I don't think that it's necessarily that teams are forcing the Rockets to play halfcourt ball. I think it's more that we now lack the attitude of attacking every play, which is playing to our weakness. We're walking the ball up the court more often than we're running it down the court, which is exactly the opposite of how it was to begin the season when we forced the tempo on other teams. RA mentioned after one of our recent losses that our team's woes are because of a fundamental shift in attitude. At first I was thinking that maybe this was all due to our physical fatigue. But backwardhead has me thinking that DM's comment that "no player is untouchable" might have more of a negative impact on team chemistry than the whole McGrady debacle, creating a mental fatigue on top of the already-present physical fatigue. I think a trade has got to happen before our rockets begin playing like they were to start the season. That or the trade deadline has to come and go so that they all know that they're safe. This anxiety has to be released somehow. I've noticed over the years that security plays a big role in employee performance. I wouldn't think that NBA players differ much from this. As far as your second point, man Trevor is making it increasingly more difficult every game to defend his performance. I'm still hoping he gets out of this huge shooting slump he's in. But I have noticed that his turnovers have decreased dramatically during our losing slump. He's only averaging 2.5 TOs a game now (instead of the 5 I remember earlier on), and that's just slightly higher than normal for others playing the same number of minutes with the same number of touches. Disclaimer: I am not using official stats to back up all of my Trevor claims. I am stating most of them from of my own observations.
Ariza has been shooting better lately. Still below average, but his January numbers look better than his December numbers.
You're on to something there. I think what happened during our fast start was we started beating a few good teams in half court sets, and since then we seem to be settling for regular sets instead of having that sense of urgency on every play. The bench seems to be still pushing, but the starters have to realize we just cant win like this and have to push push push. During the next few days off I'd like to see RA get our troops' focus back.
He's shot 50 % on 2 out of the last 13 games....Not bashing him, I like what he brings to the team, just merely pointing out that his struggles offensively have definitely contributed to our point differential. Maybe he needs more minutes with Lowry so he can get more fast breaks / easy layups?
The crazy thing about Ariza is that he's shooting something like 42-43% in the first quarter, which isn't great, but is probably acceptable. From looking at basketballgeek's data, this is Ariza's shooting through the most recent game by quarters : 1st - 42.4% 2nd - 39.5% 3rd - 33.1% 4th - 35.1% But several players' shooting drops off in that 3rd quarter, and of course, we've seen that 3rd quarter collapse as a team throughout the season. One player who still hits above 50% for the quarter is Scola. His drop-off is in the 2nd quarter where he goes 46.9%. Shane is shooting around 31.7% in the 3rd. His drop-off is even worse than Ariza's. Obviously there is something goofy happening coming out of halftimes that seems to be affecting almost every player. Coaching? Motivation? Adjustments? Whatever it is, I'm sure the points differential is wrecked by that quarter.
My theory is that our starters just aren't as good as most other team's starters. We're a team of role players, so our 1-5 is below average while our 6-10 is above average. So other teams are able to adjust to our starters in the third quarter better than we can adjust to them. It's possible also that with the surge of energy this team is accustomed to getting from the second unit, the first unit takes that for granted and doesn't come out of half time with the proper sense of urgency.
TA shoots better when he is set up than when he initiates. He. Is. Not. A. Point Forward. Whay he is is a complementary player. When he accepts complementary status he will receive status with compliments.
Problem with being a "hustle" team. Everyone burns out their energy in the first half and is a bit more tired in the 3rd qtr - i think we're seeing the effects of that. Also, opposing teams are coming out with stronger defenses - that's the NBA, everyone players harder in the 2nd half than the first.
Because of how close our 1-5 is to our 6-10, I'd like to see us have the second unit start the 3rd quarter. They may not play as well against starters as they do against reserves, but they do have much more energy. At least we wouldn't be caught flat-footed coming out of halftime. The starters could re-enter halfway through the 3rd. I'm not sure how this would mess with the end of game rotations though.
My response is late, but you're definitely correct about the quality of our starting lineup and our second unit. I guess I brought up the +/- of the starters because I see the point differential of the team as basically the sum total of the +/- numbers of all the 5-man units. And when the 5-man squad that plays the majority of the minutes is at -37, it's difficult for the overall point differential to be in the high positives, even if the second unit is consistently outperforming the opposing team's bench. And barring a trade, I don't think there really is a solution to this. It's just a reflection of the team's current makeup.
