ClutchFans Game Thread: Pelicans @ Rockets 4/4/2021

Obviously Silas would look a lot better under better circumstances, but it’s mind-boggling to me that he still has defenders here.

 

I noticed this myself he always wanting to slip the pick and barely gets any contact.

 

lol i am not watching until they bench Wall or shut him down for the season

 

I see what you are saying and saw this happening tonight.

 

What's a reasonable expectation for the worst roster in the league?

Not only worst talent wise but most disrupted.

Like we'd know he's a real good coach if he had 16 wins now instead of 13?

 

The record concerns me less than the in game decisions and game-planing. A reasonable expectation to me, is if he at least TRIED something to stop the horrific runs against us when they're happening, didn't get consistently obliterated coming out of halftime, and didn't try to make players do things they're not good at.

Notably, I couldn't find anybody with anything good to say about his stint as interim head coach in the past, which was my main concern with the hiring.

 

Both of these things are consistent with having the literal worst team in the league.

Ok so what scheme or personnel change with the worst team in the league do you expect to bear fruit and what particular fruit do you expect it to bear?

 

My problem w Silas isn’t the overall scheme or personnel-as my post your are responding to mentioned, I think Silas could definitely have success in those types of areas w better talent. My problem is, when have repeated instances of scoring droughts like 4 points in 8 minutes, I expect the coach to try literally anything to shake it up during those 8 minutes. Likewise, being obliterated specifically out of halftime indicates a lack of adjustments to the specific game at hand.

The only broader issue I have is things like encouraging BMac and Tucker to do things clearly outside their wheelhouse.

Let me ask you this-is there anything that would make you think Silas is a bad coach, or is everything excusable due to our weak roster?

 

I don't think you can actually glean anything from a team this bad and effectively a throwaway season. I also don't see too much logic in splitting hairs ofver particularly how they're bad. They're just bad!

The 3rd quarter thing is a red herring, If anything they're an aberrationally good 2nd period team. The pattern I see looks more like teams starting lineups/main rotation players pummeling the Rockets when they play the whole quarter (think James Harden, 12 in the first, 6 in the 2nd, 12 in the 3d, 6 in the 4th), becasue they're vastly more talented:

Rockets by quarter, net rating:

1st 25th -8.9
2nd 18th -3.3
3rd 28th -6.9
4th 25th -4.4

I mean, if you want to tell a "halftime adjustment" story, it seems like they get better in the 3rd than the 1st, so...? ?

I don't think coaches matter that much, maybe they add or subtract 10% or so here and there, there may be some empirical consensus around this I can't recall; At the margins that makes sense, I mean the Rockets were clearly 10%+ better under Dantony than they were under McFail without too much different personnel, and that meant a much better set of outcomes at that level.

In the case of this variant of the Rockets, that's 1 or 2 meaningless wins for a roster of players that is clearly transitional and probably hard to disambiguate from the noise of just being bad.

 

I defend him. Give him a roster and time and then I’ll judge.

 

I think the 10% thing you reference is actually a Morey quote, and agree with a lot of this post, but still think we’ve seen enough to know Silas is not a particularly good coach. Agree to disagree on the rest because I don’t have time to delve deeper