The Rockets look uninterested in playing. James Harden's getting his numbers, but he's playing lethargic, his defense is back to horrific & it's rubbing off on others. Is Capela ok? He's had no energy through periods. For some odd reason he's going under the rim using his weak hand (left), and not dunking the ball much. His effort & enthusiasm is just down. The pace we're playing is as slow as the JVG days. It's almost like we're purposely out there doing things that'll lead to losses. If we were 1-3 and just had some tough breaks then it's understandable. But we're not even competing. Is our locker room disgruntled? Has the team turned on MDA? Are guys unhappy over their contract situations? One thing for sure, SOMETHING is happening and we don't have the full story
The spacing is not there... last year other teams couldn’t leave our shooters open and on defense we had wing defenders to guard 6’8 players.. This year we lost all of that No spacing= sloppy offense No lengthy defenders= switching scheme letdown..
100% true. But when the defense has time to set because James is slow poking up the court, we look predictable
James Harden didn't play the entire game last night and in just 32 minutes had 29 points, 7 assists, 5 rebounds, a steal, shooting .525% from the field. I agree with the rest of the team effort/enthusiasm, but it isn't Harden. Looks like they at least tried harder on defense against the Jazz. Eric Gordon maybe singlehandedly shot us out of the game missing 5,000 3 point shots. =)
I'm not really worried about behind the scenes stuff. Maybe a bit of that with Harden who might be in a bit of a funk, but my reasons for worrying are on the basketball court. This team is just really struggling defensively in the scheme that worked so well last year. Too much ball watching, and way too reactive/swiping after your man beats you off the dribble. Offensively, they are a mess, and again... they are a 3 point shooting team who sucks at hitting 3's. Michael Carter Williams is a 3 point shooter in this scheme.... seriously.....that tells you all you need to know. We don't have Steph Curry, Klay Thompson, and Kevin Durant who are consistently great at shooting. Every one of our "shooters" are streaky shooting scorers at best. Our 3 most reliable shooters are really scorers who are more accurate shooting long 2's. I am worried cause this team is kind of a mess on the basketball court. Off the court stuff doesn't really worry me. ........ FYI - I trust MDA much more than I trusted McHale/Bickerstaff back in 2015 to make changes to the style of play to fit the talent. However in LA, MDA made his adjustments way too late in the season when he finally started running high/low sets with Gasol/Dwight which was much more effective for the talent they had. He might need to make changes to the offense sooner rather than later.
The switch defense sucks.....period. That scheme is not gonna work with the personnel we have. Needs to be fixed. I feel that the offense will eventually click. We can’t lay eggs forever.
We lost the guy responsible for the best defense we've had in the past two decades, and we lost key guys who could defend 1-4 on switches. It's not going to get much better than it already is. We won a lot of games in spite of that in 16-17 and we have a better offensive and defensive team since then.
Someone with time like @Plowman needs to bookmark this thread and start another "eat crow" thread once we're past the 1st FOUR GAMES of the season. Two of which have come without our 2nd best player and leader.
Wrong. Why do people think like this? There isn't always some secret problem when a team loses games. If Chris Paul hadn't missed the last two games I think the Rockets would be 3-1 right now. Calm down. Give MDA and the players time to figure things out.
Harden is overweight. That said, CP3 in the lineup makes a huge difference, and the new guys are still getting acclimated.
