioned many times on this board, Rick's Kings were always in the top 5 in defense. Maybe you haven't noticed Scola, Landry, Wafer, Brooks, and Barry getting killed by their man? Maybe you haven't noticed Battier and Tracy both playing sh!tty defense? And coach's identity changes right away. Look at the Wizards. A high offensive team, but ever sine Jordan was fired, they don't score 100s every single game.
Adelman's Kings were excellent defensive teams, so I don't buy the argument that Adelman is emphasizing offense at the expense of defense. That's a complete misconception. Also, I really don't think that the Rockets' players are so young and impressionable. If they're so easily swayed how is that they can't play Adelman's offense?
Not really... We added Artest, Barry, and Wafer. Artest plays a lot, and that changes the rotation quite a bit. Also, when you add in Tracy and Battier's deteriorating defense... you got a whole new lineup.
JVG used Deke, Hayes to stop someone, and Adelman uses Scola, and Landry to score the points. The best coach is one who can balance both, like the Spurs's coach, but he is not on the market for us, just have to deal with what you have.
I wasn't suggesting starting Hayes. It was just an example of something JVG might have done to address the defensive/chemistry issues. One way or the other, I don't think the defensive regression lies solely on the players. Adelman's focus is offense despite having defensive success in the past and that is why we brought him here. If we eventually improve offensively while only slipping slightly on defense, then Rockets management will probably have achieved their goal. I actually like Adelman. I think he will be successful here if given enough rope.
Wafer's got a lot to learn defensively, but I would argue that some of the games he played in featured better team defense than in last night's game, where he saw limited minutes. Also, none of the guys you mentioned are starters. What excuse does the first unit (Yao, T-Mac, Scola, Alston, Battier) have? They're not playing with any of the guys you mentioned and their defense last night was horrendous.
Balance? Easy for you to say, since Jeff never had a player that was great on offense and horrible on defense. How the hell do you know if Jeff was a great "balance" coach?
Guess I was wrong. But still Adelman could help out our defensive woes a little bit by putting Deke in for 5-10 minutes while Yao is out. This team will always struggle on defense against athletic teams because we don't have an athletic defensive presence on the interior of our defense. We should of been addressed this but yet management hasn't.
