Okay I would have never thought removing Brooks was the answer. He is deadly behind the arc... has been passing okay and is coming off MIP award. He had a great last year and I had expected him to continue to improve. I watched the 5 losses and tried to pinpoint the problem area and the biggest thing I could come up with is players didn't know their roles. It was like okay do I take the shot or do I give it to Brooks. Do I look for Martin. Battier never took a shot and when he did he looked terrible. Everybody was out of sync. And then BAM, Brooks sprains his ankle and instant chemistry. Yeah it helps we played against the Wolves. But we looked great in the second half against the Spurs as well. I mean we played with more chemistry without Brooks then we have all previous games. Does that mean Brooks is the problem? Not directly. Brooks is still as good as he has ever been. The problem is last year we needed him to take a bigger load. He was creator/scorer on the team. Especially after Landry was traded. He had a role and he knew it and cherished it. No we are asking to get others involved. he has done it at times but then other times he decides he is the best option. In addition he seemed to deliberately overlook Martin a few times. It was almost like he was not ready to pass over his role as most valuable scorer on the team. Maybe that is just my illusion as I don't have a big sample but my gut felt he was iso'ing Martin a little. So Brooks goes down and a true pg who can't shoot takes his place and instant chemistry. What does that mean? Let me first tell you what it doesn't mean. It doesn't mean Brooks sucks. Brooks is still thaat energetic pure shooting acrobatic scoring pg of last year. But just maybe, it does mean he is a bad fit on this team. Maybe Brooks is a bad fit on any team that he is not at least the second option. Brooks needs to look for his first and if it is not there then look for the pass. That is no good for this team. Martin can score with the ball as good as anybody not named Kobe, Lebron, Wade. You have to include him alot. Yao is still a beast in the post and the inside out game is still a great play. (We witnessed it several times tonight. I especially liked when Martins man converged on Yao and left him wide open. Martin shoots open 3's like layups.) So Brooks has to turn into a pass first PG. NEVER/NOT gonna happen. It's not in his makeup. As someone said elsewhere Brooks is a Jason Terry kind of player. He would be a great pg on a defensive team with little offense or 6th man on a team that needed a boost off the bench. That's the role I see him him fitting best. Will he accept that role? I don't know but on this team he either needs to or become a pass first pg or be traded. As a starting shoot first pg he doesn't fit. SO does that mean we start Lowry. I don't see him as the answer either. He plays full speed every play. he seems to be onlt to play that way. That is great off the bench but doesn't work so much as a starter. So does that mean Ish is the starter. The verdict is still out... yeah he had six good quarters. Not great but good he definitely got the team involved and played his role. The problem is he can not shoot. He will be the worst shooting starting pg in the league if he starts. I love this kids attitude and maybe we have to make him the starter but he is not the answer right now. Not unless he can shoot at least 35 from the 3. If he continues to shoot under 30 it won't long before anyone on the opposing guards him. Yao will always be doubled off of him. So what do we do? Well he has 3 weeks to develop his 3. If he can just learn to set up and hit a wide open 3 he becomes our instant starter. If he doesn't at least now we see Brooks is not the answer as a starter on this team. We need a more traditional type pg that doesn't force the issue. In hindsight I would love to do that Collison Ariza trade over. Trade Brooks to the Pacers Arriza to NO take back Collison and Lee. Collison is a much better defender than Brooks and he doesn't force things as much plus he shot almost 40% behind the arc last year. Almost perfect for this team. It makes so much sense for our team. Finally I would just say if nothing else Ish showed us Brooks role has to change. Ish's stylle of play definitely helped us get our mojo back. And I know that is not just because of Ish. We have a solid backup center in Hill and he will keep getting better. Miller is not so bad as a third string center. Scola is better than ever and Battier is finally playing like last year again. All of those things helped in our first win but you cannot minimize Ish's play and also his enthusiasm. He is natural leader on the court. he pumps the other guys up. He is constantly talking and he passes beautifully. We will be good moving forward even without Ish. But if Ish keeps up his play and can hit an open 3 on occasiion he could have the biggest impact of all. ANd that means we have a great trade asset in Brooks or Lowry. Preferably Brooks.
Brooks is an ideal spark plug off the bench. When he is healthy, I would like to see him and Chase, Courtney Lee and Jordan Hill come off the bench and do some damage.
I had a feeling Brooks would take a beating for what happened without him tonight. I didn't know it would be a well presented argument from a veteran poster. It's a discussion worthy thread, but I just don't agree with the fact that Brooks is the problem, even indirectly. This sounds a little crazy, but it might be that this is a team that thrives on over achieving, and having someone injured gives them a chance to do just that. With Brooks and Martin in the backcourt, people felt too comfortable and felt that someone else would cover up mistakes. A few days later, you have Swish Smith playing 40 minutes and suddenly you realize it's reality.
& Spurs. We won't know until more games are played and there's 4 to 6 weeks of them. We'll see if Battier going from no offense to having offense was a fluke or a pointed matter.
It's probably a bit of both. The great part is that all of our point guards are munchkins, so we're good to go.
Collison is not leaving the Pacers. That said, this was an excellent post. I don't know If Ish is the guy, but I think we may have uncovered a large part of the problem. PG defense, PG tempo, PG court vision... Ricky Rubio? Steve Nash? Baron Davis? Nash you lose the D, Baron you take a risk, Rubio you rebuild. Anyone else that can defend and control tempo? Billups?
I hate to say this cause I love AB but the Rockets offense just ran so much smoother with Ish Smith. AB is definately expendable.
You make some good points about the offensive disruption, but honestly I think that only applies in end of game situations. These Rockets with Brooks have been deadly efficient on offense so far this year. I would place the problem of starting Brooks as 75% on the defense and 25% on his not being a fit offensively. Other teams get into such a rhythm because he goes under all their screens leaving their point guards wide open for jump shots. It's not just bad luck that teams are shooting lights out against us. That's my #1 problem with Brooks, and I imagine if we can play better defense our chemistry at the ends of games won't even matter because we'll have many games like tonight's where the outcome was already decided by that points. Like Morey (or JVG? I forget) said, good teams don't win close games, they prevent them. This Rockets team is trying to get to that point by dramatically improving their offense while maintaining some semblance of their old, lockdown defense. They've absolutely failed at the latter part of that objective so far, but with Lowry or Smith starting I think we'll have a much better chance. And no this is not a kneejerk thread, posters like us have been clamoring for a defensive-minded point since last season, throughout the offseason, and especially during the first five games of this season. It's a shame Brooks sprained his ankle, but now we'll get a chance to see the makeup of the team for better or worse.
I didn't know we have problem scoring? I tough our problem was defense? BTW Ish is a cheaper version of Kyle. I think he will make Kyle expendable, not Aaron unless you want two PG how can't shoot. but I don't know if any team is willing to give something good for a 24 million PG how can't stay healthy.
well what about the second half of the spurs game? we had the lead right down to the last second. they fight and determination by the team was incredible. In fact we were playing without our two top scorers and we still played great, arguably better than the spurs.
