I'm sure they are going to play well against the rest of these teams. They have dropped two games embarrassingly enough, one to Memphis and the other to the Pelicans. Hopefully this loss will have them playing with fire tomorrow.
The Rockets won close games early and now it is evening out. It is the part of the season where let downs happen... SA, CHI and MEM have gone through it. When you defend, you can win games like tonight... But poor defending and poor turnovers.
Me neither. Bev is not playing well defensively this season and his shooting is erratic. So why keep playing him when you have another option off the bench? As for tonight, the Rockets just didn't try. When you give up 120 points, it means your defense sucked. The Magic got into the lane anytime they wanted and the team never made adjustments on Vucevic or Oladipo. For God's sake, the Magic were a 2-man team most of the night(til Bev let Payton go off). Ever heard of forcing the ball out of their hands and making someone else beat you? Other teams do it to Harden all the time.
I don't doubt he'll be ready. Him being ready to play is not the problem. He just hasn't played smart defense lately. He's been flat out stupid, especially tonight.
Yeah his best skill was his hunger. He isn't very good at much else. Decent shooter, mediocre ball handler, mediocre finisher, good perimter D, but not as good as last season. He's been a disappointment. He got killed tonight.
This happen when you take a team lightly and give them hope. This was the typical trap game and Houston got trapped.
Terrible loss, classic trap game. Rockets came out slow, lacked focus, discipline and effort on both ends. We have way too many of these games where we come out looking like crap, this team is lacking focus majorly, which is why we are a 2nd round team at best this season. McHale has improved a lot this season, but our team has such a huge issue with discipline I'm not convinced he's the man for the job still.
Yup. Beverley misses rotations a lot. Motiejunas with a bad game. But Smith with an awful game. Killing the momentum. Shooting tons of 3's and long 2's. Taking the 3rd most shots on the team. And constant turnovers. This team still needs a third playmaker. This team also needs to stop putting the ball in Smith's hands at the beginning of the shot clock.
These are the kind of "where be my head" lackluster, low effort, low IQ games that the Rockets will look back on at the end of the season and realize they lost more than a game. Stupid losses add up to lower playoff positions, worse match ups, diminished outcomes. You always pay to not play.
The Magic seem to really like the up tempo game. That's how they beat those 3 teams. Their guards were too quick for us. Hate to waste Howard's 7-7 from the line.
Amen, I've honestly lost faith, with the moves we made we should have gotten better, not worse, but over all our D has looked more suspect and our O (that isn't predicated on Harden hitting 45) is anemic and poorly conceived.... extremely disappointing to watch Vuk eat howard up, Oli light everyone that D'd him up, and payton straight up wrecked Bev who looked awful tonight.... Sorry this team as is is not a contender and very well may not make it ouf the first round no matter who they play at this point. Stupid shot selection, continually forcing awful post ups by howard (although he actually shot lights out at the line for the first time in forever), constant stupid sloppy turnovers, horrible FT shooting (normally) and a suddenly porous defense are not at all elements of a NBA contending team. Tonight was a straight up embarrassing loss period !
