I love all our players, except Pampers Patterson. I don't the attribute the loss to them. We don't have the youngest coaches in the league, and they are not getting their job done. Of the 9 games we won, how many can be attributed to good coaching or good game plan? A good in game adjustment? Good player development? Good match-up? Good substitution? Good communication? Cheminstry? Coach didn't even get the team to commit a foul when one was needed towards the end.
This is expected without a defensive anchor at C. Perimeter defenders can not "funnel" plays into certain spots of the paint. Statistically speaking, Asik is the best RAPM defender on the team, by a WIDE margin. He is almost as important on defense as Harden on offense (Harden +4.66 offensively to Asik +3.9 on defense). The players with net +RAPM: Harden +4.0 Asik +2.1 Lin +1.02 Defino +1.01 Everyone else all have negative RAPM's in BOTH offense and defense. Without Asik and Lin in the lineup, higher the pace, more points they will lose. Sad but true.........
Next time can you please put the "can't watch games" part in paragraph 1? That would have saved me the time to read the rest of your post. TTVM.
More talent always wins no matter the style. Think it's simply that we are just a slightly below average team right now and that's the sum of it. Honestly, I though we we near last before we got Harden. So I am happy with the result. Having seen teams with even more talent struggle like the Yao/Francis teams I believe it's a long road. We basically threw this teams together with glue and duck tape. Probably 5-6 more years before we make a real go for it. We need the core to grow old together, but the only thing we know about our core right now, is that James Harden is a part of it. The rest, to be determined.
I seriously think there are issues in the locker room right now. Seems like someone(s) not happy with the way team plays right now. Although Harden is da Man we need to build the team around, but hes defend really SUCKS, I mean, really bad.
When Asik and Lin get chewed out on deadball for playing smart defense and Tney Uglas gets extra playing time for "doing what the coaches tell him to do on defense" which is to switch on the perimeter then leave whomever he switches to wide open, expect people to complain about coaching decisions. Last night we even had the pleasure of watching McHale playing Carlos Delfino at power forward. *facepalm* So, yeah, defense is a problem for this team. It doesn't have to be. When coaches are telling the players to make bad decisions on defense to get time on the floor to make a non-problem a problem, expect people to complain about coaching. It's perfectly justified at this point.
This entire season is nothing but a long training camp and preseason. With so many new and young players, we just need to find out who can play and who we need to trade. McHale experimented with some different player combinations lastnight and I was glad to see it. We have to find out what works and what doesn't. I'm not concerned at all about wins or losses. I'm more interested in seeing how some of our young guys begin to develop into NBA players. I'm really surprised the Rockets have won nine games this year. The youngest team in the league isn't supposed to be a .500 team. I don't have a problem with anything the coaches have done. McHale said after the game he was unhappy with the lack of ball movement, and that Harden was having to carry too much of the offense. McHale was unhappy with the defense, so I think he is seeing the same thing that most people are complaining about here at Clutchfans. Over time the team will become more experienced and improve. People have to be patient when you are rebuilding a team from the ground up.
When the team defense is this poor, it's not just one player or one factor. It's the entire team, from the coaching staff to the players. McHale has to drill this into the team's head that defense is going to win them games b/c they will score enough most games. The players have to put forth a better effort. Too many times last night I see Mayo just dribble down the court and pull up with nobody in his face. That's called laziness. Exactly. Look at the Lakers. They have the league's best defensive center and they're still struggling at times to shut teams down. Defense is about communication, effort, and trust. Some posters pointed out some mis-communication defensively on the perimeter last night v. the Mavs. I don't really care about the offense. Sure we can shoot better and turn the ball over less, but that's b/c we move at a fast pace and we're still a new team. That will come. Defense takes repetition; it's hard to build a defensive culture. We need to do that NOW. I do think this is the main culprit. But you want to instill this defensive philosophy while they're young. Harden and Parsons will most likely be our starting SG/SF for the next decade so we want them to start being leaders on both ends pretty soon, rather than 3-4 years down the road. We have been doing that for years now. But I truly think we finally have the 2 mainstay pieces (Harden/parsons) that we can build towards the future for sure. While I agree results don't matter b/c we're not championship contenders, I just want the team to start building some type of identity, and great teams usually have a defensive identity. And we can build on that moving forward. We don't have to be a great defensive team this year or next. But I want to see this team scrap and hustle and things like that.
the coaching sucks. we have good players and good men, but morey wants to secretly tank with these dumb coaches.
I remember the days when the Rockets were good defensively with Jeff Van Gundy. Some people didn't like watching the Rockets games, because they would blow some of their opponents with good defense. I remember specifically that Les Alexander wanted a more up-tempo offense for the fans and hired Rick Adelman. Well, he got what he wanted....
If this regular season was like a long training camp and preseason, then Jones, Smith, Aldrich, and D-Mo would have all got increased minutes. The last Rockets game was regular Mchale rotation garbage.
Watching the rotations this season is really head scratching. Theres no consistency to the rotations. Mchale seems to be allergic to playing rookies and Harden is being run into the ground. There also seems to be a lack of accountability on defense. What happened to set plays? Just because Harden is good at iso in certain situations does not mean it should be option A and B and C. I don't think this coaching team is very good, the rockets should do what other teams do and poach staff from good teams like the Spurs.
We lost and continue to lose b/c uh...were not very good. Mediocre as we always have been. At least were being mediocre with guys that have upside though. I don't know what you guys expected....
