[Clutchfans] Dwight: Defensive woes "starts on the perimeter"

Great points deckard. And yet there are still people on this board who continue to defend mchale as if hes the next coming of phil jackson. I blame most of Hardens crappy d plus iso tendencies on the lack of coaching. It feels like mchale just throws stuff against a wall and hope it sticks.

 

How can they cut down on these heavy minutes when the bench plays so poorly. If the bench comes in and holds their own then Harden, Parson and Howard wouldn't have to log these type of minutes.

 

I think its pretty funny that two "H-Ballers" in a row replied to Deckards post with opposing views. Pretty funny.

 

LOL indeed big timer

 

Valid points. Our bench has been dog-doo. And this fact sticks out like a cockroach on a wedding cake when that bench is depleted (no Bev, no Asik, sometimes no Harden and no Lin) and we get to watch Aaron Brooks compete with James Harden for worst defensive player of the year.

But, again, it comes back to coaching.

George Karl is looking for his next coaching gig. He didn't have too much playoff success in Denver, I admit, but he had Sir Chucksalot to work with, and for a year or so he had Chucksalot and Sir Chucks-even-more (Iverson).

After the Melo trade, he had less talent in Denver than we have here, and he didn't play his guys 40 mpg.

Maybe the temptation to save one's job is paramount, but if Karl were coach, Harden would be at 35 minutes per game. "I don't want to come out, coach!" "Too bad, sit down, catch some rest."

Meanwhile, the onus is on Morey to un-**** the team with the "we can play Asik and Howard together" decision. The Asik nightmare has cost this team at least 6 wins so far.

 

Look its pretty simple to me IMO-

On a night to night basis its inconsistency in effort on the defensive end.

-one night Lin gets torched by Jimmer
-one night Harden gets torched by Steve Blake
-one night the rotations are poor from the 4/5 spots and are slow coming out to shooters
-one night Howard gets in foul trouble and D-Mo/Smith get lit up under the basket
-etc. etc.


The problem is holistic and starts from the top down, and I'm not JUST blaming McHale. Its the demand & commitment on the defensive end that starts with Les/Morey to McHale & Sampson & then to Harden/Howard/Parsons who are the Rockets best 3 players and leaders on the team. Its a team commitment and philosophy that right now they DO NOT have.

They can talk about it all they want, but the organization as a whole has shown me over the past few years that its not really something they are overly concerned with in how they acquire players to begin with. They acquire score first players for the most part and then try and install a little bit of defense later on. Obviously now that philosophy will probably change now that they have their core in place, and need to focus more on winning than acquiring talent.

Now that the front office has their core group, it will be interesting to see if they from this point on realize that they need more defensive minded players to surround their stars with and change their style of play at all. This group will be good, and will be a playoff team somewhat, but to be a great time every night, they WILL NEED personnel changes from the many of the surrounding rotational positions. Maybe just one or two Battier types make all the difference... maybe not, but you'd have to think that the moves made from this point on will be very different than they were before the Dwight acquisition.

 

I agree the defensive issues are much broader than individual players, but you don't win by 'surrounding' defensively deficient stars with defensive minded players. You have to start with defensive minded stars to build around if you really want to change the culture. Harden has to change.

 

Even with a healthy roster, McHale still played Harden 40+ min. Watching enough Rockets games, you should know this is true.

EVERY season since McHale came aboard, Rockets had depth. No matter how much depth we had, he usually went with a 8-man rotation. Great coaches plan for playoffs. All this regular season driving your stars to the ground is not a good coaching strategy.

The result of our 4th quarter margin reflected how badly we under-performed. We are -1.2 point in 4th Q margin, which ranked 25th. Rockets are a lottery team for the 4th quarter this season! Players are gassed!

At the pace Rockets are playing, no player will perform at optimal level when playing more than 40 min/game.

 

Great post ! Someone finally see what I've been talking about more defense type players & vet leadership players.

But keep in mind when you have Howard's hit on the cap it's not easy to upgrade the bench. We had to give away players & sign only vet min. Or cheaper guys, casspi, Garcia, brooks, brewer. If a guy is really a 2 way threat he will cost more than a min. Contract.

 

Which might have to happen to win big. All I'm saying is that they are KNOWINGLY gambling with the stars they have knowing they aren't perfect players, or that either they can surround them with players that cover up the areas they lack.

Morey even said so much about a week ago on 790 where he made a comment about how Yao and Tracy were not perfect players so they went out and got players like Battier because they thought that if they had the perfect blend around their star players, they could still win.

So to me, that tells me that they know pretty well right off the bat that James Harden and Dwight Howard are not going to be perfect star players, but they will make changes around them to support them with the right kinds of players. If that doesn't work or they aren't successful in doing that then they probably wont go very far in the playoffs or will continue to be a very bi-polar team.

The Rockets still made the right decision in the first place to acquire Harden and Howard despite their faults. If they were going to sit around and wait for a two way superstar player then it might be another 30 years before they land another Hakeem or a Lebron James type of superstar. If you want to debate as to whether the Rockets made the right decision to acquire both Harden and Howard I would be more than happy to have that conversation with anyone.

As fans we just need to wake up and realize the players the Rockets have, and understand that the ownership and front office will most likely continue to upgrade the surrounding pieces if they do not complement the stars appropriately. This team will see changes one way or another either in maturity with this group, or different surrounding pieces in the near future.

 

Players do what the coach tells them. This coach understands what good defense is supposed to look like. He does not understand how to game plan defense for each match up using the talent on his team.

Good defense starts from a scheme drawn up by the coach, not by individual talent. Talent can enable the team defense to shine but does make the team a better defense alone. If the coach can not get the players to cooperate or fails to draw up good defensive schemes for each different game, then he has failed.

McHale has this year to prove his worth.

 

Role players are role players for a reason. They are normally limited in talents, but you want to try your best to fully utilize them, so that your team has a chance. No matter how much your stars try, if you can't use your bench when you face a tough opponents, when starts are cold, when the lead is not 20, when it's closing minutes of quarter, half, game, you won't have a chance.

Every game counts, but I'd rather see the team losing while sticking to some game plan/strategy, to get everyone involved, than getting by just this game. Yes, including your 9th or 10th player. Every game can be an exception, if you can't stick to your long term strategy.

It's regular season, and even before ASB, and we are facing mediocre teams, if you can't even trust your bench/role players, if you can't even allow them to make some mistakes and learn from that, in such situations, how are you supposed to EVER make use of them?

I thought the alarming high minutes and injury rates on starters should trigger warning sign for any causal fan, not to mention NBA coaching staff.

I still remember hearing live feed from one of those games, when young players missing left and right, Doug Collins was loud and clear - if it's a GOOD shot, take it, even if you have missed 25 shots in a row, still take that 26th shot without hesitation. He's not a very good coach, but he's so damn right in allowing young players to grow.

 

I'm not arguing we shouldn't have gotten Harden. Far from it. I just don't want to give him a pass on his atrocious defense and say we need to build around it when he's far from a finished player. He's capable of playing acceptable defense. He's young enough to learn. If he has championship aspirations, he should want to do better on the defensive end. And the coach should hold him accountable. If things don't get better, I would look to changing the coaching staff along with filling the roster with players that hide his deficiencies.

 

Regardless of how bad the bench is, Harden's got a bum ankle thats kept him out of the lineup several times this year already. yet he puts in 40+ minutes every night when he plays. That is on the coaching. There is no way Harden won't be affected by this by the time April comes around. McHale has simply got to give more minutes to the rest of the roster, whether he likes it or not. This is the kind of physical stress that brings about much bigger problems.

 

Coaching change I'm mehhh about. Its something they will almost surely take a look at in the Summer (privately if possible) so don't worry about that.

However, McHale & co. looks like they really understand and are meshing well with Dwight. I dont think enough has been stated this year about how awesome Dwight has looked since coming to Houston, and how much his post game has improved since the start of the season. Not surprisingly his post game really took off after he was introduced and started working with CD (the man responsible for training with Hakeem and Yao).

So you make a coaching change that helps on one area, but hurts another area... I know Dwight came to Houston to work with McHale & co. and so I'm going to be a little iffy about making any changes until the Summer... but YES they absolutely will look at making a coaching change behind closed doors if this team does not turn it around. I've been a fan of the Rockets, and seen how Les operates with coaches before.... he's not just going to sit around and allow his team to perform this poorly on the defensive end. Its not in his nature to allow such an atrocity.

If I had to guess though, I'd be willing to bet that step #1 would be for Morey to really be active in trades this Summer to reshape the roster around Harden/Howard/ and Parsons. All else expendable. However in the meantime, I do think they want to try their luck at potentially snagging another all-star talent which is why they were hesitant to really spend a ton of money last Summer on free agents.

Obviously there was a good reason for only bringing in league minimum role players. There are other things in the works, and its just going to take some patience until probably this Summer to finally see what they are planning to accomplish from a roster standpoint.

Coaching will be addressed this Summer if needed I'm almost sure of that.

 

How do you want to distribute the minutes?

Howard x?
Parsons x?
Jones x?
Harden x?
Beverley x?
Lin x?
Garcia x?
Casspi x?
Brooks x?
Should DMo play because that's only a 9-man rotation. Brewer seems to be there for garbage time.

 

They need to draw up better plays to get him the ball in the paint. Dwight was injured last year so regardless of what Mchale did he would still look better than last year, he is after-all an all-star. When you have that kind of talent you run the proper system for it.

I do hope your right about a coaching change this summer.

 

"Trying" is irrelevant. You get the job done, or you don't, and our guys don't get the job done, period. An increase in Harden's effort level alone won't have a significant impact on our perimeter defense.

 

greg smith plays better pick n roll defense than dwight howard.