Could it be that we're just not that great and last year = fool's gold?

I want to said fool's goal, especially how we 'luck' into the #2 seed. But let's not forget how we weren't at full strength, with Howard not playing in the regular season and playing injured toward the end of the playoff, with both Bev and DMo out the playoff and with 2nd and 3rd string playing PG.

A team with Harden, Howard, and now Lawson with key pieces in Ariza, Bev, Dmo, Capela, Jones, Brewer, Thornton... is a very talented team when fully healthy.

We got the pieces, other than a lack of good PF defense, to go far.

What we always miss is a great system and good coaching staff. Extremely disappointed that they haven't done a single thing to integrate Lawson into a play maker. One of the greatest weakness last year was reliant on Harden and when he doesn't have it, the team got nothing... Lawson was suppose to solve that. Coaching sucks.

 

8 of those also had our lineup rotating like a merry go round due to various injuries. You can't build chemistry and play cohesively if your team hasn't played together.

 

We'll be fine. Did anyone really expect Lawson and Harden to gel immediately? I'm also willing to bet Harden doesn't average 10% 3 point shooting.

 

getting to the WCF was a nice achievement for this team and it isn't diminished in the slightest by the fact that the pelicans beat the spurs in a regular season game

 

Last season was not fools gold. Last season was just that.... Last Season. Everything the Rockets achieved last season they earned.

What they are going through this season looks like a team that spent way to much time reading there own headlines and not preparing for THIS season.

 

It would make us all feel better if we weren't BLOWN OUT.

Then we could have made the excuse "If Harden was on his game we win this"

 

If he was, we probably would have. When Harden is on his game, he makes shots which opens the court for other players to make shots. The early part of this season is going to suck because 1) it is hard and 2) starters need time to gel.

 

Put the coaching aside. Just look at it on paper. A team has got to have a deep bench for it to go far into the playoffs and be considered a great team. Forget about how good the starters are if the bench truly suck then the team wont go anywhere. Ty lawson is ok but just looks over the hill or not game shape. Just look at the rockets bench this season. harrell decker . Well they lost josh smith who was a big player off the bench. Just look at clippers depth from top to bottom. Spurs, and even kings at least trying to add depth. Rockets just don't look deep enough.

 

Lol, it happens even when the team is winning (obviously to varying degrees)... I mean you'll have bandwagon fans/new fans of the sport think it's doomsday all the time, hahah.

Oh well... In a month or two after the starters gel hopefully conversation is more realistic, unfortunately it's disproportionate amount of nba 2k GMs atm.

 

We lost our savior in Josh "Lebron James" Smith

 

How do the Rockets not look deep enough?? I mean they should have easily 10 man rotation by the time DMo is back... Now if you want to say Lawson isn't game shape fine... But come on, lol.

 

Some of the injuries last year helped us in a way in my opinion.

Mchale does not like to step outside his little box, so when We had injuries he was forced to play Capella who should have been playing over Dorsey all along. What it also did was force Dmo into the line up more and allow him more post up opportunities and to be more involved in offense which should've been happening the entire time.

It took Howard sitting out and watching to see that he should have less post ups. Mchale can't get the team to do the obvious things.

This team got fortunate last year. They want to talk about the Warriors fortune....please.

Dallas self imploded and they weren't going to beat us anyways. We were very close to being beat 4-1 against the Clips. Credit to the team though winning the next two games after the Clippers collapsed.

I think many of the problems simply come from poor coaching and this team got very fortunate last season. As a Rockets fan it's hard to admit and it's even harder to say that many of the analyst are right to not have this team right up there with the upper echelon. Elite teams don't play this way. They just don't.

 

Only been 2 games relaxxxxx. In my opinion they need to change a few things:

1) the focus on D isn't there and needs to be the foundation of this team. Defense wins rings. To many open shots and 3s. We let a rookie pg tear us apart the first game of the season, did we really think we could stop Curry if we let a rookie do that?
2) Bev needs to start bc he brings that energy that Lawson and harden just don't bring. That defense and energy needs to be there to start the game, not come from the bench in the middle of the game when we are down. Having Harrell bring it later on in the game will only solidify it. Also Lawson could wreck the second unit of other teams. We should use him like ginobli!
3) Ty And Harden aren't used to each other yet. The team isn't used to Ty. That'll change as time goes on but we will have to wait for it. Practice and more practice.

A few other things: I'm a fan of Jones but he's just not cutting it right now. Jones needs to step it up. He knows he can play well but for some reason at the moment he looks scared or not as aggressive, and that needs to change. Harden needs to be Harden. He's off to begin this season too.

It's only been two games. And to be honest I'm glad this has happened. We needed to blown out so that maybe these guys can wake up. We got another playmaker but that doesn't mean we won. We need to get ourselves together and these games should show the team how much work really needs to be done.

We got this. It's a longgggg season fellas. Don't stress too much. Go rockets!

 

The negative carry over results of the pre-season are proving to be a problem due to Rox players being injured and not practicing together. So what we have now is a team out of sync, not in basketball condition (they looked tired after the 1st period honestly), and they have find team chemistry while having the unfortunate schedule of playing the best teams at the beginning of the season. Quite a wake up call. I hope they at least play .500 basketball during this brutal stretch of games on their scedule. At some point they'll catch fire but I don't think there is an easy way out of this bad cycle. Much has to do with timing. They can't wake up tomorrow and become physically fit to play 4 periods of basketball. They can't play "in sync" without all the players being accustomed to playing together for a while on the court. There isn't a magic pill and we're now seeing that reality unfortunately. Might be a bit more FUGLY until these issues iron themselves out including TRUSTING the system. The warriors showed what it takes as they trust their system, team chemistry playing with one another for quite some time now. We played pretty good that 1st period but after that we got exposed for all the issues stated above and it's gonna take time. Til then, it might be best to lower the expectations for the next 30 days as they go through this process as well as certain times during the year until it all CLICKS. Just my opinion.

 

I wonder what we had least year that we're missing this year... What could be the big difference... Hmmm...

Spoiler

 

That still doesn't explain the uninspired defense.

 

I think a lot of it is that they haven't had a chance to gel as a unit and it doesn't help that you have 3 guys in the starting lineup that don't play defense worth a damn. Right now on a night to night basis you only have Ariza and Howard that are even passable defensively in that starting lineup and on top of that no one seems to be in the right place or making the proper rotations.

It'll get better with time, but right now it's pretty brutal to watch a lot of the time.

 

D will naturally improve as players figure out how to play with each other and figure each other's tendencies. I am sure that we started Howard, T-Jones, Ariza, Harden, and Lawson, our team would look much better both defensively and offensively.

 

I can't think of a more inconsistent team in the entire league. The freakouts are warranted.

 

Freakouts are NEVER warranted unless a team is consistently bad.