Playing on Zero Days Rest – The Rockets Greatest Weakness Last Season

That first time around was COMPLETELY McHale's fault. Unforgivable.

The second time was largely because of his substitutions and inability to make appropriate adjustments, but also because of, well, someone who was unable to take care of the ball.

McHale should have been fired after the first collapse.

 

This is one of the weaknesses of a team that relies on long-range shooting. Shooters shoot worse on tired legs, it's just a fact of life.

 

I thought it interesting that I posted this yesterday morning in the "Counting Down to the Start of the Season" thread. It was in reply to someone suggesting making the season longer.

I noticed the impact back-to-backs had on the Rockets as well.

 

Looking at the list of teams, a couple of things jump out at me:

Average age. Style of play.

Spoiler

And Jeremy Lin, who has struggled consistently in back to backs

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He means that our starting 5(4) was not used to starting at all before last year. Only Harden had minutes in the year before that were even close to starter minutes going from 31.4 to 38.3. And for Harden it wasn't just the minutes as he had little experience having such a large role in ball handling and defensive pressure.

 

OK

OK apologize. He was ridden hard.

 

Our biggest weakness was defense when Asik sat. We addressed that, so we are good to go. It's great that Harden doesn't have to play like a god for us win this season.

 

Yeah, the talking heads were saying how we were turning heads and could make the 5 or even 4 seed before that streak happened. Then we were back to "borderline playoff team."

 

No way that affects us this season. We have a 20 man roster! Plenty of back-up!!:grin::grin:

 

Great work!

 

I think we've rectified the bench to some degree. Beverley, Garcia, and Asik will all get significant time as backups. Then we just need two of the signees/sophomores to emerge to have a good rotation.

The biggest issue to me is finding an adequate backup for Harden. He needs more rest over the course of the season. The issue is our offense stagnates when he's not out there. Maybe we try to play some inside-out with Howard when Harden sits.

 

Offhand, I would think a young team would be at a disadvantage in back-to-backs.

While they may have an edge in physical energy, veterans probably have an advantage dealing with the mental strain. Next year, we'll have a team that is young and veteran.

 

That's to be expected pimpn. You have to factor in their playing time together. This was the Rockets players 1st time playing with each other. We only had two returning players from the previous year Parsons and Smith. Three at one point. The Heats core been together 3 years and OKC core players what 5 years. After they build some experience with each other, those percentages will get better in back to back games.

 

jesus i didnt realise we were this bad on B2B's..

Chemistry, age, replying on Harden to much? who knows but dammmn those numbers are revealing...

cool find JTR or should i say Mr.Roberts