dobro I don't think Holic likes to be wrong pimpn lol that is why he keeps lobbying for a change at the PF position. It doesn't matter that Jones outplayed his prediction only a 9-10 man rotation guy. It doesn't matter that this is only his 2nd year in the league and 1st season starting. Holic is just not pleased and as we can see will continue make the statements that he makes pertaining Jones starting at the 4.
No. Not going off one game dude. Going off of watching this team perform over the course of a season and how they performed when they are matched up against Portland, the Clippers, the Spurs, and the Thunder.
I don't mind being wrong at all if my team wins. I hope if we don't change anything that I'm dead wrong. I want to see these guys win a championship. What I don't like is watching them lose an opportunity to win a championship. That's why I think we are going to need to make some lineup/rotational changes. It doesn't matter to me how many years anybody on the team has been in the league. What matters is winning a championship.
Did I say Duncan has no mid range shot???? Noooooooooooooo. What I did was point out to you that he hits that midrange shot at 37%. Yes, that's this year. This is the year we are playing basketball and trying to win a championship. Not last year. Not next year. But this year. Right now. I pointed that out because some of you posters are trying to point out how he can pop outside and shoot the ball when needed. 1. We haven't had that all season. Jones shoots 30% from everywhere on the floor except the dunk shot. 2. Duncan is 37% out there. That's a shot we'll be happy giving up to San Antonio if we face them. We'd rather give up that shot than any shot Leonard takes or Parker or Duncan in the low block. Which is exactly where Duncan is going to go when Jones is on him. They're gonna give Duncan the ball high. He's gonna dribble into the post on Jones and take Jones to school. If Dwight helps, Duncan will just move the basketball and we're toast with their ball movement. You gotta be able to bring it 5 on 5 on the Spurs. 3. The argument that Asik can't provide floor spacing gets even more laughable when posters start posting how great players like Duncan are at spacing the floor. This is 2014...no 2001. I just showed you what the Spurs do in their double big lineups. They dominate the glass and the paint and they get the ball out and run 3 on 3 or man advantage offense, get the defense pulled on a string and get their shot off. Yeah, everybody know that. 37%. 37% Wha....? Huh? You mean...........Jones doesn't space the floor??? Well, whodathunkit? So you're saying McHale should look at Jones' shot chart and ADJUST the offense for him????? But if he isn't floating out on the wings how does he get the ball to get in the paint and dunk it? Now a couple days ago you were saying what Jones needed to do was run around real fast and run the floor and wear out all these other double big lineups we'll be facing. Now you're saying he should park his keester in the left corner. Because he needs to be shooting more of those shots and eliminating all the other shots where he is running around and catching the ball. So, park in the left corner and then when somebody else shoots it, dive to the basket for a rebound putback??? That's a lot different than running around wearing the opponent big down. Jones shot chart, all of it, in it's totality, is the sum of all the little pieces of it. It is important. The whole thing is important and every little piece is important. Jones is successful dunking the all. Jones is very good at dunking the ball from anywhere on the court he can dunk the ball from. But Jones is a terrible, terrible jump shooter. One of the worst jump shooters in the business. He's so bad of a jump shooter that even his 2-foot jump shot is terrible and his free throws are terrible. He doesn't provide space for our offense to operate. Ahhhhhhh yes, Duncan is a threat from the high post even at his advanced age. He's so much of a threat that NOBODY ON THIS ROSTER can defend him effectively save for Asik and Dwight. (The Spurs are hoping and praying we keep Jones in there so they have a mismatch to work with.)
While I see the point here which is Terrance Jones defense has a ways to go, you still need bench depth. Asik being able to come in for Howard if and when in foul trouble is just as key. Against Portland D-Mo may be a better starter just because of his height. Oklahoma and LA Clippers are a different story Terrnace Jones NEEDS to be productive against both of those teams for us to have a chance. No other way to say it we just need more consistancy from hiim.
^ First of all- You talk to me and others like I'm your 10 year old child, so don't act like we have to respect your "all-knowing" basketball history right back at you. Show some respect & humility and it will go a long way in how people respond to your posts. Your argument earlier was that Duncan's overall percentage tells you everything you need to know about his mid-range game, and that's just not true because of how he picks his spots. I was just noting that Duncan has so much history in the league that seeing where he picks his spots DOES mean something and is worth being part of adding context to an argument. -If the Rockets are to face the Spurs in the 2nd round, in the P&R on the high post with Tony and Tim, you are going to have to over help on Parker most likely to leave Tim open to shoot the J in his sweet spot. If you help & rotate with a wing, guess what you live with... wide open 3's from Green/Bonner/Leonard/Belli. So yes, you are going to have to give up SOMETHING, and that will most likely be the Duncan bank shot, but that doesn't mean that he doesn't have the potential to kill the Rockets with that shot (even if its only at 37%). -Asik might have the "potential" to operate out of the high post ALA Duncan/Gasol etc. but there is no evidence to show that he can do it. If they run their sets with Asik/Howard and don't modify anything, yes Asik will have problems bringing his man with him for cheap help defense. Doesn't mean Howard and Harden aren't good enough scorers to still score, but your unproven theory that somehow Asik can space the floor right now in these sets is just simply not true and there is more than 90 minutes of footage from this year that proves it. Still... like I said before, I wouldn't mind the Rockets using it IF they are able to get Howard and Asik on the court together for a game or two before the end of the season, and are able to work through some kinks in practice. -Jones has "spaced" the floor this year because teams have either guarded him out in his space, or they have paid the price of open layups, drives, etc. when they leave him open to move around and do what he does off the ball. You dont guard him, and he's going to get buckets, it just most likely wont be a barrage of 3 pointers. HAHAHAHAA.... Oh YES you do mind. The team has won at a historical record with Jones in the starting lineup and you just can't come to grips with it. There is every indication that the Rockets are a contender and have won thus far. There is no evidence whatsoever that Jones is the cancer that has divided this team in half or will be in the playoffs. You literally modulated your argument to where the Rockets would have to win the entire NBA championship for you to be wrong about an argument you made in October. Stubborn know it all doesn't even begin to describe the concept of you. Maybe Jones sucks in the playoffs and maybe he doesn't, but it doesn't mean you are right about anything. When you give up being positive about a historic season & discovering an up and coming star player to be bitterly negative because you don't want to be wrong.... That's pretty sad dude.
If you're saying we need Asik available to back up Dwight when Dwight goes to the bench...I wholeheartedly agree. Asik has to cover all the minutes at center that Dwight is out for us to have a chance to win it all. So there's no question there at all. But in reality that's only going to be 10-15 minutes on average over the course of a series. Now...there may be individual games where Dwight gets in foul trouble early and he can't play 34-40 minutes. And Asik can cover those games. But I can't really see Dwight getting in consistent foul trouble over the course of a playoff series every game. The guy most likely to be in foul trouble is .... Terrence Jones. Why? Well, several factors: 1. Jones is the guy opponents are going to pick on offensively. Teams are going to attack us in the pick and roll and pick and pop by moving the ball and making us switch until they get Harden and Jones in pick and roll coverage. That's the two worst defensive decision makers on the starting unit. And the two worst individual defenders when Harden is having to defend smaller players and Jones is having to defend very large men. Jones is going to be on the firing line defensively and opponents are going to be looking to avoid Dwight and Bev at all costs. 2. McHale is going to coach Jones to take fouls for Dwight. That's an obvious one there. Jones is going to be the guy that takes fouls to help Dwight stay out of foul trouble. So, McHale is going to coach up Jones' aggressiveness defensively, encourage him to bump and bang harder in the paint and to play closer on the perimeter and take some chances defensively in order to make things happen. Once again this ratchets up the odds that Jones gets in early foul trouble. 3. In the playoffs everyone plays much more aggressively and much more physical especially the superstars because they know the refs aren't going to call everything. But it's the youngsters, the non-super stars that get the wrong end of the treatment here. Yes, the officiating will play into it. Jones won't be able to get away with what Dwight or Duncan or Blake Griffin or LaMarcus Aldridge can get away with. No conspiracy theory here. It's just the facts. The officials are going to call fouls tighter on Jones than other guys....including Asik. Asik is a vet that has an established reputation as an elite defender. The officials will give Asik latitude on all questionable defensive plays. They'll blow the whistle on Jones on anything questionable. For these 3 reasons...it is much, much more likely that Jones is in foul trouble way more often than Dwight is. The question then becomes which way do we go? Well...it really comes down to is: 1. Can Harden move down to 4 and handle the opposing team's PF defensively? 2. Can the small we put in the lineup to replace Jones knock down shots efficiently enough for us to stay in the small spread lineup? I submit for your consideration here that it would be better to go ultra big early with the Twin Towers and turn the game into somewhat of a track meet early when everybody has a lot of energy. And then late in games we situational substitute with our closing offensive half-court lineup being: Lin/Bev/Parsons/Dwight/Harden...and our closing half-court defensive lineups being whatever matchups work best with Bev/Parsons/Dwight as the constants.
Well I'm truly sorry about that. I try to treat everyone with respect. I don't want to disrespect anyone and I think this message board would upgrade itself it we had more respect for each other. If you could show me where I disrespected you and talked to you like a 10-year-old child I'd appreciate it and work on it and make an adjustment. However, I think a little bit of humor goes a long way. Humor is sometimes mistaken for disrespect in writings because you can't convey voice tone and facial expression as much and your character is not known. If you knew me personally you'd know I'm not a disrespectful person. But you would have to put up with a lot of good-natured ribbing. Because I like to joke and rib people and I don't mind when they do the same to me. As far as disrespect goes, what defines that in my mind is cursing people, calling them names and crapping on their posts without any evidence to counter what they are saying. I try not to ever do those things. But perchance I could have done it a time or two without thinking it through. If I did I'm sorry. Show it to me and I'll work on it not happening again. dobro, this season Duncan has "picked his spots" to wind up 37% from midrange. He didn't pick most of his shots from midrange from the area you are somehow thinking he picked them from. Because if he had picked his shots from there he'd be a lot closer to 50%. He's not. He apparently picked the wrong shots all season. (The truth is he took those shots when there wasn't anything better to take...which is exactly what Asik would do on the rare occasion that we couldn't get anything else....which we have evidence last year that we could get something else almost all the time.) By the way, we need to consider Duncan in context. The man is like 38 years old. He's not what he was 10 years ago. Still a very good, functional player with tons of basketball iq. Still a great winner and championship baller. No question. But he can't shoot out on the floor like he used to and he can't finish like he used to in the low blocks. (Although he's still very good in the low blocks.) He is very mediocre to below average from mid range now in 2014. 1. There is no better big man pick-and-roll defender in the league than Omer Asik. 2. We don't want to help and rotate with other perimeter players. The best defensive scenario is for the perimeter defenders to be able to man up on their man at the 3-point line and eliminate that shot. The best scenario is to have Asik in pick and roll defensive coverage. He is so good he can even make up for mistakes the other perimeter defender makes in pick and roll coverage. We want to stop 5 on 5 and force the Spurs (or any other team) to have to adjust their lineups. 3. Jones is terrible in pick and roll defense. We'll have to adjust anyways with him in there anyways. Because we'll be giving up layups and 3-point bombs. Yes, we'll have to give up something. Better to be Duncan/Blake/Ibaka contested from 17 feet than wide-open 3-balls and layups/dunks. And besides that, you tell me....who is Tim Duncan going to hurt more with that 17 footer....Jones or Asik? Who can defend Duncan shooting the 17 footer better...Jones or Asik?? 1. There is no evidence to show that he can't operate out of the high post. But there are little snippets of him operating out of the high post that are good. Go back to the last few games of 2013 and look at video of our offense with Asik up high and Greg Smith down low. Asik does know how to get out of the way and play smart basketball with another low block big on the floor. 2. There is no evidence to show that Jones can be effective in the high post. I have NEVER stated that Asik can spread the floor. That is not my unproven theory. My theory is Asik can space the floor as well as Jones can (because Jones can't shoot a jump shot) and Asik can give us more defense on the other end. (way better defense than Jones or DMo) My theory is in the Twin Towers lineup we can shut down other teams starting units and run off the misses and turnovers and force the opponent to take out one of their bigs and go smaller which will let us counter with our small-ball lineup which is where we want to go. Fair enough. Yes, that is true. There have been a lot of games against lottery teams who played piss poor, dumb, unscouted defense against us and they chased Jones around and then tried to man up on him when he caught the ball out high. Totally agree there. However that ain't the playoffs and that ain't championship caliber teams trying to win a championship. We can only wish we could see that kind of stupid defense in the playoffs. The team's winning percentage with Jones in the starting lineup is .671. A good rate to be sure. What could it have possibly been with Asik in the starting lineup...we'll never know. However our winning percentage against POR, LAC, SAS, OKC with Jones in the starting lineup is .455. And our winning percentage with Jones in the starting lineup against POR, LAC, SAS, OKC, DAL, GS, PHX, MEM, and DAL is .500. And our winning percentage against IND, MIA, TOR, CHI in the east is .250. We need to come to grips with this. There is no evidence whatsoever that I believe or said Jones is the cancer that has divided this team in half or will be in the playoffs. None. I have never said this team was divided. I have never said this team would not be in the playoffs. Let me be real clear about what I have said. This team is not good enough with Jones playing 30 minutes a game to win a championship. I did??? Prove it. Disrespect??? Here's the deal. When you resort to name-calling it means you have no other answer. You should be better than that. I have not given up being positive about this season, dobro. On the contrary, you have. I am touting the possibility of winning a championship. You are touting the possibility of developing Jones because we're "not going to win a championship anyway." <--------------not positive
after seeing us struggle with babit tonight, What are we going to do about Aldridge & Duncan if we advance ??
