I thought that's why we got CLee for--to defend the PGs Brooks has trouble defending. Let's face it, Brooks' defense has always been a problem against big PGs like Deron Williams and small PGs as quick as AB like CP3 and even Collison last year. Sit him and use our defenders.
Agree with most of that. The players are culpable too, but the coaches need to help design something that forces CP3 to shoot and not pass. No, he is saying that the players have flaws, and what they are doing is not going to work because of those flaws... Neither Yao or Luis is going to become a super speedy guy....... DD
Last night had NOTHING to do with ABs D, he played fine for the most part, Paul is just a superstar and is capable of making tough shots
Do you think Yao could trap a point guard at this point, any point guard, on the perimeter? Scola, he'll trap with the best of them, but he can't recover on anyone b/c he automatically gets sucked in to the paint. At this point, with the amount of defensive deficiencies on this team, can you honestly say that there is a scheme out there which will make this team a top 10 defense? I don't think so.
That is not only lat night. We have allowed the opponent's starting guards having above 50% FG in average in the last 4 games. This is our biggest black hole in our defense and main reason of losing, imo.
We are giving up too many open shots, that is true, but to blame it all on Kmart or AB is silly, it is a total defensive breakdown, which I believe has a lot to do with players not knowing their roles, and whom they are playing with, and the coaches not putting them in the right spots to be successful. DD
As fustrating as it might be to see AB TRY to play defense, I agree that last night wasn't all his fault. Dude is just limited and against guys like Paul, Williams and Rose, AB will get eaten alive and he won't be the only one around the league to have it happen to them. His decision making and composure is another issue.
He was in foul trouble because CP3 picked his pocket several times and Brooks fouled back in retaliation. His fouls had nothing to do with assisting on this mythical help defense you speak of.
Nope, and I wouldn't even want him to try. The way I would play Paul is to have the bigs stay home on their man, and let the PG fend for himself and make CP3 a scorer.....force him to score 60 points for them to win and stay home on everyone else. Clog the paint with a big to stop the drives, and play him straight up....sure AB would be in for a long night as would KL, but I think the Rockets would have won if they did that. DD
I agree with all of that, and thanks for taking the time to explain it. But what DD is arguing is that the Rockets are using the wrong schemes. What you are saying, I believe, is that this team has some really bad defenders and as long as they stay bad defenders there is no way to defend well. The Rockets retain JVG's "blitz the pick and roll" strategy when its Scola or Hill or Hayes defending the roll man. They don't ask Yao to do it, which is the key difference.
No, what I am saying is that they did neither of those, and that it left the team hanging out to dry. Personally, I prefer the Rudy T way of handling it. DD
Can you point out an example of what you're talking about in the clip I posted? Just refer to the time.
How many times are we going to repeat this until we get sick of losing? -Last night had nothing to do with the defense, Kobe/Gasol are just superstars -Last night our defense was fine, Monta just made amazing shots -Last night our defense was good, Melo just took over bc he's a superstar -Last night our defense was fine, CP3 is just a superstar Every team we face is going to have a superstar/star player -- this is the NBA. Shrugging your shoulders and saying "well he's XXX, so what do you expect?" isn't good enough. It shouldn't be good enough for the players, coaches, or fans -- and that excuse damn sure isn't good enough for me. I think the best comment in this thread so far has been about the execution -- the schemes are fine, the execution isn't. Whether our players have the ability to execute the same type of schemes that our top 3 defense of yesteryear executed remains to be seen. If they can't, you either change the players or change the scheme. If these guys have physical limitations holding them back from properly executing (Brooks- height, strength; Martin; strength, agility; Scola -athleticism;agility), then I'm not sure dumbing down a defensive scheme will show better results, if any.
I have been trying to say that we don't know what they were trying to do last night b/c the players didn't execute whatever plan they were given. If they trapped CP the 4 got a wide open jump shot, or Yao got pinned under the basket by Okafor. If they didn't trap CP then he beat the pg and dribbled into the paint and found himself with unlimited options, or the pg got so lost on the pick that CP had a 15-18 ft jumper, which he'll hit more times than not.
This doesn't show all the plays, I am sure, but at the :40 second mark Hill comes out and shows hard then tries to recover to the guy hitting the jumper. 100% the wrong way to defend that.... At the 1:24 mark this is what I would have liked everyone to do, they forced CP3 to shoot it, clogged the paint with Yao and CP3 missed it. Same thing at the 1:32 mark, - this is how you play it, unfortunatly Yao missed that rebound and they got an uncontested 3...bad luck there. They did some good things, and I would love to see the Clips of Lowry on CP3, anyone got those? Of course not, it is all Brooks fault....lol. DD
That is a by product of poor coaching, and players not being comfortable in their roles. If the coaches would let the players get comfortable with each other and play with the same guys night in and night out, that might work, but all this tinkering in the regular season is costing the team games. DD
This! It is inexcusable to say the other team's players are too good, and that's why we can't do anything to stop them. At some point OUR players have to be good enough.
Horse dung ! You can recognize when the other team has an advantage as they did with CP3......over any of our PGs...and then work to minimize that. And you can also recognize when you have an advantage and go to that more often. Yao and CBud were our advantage positions last night.....IMO. DD
