Currently, what is this team's biggest skill weakness?

harden played very good D less than a year ago with team usa, and with a reduced offensive load to carry the team he can probably focus and expend more energy on this now. off the bench bev and KJ can be elite wing defenders next to lawson. i'm more worried about stopping LMA and griffin in the post than locking down the arc.

 

he played very good D with team USA? Against who pippendagimp? Against nba players? Who are the fastest? Or against non nba caliber players?

 

Coaching obviously, more so in crunch times

 

This. For a team that shoots so many threes, it'd be nice to make a decent percentage. Second would be interior defense outside of Dwight.

 

Let's just see.

I am worried as well but defensive schemes are responsibilities have evolved and are so team centric. For example look at the defensive improvement getting rid of Lin and Parsons. Lawson isn't tall, but all he has to do in our system is keep his man in front of him and funnel him. He can do that and did earlier in his career. As for Harden, there were times last year where he was very solid defensively. He can body up almost anyone and has enough foot speed to at least push a guy to a specific spot on the floor. Also don't forget Harden will have less of a load this year and has been solid defensively in the past. The Rockets also have Ariza and Beverley to help as well.

 

Free throws were the difference in a couple of those WCF games.

 

I'm not that worried about our defense on the perimeter. Yes, Harden and Lawson aren't good defenders, but neither are most of the premiere guards in the West. I think (hope) that Lawson and Harden will be good enough on offense to wear out the opposing players. Plus, we have solid defenders in Bev, Brewer, and Ariza that we can throw at most guys.

I am worried about our defensive matchups at the 4, and it would be nice to have a shutdown guy at that spot so that Howard could focus on protecting the rim. That, or somebody who could at least grab a ****ing rebound so that Howard could- again - focus on rim protection.

 

Mid Range

 

Character.

 

Things that irritate me are 1) lack of defensive rebounding 2) turnovers 3) poor transition defense.

Better half court offense with Lawson & DMo in the lineup will help. Better half court offensive efficiency means less turnovers and transition defense breakdowns. That would b huge.

Getting Bev back helps as he is a great reboinder at the FT line on long boards. I think Harrell will find his way into thenrotation eventually.

 

he was prasied for it by his own coach, malako:

http://blog.chron.com/ultimaterocke...adership-with-team-usa/#26027101=0&26282103=0

 

This is true, hence the current trend of positionless basketball.

That being the case, communication is of the upmost importance and the Rockets tend to have breakdowns in communication a little too often for a team with championship aspirations. The most common one I notice is funneling the penetrator to Dwight but not rotating correctly or with enough urgency, leaving Dwight to guard about 3 guys at any moment.

Dwight's frustrations are very visible.

 

Coaching coaching coaching

Still, we lack a powerfull 4, we'll see if DMo or Jones can excel this year

 

It is a good topic, bholic gets cred for it

Though its still hard to act like this doesnt have his same agenda to it. And its coming out more and more.. Its a conveniently timed poll - right after the Lawson addition that solves some team needs - It narrows things down to the frontcourt issues, steers everything to his usual talking points.

Just bholic decided to make it all-inclusive of several areas, so at least regular thread discussion can be had. (I prefer that to the tinman "case study" / hit piece troll polls)

 

Surprised at the poll choices. Surprised they’re not T _ones, _ones, Terrence _ones, and “starting Rocktets PF.”

 

I'm assuming the currently part of the question implies that Lawson's arrival will help with the our league-worst turnover numbers.

Because that's the answer to this question, otherwise...

 

free throw shooting was hard to watch last year, especially in the playoffs. we need to be able to hit free throws if we want to be an elite team and really blow out other teams during the regular season.

 

LMA...



To answer the question - I vote defensive rebounding. We'll see how Capela does, but I don't think Montrezl will get any PT this year. We know how jones and Dmo rebound. Howard is the only proven board hound we have and if he goes down...

We have the potential to outrun the league for easy buckets and dominate the transition game this year. But it all starts on the defensive rebound.

 

Free throw shooting killed us last season. We lost a lot of close games because of it. Perimeter defense is another. Im guessing a better shot selection is needed as well. We are pretty predictable. Either we penetrate, kick it out or jack up 3's. A mid range game would be nice. Imo