The Hornets and the Nuggets did a great job of defending the Rockets. Double Team T-Mac and take away the middle. Once teams do that, we are screwed. We don't have any other finishers. It might be that once the other NBA teams take note of this defense, we will likely see it from here on out. We will need much more movement and good passing to cutters to overcome this. T-Mac can't just stand out at the perimeter holding the ball in one hand while 15 seconds drain off the clock. We need to get the ball into the interior on backdoor cuts and the kickout to the perimeter. If we don't do this, we are in big trouble. If T-Mac is doubled, doggone it someone else is open!!
That isnt entirely true. Tonight, particularly in the first half when we got blown away, we just played sloppy basketball. There were numerous times Tmac and Luther made the right passes but the pass was either poor or the catch wasnt made. We also missed a bucketload of layups and little shots within the key that were created through the offense and we just didnt finish. IMO, if we trust the offense we will be a very competitive team come playoff time, and with a bit of luck and spark from out bench we can quite easily adcance at least to the second round. Tonight was a combination of sloppy offense and extremely poor transition D. We let up 40 fast break points for god sake! We'll be ok IMO if we trust the system, today was just one of those days.
Yeah, I'd say transition defense was by far culprit number one today. We let the Nuggets just cherry pick us to death ALL game long. The Nuggets were hustling their asses off on defense, though. They clearly wanted this game BADLY, and their home crowd gave them a lot of energy. I mean it was very energetic defense, but it was a LOT of gambling, too, that payed off all game with how sloppy and lazy the Rockets played on offense. The Rockets seemed to sort of give up on trying to penalize them for overplaying every ball-handler, and every passing lane by the end of the first half.
Something like half of the Nuggets' points were from fast breaks, I believe. We just got really lazy on defence.
Chuck Hayes missed a ton of passes today. But the nugget defense the first half was fantastic. They really shut down the middle.
The Rockets made two passes, but it didn't seem like they had the "extra pass" mentality that makes them killer. Off the ball movement was also stagnant more than usual. Camby really set the defensive tone for them. The amount of blocks he had early on seemed to demoralize everyone accept Tmac.
Opposing teams have played more zone against us since Yao has been out. Seems like a winning formula for them since McGrady and Alston are not consistently good perimeter shooters.
This is why someone like Novak will be so important come playoff time. If a team doubles t-mac, a novak three or Scola layup should follow in 2 to 3 passes. Keep in mind also that two of the better 3 pt shooters in our rotation (shane and bjax) were out. Making the offense a little less crisp.
Couldn't agree more. Tracy often kills our movement on offense. He's must get rid of the ball BEFORE the double-team smothers him.
Yep, Tmac and Rafer last night were the main culprits.....movement stopped because they basically held the ball or kept it themselves. DD
Denver implements a George Karl defend-the-passing-lanes defense. All those plays which turned into steals and blocks for the Nuggets last night would have been reach-in fouls on other nights, especially when they don't play at home. It's more gimmick than legitimate if you ask me. In our two wins against Denver this year we blew them out.
We had plenty of chances but the whole game was an non-inspired TANK job.We didn't in any way come out and compete like we did with the suns who could have blown us out after being down 13-2. Denver plays no defense whatsoever we just basically gave the game away from the start.
The double comes instantly - when there's no movement that causes a problem. People were just standing there last night, if he just lets it go the ball will float around the perimeter until the shot clock runs out. The only person I saw penetrate with any consistency outside of McGrady was Luther Head. The problem with Head is that he can't pass without turning the ball over every other play. IMO Bobby Jackson's ability to penetrate and Battier's ability to shoot the 3 would of helped us out big.
it really surprises me teams don't blitz tracy and make scola and other guys finish. If it was me, I would force tracy to score 40. I would play everyone straight up. When tracy gets doubled, he gives other guys easy plays. In the playoffs, teams will get the ball out of tracy's hands and the other guys are feast or famine. Scola has trouble against longer players finishing around the rim, ditto for hayes. Novak,head,battier are all standstill shooters. Jackson,Brooks,Alston,and tracy are the only guys that can get to the rim. In the playoffs, all of the warts of this overacheiving team will come out. If they play out of their minds like they did during the streak, then they can win a series. If they don't, they lose because at the end of the day, their not that talented.
the reason teams don't blitz tracy, its because by doing what little defense they had on the others, its already enough to smother them out of the game. By double-teaming tmac, they took out the only weapon that rox have. and by making rafer alston thinks he could score 20 everyday, the opposition team have the win.
i agree, he has definately been killing the clock like this but he's only part of the problem. it reminds me of what's happening in Dallas with Jason Kidd. He's not running their offense perfectly and taking advantage of ISO's but they aren't taking advantage of him getting them open either. I don't care what offense you're running if you're a perimeter player and a guy gets you the ball when you're wide open you better be able to create a successful play. If you can't make the 3 how hard is it to dribble into the D and create for someone else. I think they just got back into watchin' tmac crap again. Tmac's defender is supposed to be lulled to sleep before he makes his pass/move not his teammates.
