Many of us saw the Warriors and Rockets get down to about 7 man rotations in the playoffs last year. Brook, Robin and Ilyasova would be a big part of their 9-10 man rotation in the season that may be casualties of the playoffs. Brook is shooting 30% from 3 this year (about 36% last season) Robin is shooting 31% from 3 Ilyasova is one year slower. They will probably run: Middleton Marvin Williams Freak Bledsoe Sterling Brown? Korver? Wes Matthews? A George Hill or Bledsoe can be put into foul trouble by constant attack pressure by Westbrook/Harden/Eric Gordon/Rivers I don’t think they are ahead of the Rockets any more.
100% we got a special team. only thing that would make us better is if we still had Clint while adding Covington. but I love the trade. we’ve beat contenders without Clint and have a top 4 defense since the trade and our offense is 3. That’s championship material. We’re out scoring teams by 22 I think when Covington and RoCo play together. Harden finally has a true superstar next to him. Russ is balling and is better than I think anyone of us could have imagined except Harden. he knew, have to give him credit. it’s pretty nice watching someone outscore harden and we win. even rivers is playing better and they talk about the thumb which is prob true but I think he’s shooting better because he’s got space to get to the hoop and it’s giving him more confidence to shoot the 3. we gotta resign that guy. I love EG but I’d trade him for more depth and the ability to resign rivers. He’s younger and less injury prone.
Bzdelik switched everything when he coached the Rockets. This is not my opinion vs. yours, this a fact. https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/...rockets-championship-push-jeff-bzdelik-harden Elston Turner went away from Bzdelik's defense, MDA and Morey made him go back to switch everything when Clint went out with injury because they both knew how effective it was when they played Tuckwagon line up. Turner does not teach or emphasize tagging as well as Bzdelik but at least Turner is working with more talented defensive players 3-10. Imagine what Bzdelik could do with Covington, PJ, Green, Demarre, Thabo, etc.
Above all you need talent . it’s a good idea to slant your shot profile to more efficient looks , especially if the pieces match or players can adapt. You have to ask are you If better off spending capital on a traditional big player or on a 3 and D forward . It depends on the current personnel throughout the league too . If your division has multiple traditional post up bigs you might need to acquire a player strong enough to stop them from dominating smaller guys . Not all 3D forwards are great post defenders . Covington and tucker are top class . A lot of these types of guys are more lanky. ennis , MCW , and shumpert sometimes struggled in our switch everything defense. Market value might even out in a few years too if it is indeed better and the question will still remain about better value in terms of the teams assets and cap space . it depends too on how many actual 7 footers there are and how good they are and are they playing basketball lol . It’s not like there are just tons of athletic, coordinated, dedicated 7 footers out there . size will be an advantage in many guarding situations the question will be how small a player a big guy can guard . Is this 6’10 guy capable of guarding some above average say 6’1-6”5” players ? If not , how do we scheme for that ? The classic , “Cant play kanter.” - I mean , it’s just true . If your big guy is just ****ed against top flight perimeter players then those matchups will be found and they will be spammed , especially in the playoffs .
Coaching is so underrated in "small ball" (hate that name) because if coaches are not committed to the scheme it will fail. Coaches need to love it with indescribable passion and believe in it completely because it goes against the very nature of basketball, controlling the area closest to the rim.
Article linked below reiterates that Turner was not a proponent of the heavy switch everything scheme like his predecessor Bzdelik. https://spacecityscoop.com/2019/08/06/rockets-defense-look-jeff-bzdelik/
Small ball falls under the bell curve losers rules of statistics. 98% of small ball fails for d'antoni. Here's a theory. Small ball is a crap shoot and losing at craps is very replicable at least 98% of the time based on the bell curve! Losing playing small happened before for us and dantoni in phoenix so chances of it happening again is likely for Houston!
Im tired of harden not getting enough recognition. He is a thicc boy too. That's why he's so good at post defense
Switch everything and tag is making the Rockets a defensive nightmare. Combine our strength, flexibility and speed with players who are natural disruptors (Covington, Harden, Westbrook, PJ) and it becomes a thing of beauty. Still want to add younger more talented more athletic disruptors like Jonah Bolden, Justin Anderson and Tyler Johnson.
Good post. I was chatting about exactly this with some friends tonight over dinner We are very lucky. Morey has put together an island of perceived misfit toys but he knew it all fit together perfectly
cp3's hamstring is thought to have ruined the team's chances in 2018 which might be true. Small ball, playoff seeding, and attrition are basically what the team is gambling on. Only problem with gambling like that is I'm afriad the Rockets are not necessarily planning on taking advantage of matchups. It is as if the team has given up on planning and said let's keep things simple because after all DAntoni does not have an extension so we're gonna just "let the chips fall where the may"! The rockets are hoping for a groin pull out of lebron, fatigue from AD and Kawhi Leonard. The groin pull Lebron had came on a full court spin move, and Lebron has not made full court spin moves like that since the injury occured. Lebron's has basically only been making his spin move in the half court to save on wear and tear.
You really dont have any friends I bet. Otherwise why must you qualify before every post that you have discussed topic with friends, family, coworkers, etc.?
It needs to be interimmed for awhile if it's not working but reimplemented when the opponent is back on their heels.
Some nice tidbits from the article... James Harden has defended a league high 101 post ups this season. Allowing 0.60 points per possession and 29.5% shooting. James Harden has defended the 2nd most isolations this season(98). Allowing 0.82 points per possession. In short. Teams that decide to attack our “weak” link are playing right into our hands. "He's strong as hell and smart as s---," a rival Western Conference assistant coach said of Harden. "Teams think they have a mismatch by going inside," a scout from an Eastern Conference team said, "and they don't."
Rockets beat a handful of contenders after getting lucky. Rockets beat jazz on second game of a back to back for Utah. Westbrook blind-sided the lakers with the 40+points two weeks ago. Let Tucker got before you deal EG. That's just my opinion because House gets hustle buckets.
