"Rockets miss 27 threes in a row?!!" and "The Splash Brothers are in a drought. Steph is shooting 25% from 3?!!" Are those two just random things, small samples with wild deviation from the mean? I actually don't think so, I think these are simply result of fatigue: elite athletes whose bodies are pushed beyond the limit where they can perform at the highest level. The drop-off of production may very well be precipitous when they get pushed too far and some limit is reached. We are down 2-1, but I feel we have a slight edge in freshness. Going forward, after three tight games with heavy minutes (last year the first three games were blowouts) and with a game every other day until the end of the series, we should try to capitalize. Why do I think we have more in the tank? Two things: the extra game GSW had versus the Clippers, and a bench advantage. Last year GSW had a longer rotation: Nick Young and Jordan Bell played around 14 mpg, Livingston was at 17 mpg, Looney was at 19 mpg. The Rockets were extremely short-handed, especially after CP3 went down, we played practically a 6-man rotation with G.Green the only sub. In addition, Clint only played 28mpg for the series. All this meant that our main four guys: Ariza, James, EG and P.J. were practically gassed in game 7. This year is different. Kerr relies only on Livingston and Looney for more than 10 mpg (13 and 15 mpg respectively). The Rockets are deeper. Austin is playing great (I expected it), he can be used for long stretches without detriment. Green/Shumpert/House are hit or miss. D'Antony is "probing" them (his word), and will likely continue to do so, to see who will give him quality minutes. The three together are a resource that could and should be mined for minutes. The big surprise has been Nene. I didn't think D'Antony will dare play him, because he can be exploited on D, and he has been. However, he makes up nicely for that: physicality, rebounding, size. The big outcome is that Nene can eat minutes, without causing a disaster for the team. And these minutes are physical minutes, adding to the bruising of the opposition. I feel modestly optimistic going forward. Keep pushing, keep attacking Steph on D, keep you concentration, and good things might happen. We can lose one more game and most likely we will, but it is important to not allow it to be a blowout. This is a War of Attrition. Keep pounding their 5 main guys, get them to play hard, long minutes and we may have a chance at the end.
I keep on seeing this pop up on Clutchfans. Nene, when he played during the season, played very well; Some of his best games were against top competition. Nene's play isn't surprising to me. I agree with everything else. Kerr is playing the Central Park 5 40+ minutes every game. Someone is bound to get an injury or get tired.. Rockets deserve some luck.
Giving props to the Uber polite jazz blogger for sharing similar insights http://bbs.clutchfans.net/index.php...ckets-vs-golden-state-warriors-game-3.298445/
Its interesting we gave away the inside during the first half. Pretty much open layup for instant 2 points. It was so consistent that I almost thing we did it in purpose rather than a blown switch. Will that be the game plan next time?
I don't know if it is on purpose but rather you rather give up an open 2 pointer than an open 3 pointer, especially against the Warriors. They just were not rotating back into the paint quick enough.
I was thinking the latter early on. Then I realized Iggy was making dagger shots late game while the others couldn't buy much Might be the case of things working out...
Yeah, for whatever reason, Klay and Curry didn't look like their usual selves and if Iggy is going to make threes all you can do is shrug and accept it.
