I know this has been a nightmare of a season, but how is it that the Rockets are winless when Dwight Howard scores 25 points or more?? When he's had a huge game, we lose. Bizarre stat especially since Harden is averaging 25 points in each of those games.
Rockets are 0-4 in those games... but in those four, opponents are shooting 49.7% from the field, 43% from three-point range and scoring 126.3 points a game. I'm not saying there's a correlation, but that's the primary reason.
Dwight's presence in the paint doesn't make teammates better? Harden's non existing defense makes teammates better? You what now?
Its hard to score 130, and even harder to give up that many points. Its like all star games out there against the Rockets, minus the laughs and high fives (well for the opponents there are alot of those)
Defense is really Howard's calling card these days. He still is a great rebounder. But....his lateral quickness appears to have regressed and I just don't see him making the rotations/closing out like he used to.. Something to keep an eye on.
OP is talking about an offensive stat. Dwight doesn't create on offense as much as he used to. When the ball goes into the post, it doesn't come out and it slows down our run and gun offense. Harden creates almost everything for our offense, his defense has been better (by his standards) recently. They are not non-existent like the beginning of the season.
No hiding Dwight's physical decline, but he's still 3X quicker than Yao was and those Rockets teams played good defense. My problem is Dwight winding up near the perimeter guarding a wing or PG too often. Doesn't make sense to me. Once he is that far out there is no chance in hell anyone else on this team will bother to fill the gap.
Our D falls apart when there is a hole. In the Bucks game, even when Howard, Ariza, Bev and Harden (trying) are playing D, we still have a hole in our PF spot. Dmo was the only one who had a semblance of D when paired with Howard. When Smith and TJ was on, it was basically open season for Jabari Parker.
i agree and that's largely a product of the wings being lazy and not fighting over screens putting him in bad positions. Also the lack of awareness on when it truly is a good switch or not. It's just bad defensive habits all around
These are just problems with starters... the bench is even worse. The whole team is filled with problems.
I'm extremely curious to know as far as defensively what these guys are being told to focus on. If it's the game plan put forth or if its the players that just aren't listening and once the game starts everything goes out the window. We've seen time and time again the defensive side being acknowledged as an issue, yet 60 games in nothing has changed. It's the same exact habits with no true signs of consistent improvement. It's just a plain mess
The defensive awareness/rotations this team has is atrocious. The Spurs team on NBA2k16 with all the settings on easy probably has better defense than our real players.
