This series was lost in February when Ime decided to keep Amen in the starting lineup, after Jabari Smith returned from injury. Jabari does everything; defense, block shots and score. Also, I felt by starting Amen, Ime took away one of our strongest assets, the Terror Twins. With Amen and Tari coming off the bench, it would automatically change the DYNAMIC OF THE GAME. I just think by not having Jabari in the starting lineup, it lessons his minutes and effectiveness and its starting to show up. He has been one of our best players this series and he is not getting enough PT.
The genius game out before the game and said starting lineup is not an issue. The starting lineup then proceeded to get killed at the start of both halves. It's the worst starting lineup we've had by net rating all season. He ignored half a season of data. You have to be a total psycho to play two negative shooters for 48 minutes. No one in the NBA believes in that, this guy hijacked our offense so he can live out his own cheesy dream about toughness being the only thing that matters. You really have to hate your wings to do that. It's not like our two non-shooters are so good they'll carry the offense anyway. They're not elite rim protectors to be able to make up that massive gap on the other end. They want us to pat him on the back for being 1-3 against a Warriors team with a gimpy Butler half the time. He's 3-7 against Kerr's Warriors in the playoffs and has had the better team for at least 7 of those 10 games. Open your eyes. The problem is not that he's a bad offensive coach, the problem is he doesn't know he's bad at it. He came out and called Sengun's shot a good shot. MDA would kick you in the nuts if you took that shot. I'm 10000% sure now that there are 15+ coaches in the NBA who would get better offense out of this shooting challenged roster.
Rox players outside of the chosen 8 have played only 13 minutes in 4 games, and 10 of those minutes were when the game was out of reach. Only Holiday has anything other than garbage time, and that’s just 3 minutes. Meanwhile, Warriors subs in spots 9-15 have gotten nearly 100 minutes of PT.
I thought you were gonna say when Stone sat on his ass and let $40M of expiring/NG salary go to waste (who are now watching the games on couch err bench like you and me.) Spoiler “Who cares! Ime wouldn’t have played those additions anyways!”
Jabari was having a come back before the injury. He started to shoot 3s at a pretty decent clip. Worst shooting team in the NBA decided to replace its 2nd best shooter with Amen. Make it make sense. Jabari's on and off ratings wasn't very favourable. I get that. But if that's a data to consider, wasn't Tari a better option? There were posters here claiming Amen is our best player today. Not 2 3 years from now on. Today?! Amen should get some heat as well if that's the case.
The funny thing is… prior to February a lot of you illiterates were banging the table for Amen to be a savior and take over playmaking . You folks blow which ever way the wind blows.
The world glazing amen and ime's stubbornness has doomed the rockets. Bari might not be as good defensively, but he can hit a shot outside 5 feet. The stats say starting Amen with Dillion is the worst lineup on the planet; they get off to bad starts every ****ing game and every ****ing half! and yet Ime continues to roll the bullshit out there. Amen can become lebron next year! move him to the bench!!!!!
even at peak Amen, some of us saw that dude was not play making enough he was out jumping everyone. Start bari.and Adams needs to be the first big off the bench.
Amen, as of right now, is a limited player. If you could surround him with shooters, including a stretch 5, you could use him like the Warriors use Draymond to great effect. But instead he's sharing the floor with a traditional center - sometimes even 2 of them! And, even worse, he's playing point guard, which allows the entire defense to sag off of him and pack the paint when he has the ball.
look at Amen's off stats! people yelling at jalen, look at this ****. It's pure sabotage. Ime is sabotaging the rockets with his dumb ass lineups.
I agree with the OP but from a different perspective. When he gave zero playing time to Reed and Cam he lost his advantage of a deep bench. He wants everyone to play alike for some reason. GSW plays Post a Gleage center with some success, but we can play our guys.
I do think Jabari should have gotten his spot back I think Jalen greens should have been up for more competition. But you guys are overlooking a lot to hate on UDOKA This is our first year back In the playoffs after a rebuild and frankly UDOKA is the only reason we are back to relevance. Jabari Smith , alperen sengun , amen Thompson ,and Tari Eason all were put in a position to succeed over this season because of the culture and style UDOKA cultivated. I can't believe how well he's using Steven Adams We clearly need better guards. It's up to stone to get them. I loved the style we were playing with our lineups sans Jalen tonight . It would be nice if we had more shooting skills , but Fred showed up Sengun missed a bunch of paint looks . But this series was really lost when it was decided we were matched up against the golden boys Even though we have more talent ... #1 you can't deny their experience and what a massive advantage that is #2 refs
im not trying to hold water for Jalen, he has been bad, but maybe the spacing is just so gawd awful he cant do anything. His one offs aren't even that bad in comparison to the other players. Start Bari for true spacing. Amen just needs to be benched for goodness sake.
I think even when spacing is bad , amen plays great defense and is strong enough to get decent enough attempts inside. He also can grab boards. We are not going to turn into a beautiful offense overnight no matter who we play. Jalen sometimes gets really hot . I can guarantee you we had more high scoring games due to our defense and creating fast breaks and also just shot making ... Than we did have high scoring games because our spacing and ball movement was great . If we have an identity we should stick with it. We've made hay with Adams / sengun / Jabari on the floor at the same time. Jabari is not Klay. Let's pack everything and scramble like hell on defense. Of course I just wish Tate was healthy , a clear answer to all our problems .
if we take a step back on defense and get more offense and rebounding maybe this is the way. The offense is so bad it keeps the warriors in the game. The series is so close the rockets can def win 3 in a row if they tweek the lineups.
22-11 with Bari starting 14-0 with Tari starting and Ime refuses to switch to a lineup that would punish GS for blitzing / doubling - play Tari or Bari in middle of defense and let Alpi play dunkers spot. 2 weeks to gameplan for GS and we do exact same stuff that cost us 4 out of 5 games to them during the season …
We lost this series when we failed to improve the team at the trade deadline. We lost this series when Ime decided Reed and Cam weren't allowed to play. We lost this series when Ime decided a strict 8 man rotation was best for his high effort style of defense centric play....while ignoring offense.
