ClutchFans Game Thread: Rockets @ Sixers 11/13/2013

The Rockets frontcourt didn't necessarily get out played. Howard, Jones, and Parsons _ where pretty much a wash with Young, Turner, and Hawes... So yea _ Lin and Bev got outplayed big time... Just going by your numbers.

 

Now is the best time to trade Asik and Lin.

 

One can hope and dream. :grin:

 

The mismatch goes both ways, Lin is far quicker than Anderson.

The Rockets did not lose this game just because of Lin. They lost this game in part because the Rockets perimeter defense (including Harden/Lin/Parsons) is as usual, putrid. The team outside of Lin could not hit 3's, a lack of hitting free throws down the stretch and a decision to not foul up 3 (in that order).

I would have fouled up 3 after the Lakers and Raptors debacle. However maybe McHale wanted his team to have another shot to execute at the end after failing twice (if the team wants to win against good teams they have to defend at the end of games) or it could be that our guys have been so bad at the end of games at the line that McHale is snake bitten.

Right now everyone is making mistakes at the end of games... Harden, Lin, Dwight, Parsons, Beverley. There was a GIF last week of Harden ball watching everyone was laughing at, I pointed out that literally 4 Rockets made defensive mistakes in 5 seconds, and that is why we are giving up 36 points to Anderson, and Blake and Reddick are killing us and why we have allowed 3 game ties/winners to other teams already. Doesn't matter how talented you are, if you don't execute consistently, you will lose.

It is up to the players to execute, and if they don't for the coaches to make their be consequences.

 

The only good team to go ten deep over the last few years has been San Antonio. Most good teams go 8 deep.

 

True. Even Howard, who's supposed to anchor this team's defense, gave up 18 points and 9 boards to Hawes. In honesty, the Rockets is probably the better team but couldn't execute down the streach and got burned. Those 2 missed FT shots by Parson were big.

 

We are the worst free throw shooting team in the league! Taking turns at free throws is the absolute worse thing this team could do! If Mchale tried to turn our game into a free throw contest he would get the exact same blame thrown on him people would be like "wow McFail doesn't even know we suck at FTs, fire him!"

 

We lost the game when we couldnt get anything going after Philly adjusted and put Turner on Lin.

 

Impossible. It's what society has become - always looking for SOMEONE TO BLAME.

It's what ruins this site.

It's hilarious. If anyone has watched basketball for ANY length of time, it's easy to see when someone has it going. Anderson was simply HOT. That often happens when you play your former team.

If I wouldn't have been so pissed off after the loss and deleted the game, I'd go back and watch all of JA's makes - to see who was actually ON him or supposed to be on him, depending on rotations. I know during the game I wasn't thinking "Damn, McHale, put someone else on him".... I was thinking "OMG, BS... " as in the guy was just hitting everything he threw up. He wasn't DOMINATING. It happens.

How does Lin put up solid defensive numbers and ratings and still get crucified (don't know what they are for the last three games, but through six, they were very good).

His turnovers were bad. But, at least two of them he normally gets those calls and is on the line. Another Garcia lost the ball but since he never possessed it, they gave it to Lin.

Coming into tonight, we were #2 in the LEAGUE in opponent FG%. But, our D sucks? Come on. We've had three three's fall in late game situations which should even out. Two of them were defended extremely well and one was a communication breakdown, which was "fixed" as evidenced by the Toronto game (same situation switched beautifully).

We were #1 in rebounding. The problems are 23rd in three point shooting, which we know will change, last in FT%, which we know likely won't, and 2nd to last in turnovers - which SHOULD change some.

I just get a kick out of all the "terrible defense" talk when VERY few teams have shot any kind of respectable field goal percentage against us. The league promotes offense now days. Almost NO ONE can stay in front of anyone anymore. Great team defense takes time.

Frustrating start to the season no doubt. But, as you said, it should change pretty quickly.

 

And yet McHale leaves a 3" shorter Lin on Anderson... running a 7 man rotation. SMFH.

 

I don't think McHale had any other choice. Couldn't start Garcia with him just coming back from being out sick _ and it looked like he was still out sick...

 

Good Game

1st post because I'm losing patience with the name calling. Clutchfans used to be much easier to stalk without hitting my face against the wall.

Anyway, my thoughts on the game are:

1) We need James Harden...period. Contrary to what some people are saying. James Harden and Jeremy Lin make each other better on both offense and defense. I know the stats are more nuanced...but imagine if Harden was there today.
- Lin's minutes would be reasonable.
- Anderson might be in foul trouble and tired as hell from guarding the drives (he had 5 fouls at the end, probably would've fouled out if Harden was here)
- Notice how Jeremy's best offense/defense performances occur when he does not get rammed with 40+ min of play? This is exactly the same issue with Harden, so it's laughable when people flip flop the defense critiques depending on who they like.

2) Jeremy didn't lose us the game, not having Harden did - see #1 If you look at the rocket TOs. 19.6 AVG for season. 19 Today. Jeremy took over ball-handling and Harden's TOs. This is a wash and people blaming this on Lin need to look at the big picture. (There's an argument that turnovers in general are killing this team, which I won't get into here)

3) McHale's rotations are questionable. I don't really understand his rotation strategy even though I've been watching this for a long time. 49 Min for Lin? 0 for Brewer? True, he might have been trying to prevent offense from stalling, but when you are up 10 in the late third it's a coin toss between keeping offense and defense. Again, if Harden was here, Lin would absolutely have gotten rest. He also runs people for near a full qtr without subbing...

4) I am happy with this game Because Lin got a double double! Jk. Remember the spurs loss when Jeremy dropped 38 and we lost? Things looked up after that. I think Dwight and Harden needs to get used to the fact that Lin's a reliable partner on this team. This game helps them with that, just like that Spur's game last year. Moreover, I think this game helped the team realize that s***, passing the ball means you get the ball back, which bodes well for the future.

 

Last year we were guaranteed the same. What happened? End of season disaster almost cost us the play-off.

Honestly, I would not keep my hope high when Mchale is our head coach.

Let me remind you a few games where Mchale obviously did a bad job:
1. The 4th quarter against the Spurs when Lin had his breakout game for the Rockets. Mchale rest Lin but waited until we lost 10+lead to put him back. He did not even do anything else when we started that losing stretch.
2. The last game against the Lakers. He went into Harden ISO mode even it was obviously not working.
3. He played Harden heavy minutes until he went down with an injury while giving almost zero minutes to Anderson and Jones.

Now can anyone name one game where Mchale made better in-game adjustment than the opposing team's coach?

I credit him for giving us the up-tempo game. But his in game decision is just not good.

Now we could come to how develops a player's game.
1. Has Harden been any better than before. Yes, he is playing heavy minutes, which is not a trivial thing. Other than that, what has he developed? Perhaps a star mentality?
2. Has Lin developed his game? I would not contribute his hot shooting this season to Mchale. Well, perhaps we could say Mchale's attitude has put a lot of pressure on him to improve...
3. Has Lin and Harden got better chemistry? Other than the 1 and 2 switch, I do not see anything developed between them.
4. Are we doing enough PnR now?????? Why am I seeing a lot of Howard ISOs????? Do you think Howard ISO rather than H&H or H&L PnR will be our go-to offense? Remember Howard's ISO is facing the basket, at which point he no longer passes out to the guards.

At the beginning of the season, a lot of us were saying we need to make sure Howard buy in PnR for this Rocket to succeed. If you do not call the PnR, I do not know how you can train Howard to play PnR. Of course, it could be that Mchale wants Howard to practice some DREAM move. But I do not see why that has a higher priority than PnR.

 

The Rockets offense is dependent on having a perimeter player that can create (Finch would say that I am wrong though). With Harden out, that only leaves Lin. Who else is there? You saw what happens when Parsons tries to play the wrote of creator and Beverley is not that type of player.

 

Lin is far quicker than everybody. His first step is elite and I have all confidence that he can blow by wroten. Not sure why you would take 2 mismatches when we could just have one.

 

Perimeter defense is about the worst I seen in years. They need to fix this quick, at least give Brewer some minutes.

 

lmao ty for this. i wanna see it in normal speed though

 

Expected when you have Howard....

 

So you don't want Beverley getting many minutes then, even though he is your best perimeter defender and Garcia has had the flu?