The offense in the first half was very good, a lot of movement, cutting and passing leading to good shots. I loved Ariza in this game, finally looked confident. Those 2 threes from way behind the 3pt line were just great! I liked Dwight's intimidation on defense and running the floor. Beverley brought the energy, Ty had some nice plays, Jet was okay and Capela did well. Thorton was right behind Ariza for player of the game. He rebounded, passed, moved, scored like it was nothing and can play very decent defense. He was a lot better than Brewer. This leads me to the negatives: Harden, Ty Lawson's tendency to dribble too much at the top of the key, Brewer for most of the game (too much gambling), Howard's dumb fouls and complaining, some rotations that would scratch your head and our commentary crew. I swear, the times Bill complaints about a call are getting more frequent and longer. Oh my, that whining about the flagrant on Howard and not on Smith on Harden (which wasn't one, while Howard's clearly was one). Drexler with the stupid keys to the game, 'get more buckets'. "If you put the ball in the hole, good things will hapen" :S
thank the gods for howard and thornton plus ariza waking up! can't go into overtime with the orlandos of the nba.
I wonder if the Thunder fans are saying the same thing after going double overtime with these same Magics.
QFT. My wife has turned into a keen basketball observer. She blurted out loud exactly what I was thinking: "you know it's bad when your gut is telling you McHale needs to to get him out of the game." If Harden continues in superstar-suckage mode, that can only be because he's doing something he shouldn't be doing, on and/or off-court, and not learning from it. If only Team USA worked him every summer... Surely his pride will get him going. I hope.
Enjoyed attending my first game at TC this year. Very happy for the win... though for the most part the team underperformed (especially on defense). But a win is a win. 1. Any Skiles coached team with play harder than their record. They killed us on the offensive boards until OT. Which leads me to... 2. We need a PF. [subliminal message to McHale... play Capela and Harrell at the same time] Opponents weakside offensive rebounding and defense will kill us. There was one play when Marcus Thornton just looked at Harden with a "WTF?" look... which leads to... 3. Fournier looked like Kobe out there. WTF? Oh yea, Harden had him for most of the game. Well, except the times someone must have figured it out and switched Trevor onto Fournier. Still, any time you give up 30 pts to someone like Fournier you have to look at your defensive effort. Which leads to... 4. Harden stepped his defensive effort up at the end. So you know he can play defense. I realize he expends a lot of energy on offense. But see #3. 5. And while I am nit picking our best player... ball movement. the Magic were better at it than we were. Even coming out of TOs, the best we often got was a Harden, pounding the ball at the top of the key and defended 3 attempt. Why does McHale even have a whiteboard [subliminal message to McHale... play Capela and Harrell at the same time] ? 6. And let me nitpick our second best player... Ty, quit deferring so much to others. Go to the basket. The ball moves when he runs the offense. Guys get open looks. And Ty scores. That guy that played in Denver. Be him. 7. Last, fun time at the game. Went with my daughter's high school basketball team. Despite the OT and horrible traffic up 45 it was a great time. Lots of teachable moments ("see, thats what McHale calls "sticky"... instead, MOVE!") Saw lots of RocketsGirl including outside TC after the game. She should have her own Root TV show.
Ariza needs breaks when he is playing this many minutes at the 4. Thornton plays best when he gets open looks (e.g. when Lawson, Harden, and Ariza are on the floor with him). So when Ariza isn't on the floor, Brewer typically is. Capela, Harrell, and Brewer will not be on the court at the same time due to floor balance issues. When DMo is back and Ariza has more time at SF, you might see more Capela and Harrell together.
Harden needs a couple of weeks off to work on his game, both physically and mentally, similar to Lebron last year. Problem is we are not in the eastern conference where loses can be made up over the course of a long season. Perhaps, the Rockets could give him a couple of days off when we get into the soft schedule coming up in Dec.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">I'm going to pay close attention to the rockets organization and who was behind signing off on the cursed bobble heads <a href="https://twitter.com/SportsCenter">@SportsCenter</a> - Lil B</p>— Lil B THE BASEDGOD (@LILBTHEBASEDGOD) <a href="https://twitter.com/LILBTHEBASEDGOD/status/662273487118032896">November 5, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Why not? Because they both are low post offensive players? Then run a different offense. What we lose on offense we gain back on defense and rebounding. We saw what happened when you play Harrell at C and Trevor or Harden at PF. 9 point run. I realize the desired airing is DMo and Harrell... but DMo may not play until half way through the season. So unless you want to continue to play small ball with Harrell a very undersized 5, you have to look at pairing Harrell with either Dwight or Capela.
because a huge problem so far with the players that are healthy is floor balance and spacing. if you have both those guys out there at the same time both of their defenders can crowd the paint towards Harden/Lawson. Neither of them are low post players and neither can shoot. And not to mention both guys are still learning how to react and where to be on defense, especially Harrell. A lot of people don't see it but this is a huge reason why their minutes are still pretty well limited because their reactions/timing are still a big work in progress. On paper, it does seem like a good defensive pairing though and it may be able to work later in the season if things get up to speed. At this point with Thornton playing solid, they're going to have to primarily run small ball with Ariza/harden at the 4 until they get bodies back. So with that, theres going to be some defense that suffers unfortunately.
I can live with 6/22 from Harden every now and then if he's going to continue to be aggressive. Also, Lawson looks to be getting better and better with every game he plays. I can't wait to see him in mid-season form after he's gotten accustomed to his teammates.
Every now and then the ball movement was great and got us very easy baskets. If they can learn to play like that all The time or even 80% or the time the team will be very very hard to beat by anyone warriors including.
I think the Magic are a decent team. They are underrated. Lost to Washington by 1. Lost to the Thunder by 3 in double OT. Lost to Chicago by 5. Beat the Pelicans by 9. And lost to the Rockets by 5 in OT. So I mean, they are a scrappy team that will compete to the end. They were in every game they played right until the end against some pretty good teams.
Let me guess, you want to take credit for harden sucking against Miami in the finals and sucking against Portland 2 years ago in the playoffs too huh?
I don't think either of you are wrong. Until one of TJ or DMo is back, we'll have to sacrifice either interior defense/rebounding by going small or spacing by using 2 bigs -- that's just the inevitable result of our injury situation, I think. I'm not head over heels for TJ/DMo as jumpshooters, but at least they draw their defenders out more than Capela or Harrell do.