Honestly Dallas knows how to score on anyone. Our problem this game was not making a FG for 10+ minutes and letting the lead balloon. Had that not happened, decent chance we get a sweep.
JJ putting up 17 and 13 is a problem. Nick Johnson looked loss on D as well. We can get through this series but man oh man, it can get very ugly after this series with the point guards coming up. Brewer and Ariza have to be the answer.
Maybe we should try to get some PG penetration of our own? Terry and Prigioni only slowly strolls toward the paint. Can Nick Johnson do anything off the dribble? When he's on the floor he rarely got any touches. On defense, the Dallas pick and roll and handoffs with Dirk are just hard for any defense to solve, let along a rookie defender. There are just no good solutions to it if Dirk shoots well. You either give up penetration to the ball handler, give up space to Dirk, or switch and face a mismatch. The Rockets switched quite a bit today, but then had to (or chose to at least) double Dirk when he faces a smaller defender. That double team led to open shots by Dallas.
Johnson just doesn't look ready for prime time. He missed a gimme at the bucket a long with looking loss on D. Don't feel confident with him out there.
PG defense is a secondary issue at this point. Is it a problem? Yes, if we just go with JET and Prigs out there. But we all know that we switch Ariza and Brewer up top when we want to D up hard on the point. The primary issue this team has is rebounding. If we win a championship it will be because Howard was a monster throughout the post season on the glass and he got enough help from Terrence and Smoove and the rest of the guys and the Rockets won the rebounding war. When we win the rebounding battle, the rest of the game falls in place. Rebounds ignite our transition game and all of a sudden our opponent is the one looking for defensive matchups instead of us. When we don't win the rebounding battle, our cracks start showing. Poor free throw shooting bigs. Not great 3-point shooters in half-court. and half-court defensive issues are exposed. And as a result of all these, Harden gets to the free-throw line less. Guys this team is a transition team. If they don't get out in transition they don't win. So if they don't get the boards....they don't get out in transition. It's that simple.
The solution for Barea is to get the rebound and get out in transition. Barea can't stop Brewer (or anybody else) in transition. But when we don't get out in transition, and we let Barea bring it up and run around on us in half-court, and then they throw up a shot and get an offensive rebound and another possession....all of a sudden Barea looks like CP3 out there. It's all a mirage. Get the rebounds and get out in transition. Barea will have to go sit down.
Barea is a possum looking mofo. Dude is a scrub and the Rockets making him look like an All Star. Would start Ariza on him with Brewer on Dork.
That's when Terry was still fresh. 8 man rotation against a team that pushes pace like Dallas will eventually wear out or guys, especially players over 35. Nick and Paps need to play more when Terry/Prigs or Ariza are struggling. Brew should start because Terry is much better being instant offense off the bench. Brewer/Prigs/Nick Harden/Terry Ariza/Paps TJ/Smoove Dwight/Capela
Wasn't able to watch the game. Was Brewer ever guarding Barea? I saw Barea's stats and it appears dude was just causing us all kinds of problems. I would Brewer guard Barea everytime Barea comes. We can't let him become John Stockton on us.
just start brewer. the bench will take a hit but not much. a lotta pressure will be off of terry and priggs, makes the game easier for them. esp terry, could score more going against 2nd units. might have to put kostas in the rotation just for 10-15min. he had a good run in november, offense/defense/passing. its jsut the perimeter that suffers for the bench but not by much. if they wait till the 2nd round then paul or parker could have a huge game. its so easy to get past terry or priggs.
I'm almost glad we lost because these guys should know our defense has been bad for most of this series and we are going to face better much PG's regardless of who we play after. Chris Paul or Tony Parker will eliminate us quickly if our team D is not on point. We're not good enough offensively to be giving up this many points to the Mavs.
Then makes the changes now. Perimeter defense has been more porous than swiss cheese starting Bev when down. As many have opined, start Brewer and let him guard the opposing pg. Brewer has been playing no more than about 25 minutes. I think he could handle 35 minutes. Bring Terry or Prigs after we build a lead. The status quo of allowing 120+ points, guard penetration into our defense cannot be allowed to continue.
I feel this way too. Dallas is a great offensive team, but not scoring for that long stretch I think of 9 minutes killed us. Had we scored...went into the 4th down by 5 or whatever...well we probably finish them off then. That 9 minute stretch was an anomaly. As for stopping PGs...we won't. That went out the window when Bev got hurt. The only way to counter is to ask teams "How do you stop Harden AND Howard?" of course when those two are into the game they can't be stopped either...getting them both into the game seems to be the issue sometimes.
