Harden disinterested and at half court when Chris ran the offense

If you had another player on the Rockets that could have generated plays for himself and the team consistently against the Warriors in the series, Rockets would have a great chance to win. This isnt Rocket science. Rockets looked better last year because they had two focal point of attack as opposed to one this year.

Newsflash: Most games in the playoffs comes down to talented players beating the team in ISO. The more talent you have the more options you have, and also the more rested your ISO players are.

Toronto went far in playoffs compared to other years because Kawhi is playing ISO ball and making his shots in the 4th quarter, not because Toronto is running awesome movement offense lol. And he is strategically conserving his energy for the 4th quarter knowing he is the only reliable ISO option they have. The difference between this Raptors team and last year's Raptors team is Kawhi is more talented than DeMar offense in ISO mode.

Giannis is running ISO offense. It is just that he is too one dimensional to run it successfully consistently in the 4th quarter of a playoff game..

Heat ran ISO ball with Lebron and Wade playing on the same team together. How often in their careers have these two run off of screens to shoot jumper lol.

Rockets ran ISO offense with Hakeem in the post.

Bulls ran ISO offense with Jordan.

Spurs ran ISO offense with Duncan and Parker and Ginobbli.

Lakers ran ISO offense with Shaq and Kobe and won against Kings despite the Kings running an amazing motion offense and off ball movements. Why? Because Kobe + Shaq talent >>>>>> Anything Kings had to offer.

The team with more talent and more options came out on top.

Talent is KING in the playoffs, especially in the 4th quarter of playoff games.

Talent will give you the most returns compared to any other minor tweaks you make.

 

The “poor harden is exhausted thing” is such a cop out. It only comes out when there has to be some excuse for his play that no one can prove definitively one way or the other. Classic denial.

 

Let’s look at the facts....

The Rockets took the 4th most shots per game (9.5) with the shot clock between 0-4(considered very late)seconds. The difference between them and the team that took the least amount of shots(4.9)in that range is 4.6 shots per game.

The Rockets were 3rd in the league at eFG% in that(0-4 second) range. 44%

The Rockets were 10th in the league in shots in the 4-7 second range(considered late). The difference between their 8.4 shots per game in that range and the lowest(5.8) is 2.6 shots per game.

The Rockets are 1st in eFG% in this range. 55.9%

That’s better than GS shot on the season.

So is shooting too much late in the shot clock a huge problem of ours relative to the rest of the league? I’d say no

Did we score effectively late in the shot clock relative to the rest of the league? Overwhelmingly yes. Especially in the 4-7 second range where our efficiency was absolutely top notch.

 

The human dynamic is interesting...certainly to discuss on a show like Jalen & Jacoby.... but in the end this isn't a huge deal at the moment. Jalen makes some great observations without hyperbole. Is D'Antoni even really coaching Harden at this point? That's an important observation. The on the court tension is being brought back into the huddle... yeah that's certainly the case.

Doesn't mean CP3 and Harden are done playing with each other, and doesn't mean D'Antoni cannot change the dynamic with Harden and influence him to play another style of offense.

But.... these observations are things to consider for potential changes. Especially with MDA. CP3, and Harden aren't getting a divorce almost certainly unless the Rockets decide this Summer to trade him for Zion, and rebuild with CP3 being the face of the franchise for a few seasons during that rebuild.

Jalen's observations though certainly make me think that its worth thinking about who else out there available in the coaching sphere could coach Harden to play a different way. I'm sure that's something Morey & co. have been considering since the night after the game 6 loss.

 

Yes lots of teams drop off in the playoffs. They are among the teams that lose.


The numbers indicate this offensive style results in the offense becoming mediocre or bad in the playoffs over the last 3 years.

Slow pace, turnover prone, foul hunting, minimal movement 3pt spamming becomes ineffective relative to other styles.

 

The Rockets arent losing to anyone other than the Warriors though which makes your original claim still foolish.

Relative to other styles? How many teams with what relative styles have beat Rockets in the playoffs over the last 4 years?

Just one, and that team is loaded on talent.

 

I’d still like to see the ratings numbers when they are adjusted for opponent. This year especially I think it would make people look at those numbers differently.

Our first round opponent was a defensive juggernaut and an offensive flea. Not surprising that our offense rating relative to our season number would go down and that our defensive rating would get better relative to our season number.

 

Disagree. We don't know that the rockets could beat the bucks, raptors or even the Cavs when LeBron was there.

 

And we dont know if those teams could beat the Rockets, which would still put them in a better position than 95% of the teams out there and certainly not in the "this offense is not build for playoffs" category like you originally claimed lol.

 

Sure it would adjust it, but notice that the defense has still been good in the playoffs despite facing the warriors.

Also what does it say about the greatness of the offense when it can't beat great defenses?

 

Great. So we can put this team along other great teams like Karl Malone's Jazz, Ewing's Knicks and Barkley's suns who could have won if certain players retired.

 

But it did beat the great defense. In 5 games.

 

They rockets defense won that series. The offense was not good.

 

Certain players dont need to retire for Harden to win. Certain talented players just need to be added to this team.

 

Certain players didn't need to retire for Malone, Barkley and Ewing to win. Certain talented players just needed to be added to their teams.

 

True. With more talent on their team they would have had a better chance to win.

They all lost to either Hakeem or Jordan, both of whom played ISO ball and both of whom were more talented.

Utah ran some great motion plays on offense. How many rings did that get them?

 

Our defense was not good against them. It was actually the opposite of last year haha.

I mean, I would like to see how good others would do against Utah and Gobert. Also our offense does put a lot of pressure on people. Idk how true this is, but at least for Utah maybe the reason they coulndt hit shots was because we were constantly making them work on defense. Idk, thats a fragile point to be honest. But the point is this year, the offense was good enough.

 

No what won the series is that we are a far superior, mostly balanced team while we faced a mediocre 1side of the ball team.

It all went hand in hand.

Our defense was great because their offense is trash.

Our offense looked less than usual because their defense is phenomenal. In fact they literally employed a strategy the league has never seen in an attempt to derail us.

Our offensive rating against GS was 112.1 down from our season number, but that still would have been 7th best in the league on the season.

 

I see a 109 ortg for the jazz series

 

Harden will be remembered like Ewing if he doesn't change. A guy who needs tons of help to win, so he never got a ring.

Thanks for finally getting it.