He may sit once T-Jones comes back. But if Smith is gonna play on a bum ankle, Ariza is gonna play through whatever illness he had, and Harden never misses a game aside from when it's mandated by LeBron....errrr, the league, something tells me D-Mo is gonna go tomorrow night. Unless of course the T'Wolves bench half their team in which case I suppose he could take the night off. For what it's worth, they did sit Martin, Rubio, KG, and Neal last night.
Well he's not a center, but he did a damn good job filling in as one. Dorsey simply couldn't have pulled it off, and there's not really any question about that.
Any team that had any size at all would have feasted on super weak lines like Dorsey and Jones. As it was we struggled against the bigger teams, without DMo we'd have been screwed.
Dorsey's role wouldn't have changed in this scenario so that is irrelevant. The comparison is between Jones and DMo. How is Dorsey/Jones weaker than Dorsey/DMo? Jones is a better rebounder and provides better rim protection. DMo doesn't play any bigger than Jones, despite the fact that he is about 3 inches taller.
DMo is the better defender and he's capable of playing the 5 when needed, Jones is not. I don't know where you get your impression of Jones being able to even halfway competently man the 5, but it's not really founded in anything resembling reality.
theres really no way to prove how they would have fared at Dmo been out instead of Jones. Btw the rockets still had a plus record with Tariq Black as the starting center earlier in the season.
In case you are still struggling to understand what I'm saying, I'll flush this out further for you. Dorsey is averaging 7 fouls per 36, you can't rely on him to play serious minutes in any game because he'll simply foul out first. That means you are looking at a whole lot of Smith and Jones being at the 4 and 5, sure you can get away with that every once in a while in short doses against bench units, but against starters? Heh, as Shaq says, that's BBQ chicken all day. You have 38 games of nothing but Dorsey Smith and Jones and the Rockets are the 7th seed at best.
Sure there's no way to prove it, just like there's no way to prove that playing Nick Johnson as your starting center would be a bad idea....but you hope that a bit of common sense comes into play at some point.
How is DMo a better defender? Jones is faring much better in every defensive stat this season Why do you source your own opinion as fact bobbythejpotmacaholic?????
If they had allowed Dorsey to play the way Ben Wallace did with the same physicality, I think Dorsey would have blossomed. The league should have give Dorsey the Ben Wallace rules to abide by.
I know this probably goes over your head but defending at the 5 is not the same as defending at the 4. Comparing DMo's defense at the 5 to a small sample of Jones' defense at the 4 is foolishly short sighted.....but par for the course for some.
There is no statistical evidence for DMo being a better defender so it's hard to seriously discuss it. In a scenario where DMo is out and Jones is healthy, Dorsey would start and Jones and Smith would complete the three man rotation, identical to how it was earlier this season. Jones would not be at the five for long stretches at all. Yeesh, seems like it. Reminds me of the Lin fans on here. Although DMo is better than Lin so it's not so bad, lol. Anyway my point is that if Jones had been healthy all season, he is still our starting PF today. Don't be so quick to dismiss Jones as our starting PF alongside Dwight. Jones has performed better than DMo statistically all season. Obviously health is a major factor and if indeed Jones is out for more than a couple more games it is doubtful McHale starts him simply to avoid a change in lineups so close to the postseason. Time will tell.
Exactly my point, Jones wouldn't play the 5 because he isn't capable meaning that we'd have to rely on Dorsey till he got in the inevitable foul trouble then we'd have to rely on I guess Smith because he's more versatile than Jones. If the Rockets had to rely on Dorsey and Smith to be the 5, because Jones simply doesn't bring enough to the table to be considered an option at all, it would seriously hurt the team leading to fewer wins and the Rockets struggling for the 7 seed right now at best. Fortunately they had DMo who stepped up and was able to play well enough out of position to where we are still in 3rd place. All of that should be pretty obvious to basketball fans.
