Bickerstaff lineups, rotations and minutes are horriable

What else can you guys expect with such an awful rookie coach???

You expect this headless chicken bring Rockets to Championship? lol.

 

It's already proved that JBB is a bust.

This season is officially over.

 

For the love of god, bench Brewer.

He is not going to be able to defend anyone obviously, but the idea is that on the offensive end he will use the mismatch to his advantage by beating his man down the court, being quicker than them in the halfcourt, making cuts.

But the guy is not scoring, and he's not defending well, and he is not rebounding since his job is to attack fast and retreat fast. He is useless on the court when he is not scoring/stealing, and if we're going to have an out of control high energy guy on the court, give KJ a f'ing shot. Give him a f'ing shot. I understand that coaches watch these guys' behavior off the court and in practice and we are not privy to that information, but it would not be rare if a person who didn't blow you away in practice happens to be more effective than expected on the court. Give the guy 5 games of 15-20 minutes, tolerate some mistakes as you do with Brewer.

McDaniels can be as inefficient on offense, pass the ball at the same standard, play the same level of defense, beat his man down the court, and possibly be able to grab more rebounds than bigger guys. He is younger and more likely to grow, more likely to develop an improving relationship with the team.

If you're going small, you probably want a guy who's a bit better of a rebounder, shotblocker especially if he's equally mediocre at everything else.

I'm inclined to say Bickerstaff is not acknowledging his bias in the situation, a common problem with young coaches. I've said this a ton of times, if Bickerstaff wants this job he won't get it this way. He has to take big risks that might potentially change the course of the season. Continuing to do the same thing and ending up with a slightly better result without holding Harden or Brewer accountable is going to destroy him.

 

I agree with you on your point about KJ potentially being a good wing rebounder/shot blocker in those small lineups. I watched him chase down and block what would normally be an easy fast-break basket against the Suns the other day. That's the type of play we haven't seen much of this year from the Rockets.

He should study Andre Iguodala, that's the guy he should be modeling his game after. Obviously Andre is a much better player, but KJ has some of the same potential skill-sets on the defensive end. They are also both similar sized players at 6'6", having long arms, tremendous athletes. Andre was a much better scorer though, as well as having very good court vision.

 

Honestly I really am tired of people looking up highlight reels to understand KJ's potential value. That block was nice to look at. It's not going to happen routinely, it's not going to change our season, it's not going to significantly change the number of times teams beat us in transition. If I'm being honest, I think it was a stupid decision that ended nicely.

Just like Brewer's steals. Nice, fun, exciting.

That's all 2% of the time. All of that stuff is nice. I like it. It's fun to watch. But we need to talk about the other 98% of the time they're on the court where Brewer is grabbing a shameful 2.5 rebounds despite playing more PF than he's ever played before in his career.

KJ is a better rebounder. He will grab rebounds for us more often and that's valuable if we're going with a small line up with 2 SF's. He hustles hard all game, almost as much as Brewer. Moves on offense, almost as much as Brewer. He's not a serious threat from 3pt range unless left open for more than 3 seconds, like Brewer. He might already be a better defender than Brewer. Better rebounder, better length to challenge the shots of the player HE'S guarding. More room to grow and learn and develop chemistry with the team.

Do I think KJ and Iguodala have anything in common other than their physical attributes? Nope. Iguodala came in an efficient scorer, good passer, was good at getting to the line. That's not KJ's game. Maybe KJ can emulate some parts of that, but KJ just needs to be KJ right now and whatever free time he has should go towards 3 pt shooting. That's what will change things for him, even though it will take time.

Brewer's finished, and he's not worth next year's MLE value. We can get this production for half the price, and we have a guy who might be able to fill that role right now. I was praying we'd trade him at the deadline even if it cost us a 1st or Jones and a 2nd. Would be worth it just to force Bickerstaff to play Thornton or KJ instead of his buddy.

 

Yup, the funniest thing is how J.B. explains he will stick by Brewer because of his history and personal preference for him. I like loyalty from a coach, any basketball or any other team sports player will understand the value of this. At some point though, you can't justify it anymore and it's not fair to other players and the team. Brewer personally costing us games. Thornton should get his minutes and maybe KJ if he can prove he can do more than dunk and block the occasional shot.

 

The only thing that Les can do is to change the entire coaching staff. That may give us some chance of making it to the playoffs. Ultimately, it's up to the players to get the job done.

 

Corey Brewer sucks..... We need a consistent scorer off the bench..... Sam Cassell.... Bobby Jackson.... Manu.....

 

That's not entirely true. The players are only part of the equation. If they have a lousy, moronic coach who puts horrible rotations out there and favors mediocre players over ones who could potentially do a better job(Brewer over KJ, Jones over Harrell), then there's only so much we can ask of them.

 

Am I missing something here? I agreed with you that KJ was a good option in small ball lineups, due to to his ability to rebound/ block-shots from the wing. Also, you're assuming that I based all of KJ's defensive potential off highlight video blocks, which is not the case. I was more so using that as an example of how he gives good effort on the defensive end. Right now the Rockets are awful in transition defense, KJ is one of the few guys on the team that actually gets back on that end to contest shots. Very small sample size, but he has the best on-court/ off-court defensive rating on the team. The opponent is scoring 87.1 points when he is on the court per 100 possessions and 109.3 points off the court. Again, very small sample size up to this point.

Also, I never stated that the two players were similar on the offensive end, I said K.J had some of the same skill sets on the DEFENSIVE end. Great lateral quickness to stay in front of who he's guarding, good rebounder/ shot blocker from the wing position, good defensive instincts, long wingspan with an ability to disrupt shots, etc. I clearly pointed out that Andre is a much better scorer, as well as being a superior passer (he has great court vision).

 

In fairness to JBB (and trust me, I believe he should be replaced), what possible rotations can he possible try that do not suck?

Ignoring Harden (starting SG) and Howard (starting C), and Ariza (starting SF), the rest of this roster is a hot mess. Maybe you get production from the PG position (Bev, the occasional 3 from the jet), but is PG above average, average, or below average? Outside Harden and Ariza, what wing player can you even consider "below average"? What PF at all can you consider below average (Capela?).

I don't care how many times the Rockets organization trots out the "this is the same group that went to WCF"... this roster is horrible.

 

When you need a defensive stop and rebound late, it would help to not go small and have Brewer in the game. When you need a score late, again it would help to not have Brewer in the game and especially not run a play where you dish it to him in the corner for a 3-pointer.

And then there's the constant switching and gambling for steals on defense. Which leads to players being out of position for defensive rebounds and stupid fouls like Brewer hacking guys across the arm late in the shotclock.

These are decisions that JB is responsible for. And here we are 46 games into his tenure and nothing is being done to fix these issues. Instead he's perpetuating them.

 

The coach seemed to draw up some nice plays down the stretch, but possibly the rotations that are put out on the court for most of the game possibly leave much to be desired at the moment. It is possibly weird, because the players seem to be playing well individually, but there seems to be times where there is no structure, or maybe no cohesiveness, while the team is on the court for most of the game.

 

This thread reminds me that if JB or McHale was coaching the Warriors last year, no one would know who Draymond Green is. Wow.

 

There is no defending JB, he's a ****ing idiot and piece of **** coach. His rotations and gay love affair for Brewer has cost us probably 90% of our losses do to his idiotic rotations. I have literally never had this much hate in my heart for a coach who is almost causing me to stop watching the rockets

Anyone who even slightly defends him can go **** themselves

 

Brewer has been horrible. Not playing kj at least some over him is dumb.

At some point it becomes less about kj being immediately better and more about simply rolling the dice with the younger player. Brewer has been a detriment for most of the season. Worst case scenario is kj comes in and is as bad as Brewer (would be reeeaaaallly hard to be worse), but at least you're giving burn to a young player who you can evaluate and see if he learns.

This team has a tendency to deny who they are. Look in the mirror and lie to themselves.

Brewer sucks
TJones is soft
Harden is a ball stopping turnover machine who often plays lazy stupid defense
Howard's attitude probably does keep him from being as great as he could've been
Jbb is a bad coach
Montrez should be playing
Capela should've always been ahead of Dorsey
Someone needs to slap the **** out of Ty and tell him to revert
Ect, ect...

They should stop lying to themselves and address the real issues. This is a DEAD END season. It's time to act accordingly.

 

Why not promote Chris Finch at the moment?

 

Can Cassell leave coaching to come back and play?

 

Do y'all think les and Morey are embarrassed having JB as the new coach or you think they blame the players

If I was Morey I'd tell JB Brewer isn't allowed over 15min a game

 

Can we as t least play Harrell and mcdaniels, brewer n Jones gives u nothing but suck