Twin Towers

Casspi, the Arabian Prince needs to take over and destroy the twin towers

*didnt mean to be insensitive but couldn't resist

 

TT should only be used to try to maintain leads late in the 4th quarter against certain teams.

It handicaps us on offense because Asik can't score reliably unless he's in the restricted area. Even then it's hit and miss because he had one of the worst FG% on layups. He's not a threat to cut to the basket for lobs so his defender can cheat into the lane. Howard is more of an offensive threat than Asik only because of his athleticism.

It puts more pressure on Parsons, Lin or Bev and Harden at the start of games. If one or more of them start cold Asik can't help pickup the slack.

On defense Howard and Asik can't defend mobile or athletic PFs. Even a stretch 4 who wasn't mobile would be a problem for Howard.

*These are quick TT numbers from the box scores... maybe off by a point or two
CHA
till 6:01 +1
till 5:09 -5
total -4

DAL
till 11:09 +0 (foul trouble Asik)
till 9:01 +0
total +0

UTA
till 4:05 -7
till 2:32 +12
total +5

LAC
till 6:24 -13
till 5:02 -3
total -16


Considering CHA and UTA should be among the worst teams in the NBA we should've been +10 or more.

Yes I know small sample size, but you can't deny the fact that on offense Asik < Sampson and Howard < Olajuwon. It's not even close.

 

I was going to bring up some stats so I'm glad you did. The Rockets have been outscored at the beginning of every game except when playing the Mavericks when the Rockets had to sub in Asik early due to foul trouble. The Rockets are getting themselves in a hole early whether small or large.

It does affect the defense if players are getting stuck on screens and the bigs can't get out to the perimeter fast enough to contest the shot. I think we should only use the twin towers in certain situations.

 

You would prefer Casspi on Blake then?

People waiting for an opportunity to blame Twin Towers. Clippers were hot and Harden sucked so badly, that's the reason of loss.

I don't get it how you can blame offense about yesterdays loss, Rockets were able to score 118 points, defense was the problem, it's so obvious.

 

YES please...

I have observed this even in preseason, that our twin towers doesn't that well... I just not a stat guys so I can't prove it... we won in the end does not mean twin tower worked.

I noticed that when using the twin tower (based on 4 regular season and 3 preseason games) we either get blown out in the 1st quarter or just tie the production of the opposing team...

CHA 1st quarter 19 -17 CHA Lead
DAL 1st quarter 22-38 HOU LEAD (ASIK only played 52 secs)
UTA 1st quarter 16-24 UTA lead
LAC 1st quarter 25-42 LAC Lead

Pre season:
DAL 1st quarter 33-22 DAL Lead
SAS 1st quarter 20-22 HOU Lead (only 2 pts)
MEM 1st quarter 10-30 HOU Lead (this is the only time it worked)

as you can see out of 7 games it worked only 1 time...

 

Sigh. This is not Rocket science people. The coaching staff has a pretty new toy named Howard and they will use the early season to look at different lineups versus different opponents. It takes time to work a major player like Howard into the various lineups. Time to chill.

 

Twin Towers is anti-Moreyball.
Example: Corner-three's are the bread and butter of a high-efficiency offense. How to make corner-three's when you have one less guy standing at the corner in an Twin Towers lineup?

Dwight Howard......he is even less efficient on post-ups with Asik clogging the middle.
Lin/Harden.....no room to drive, no pnr's, no fast breaks.

 

I've said this many times but we need to do away with this TT lineup. We need to play our style of basketball.

Twin towers should only be used in spurts to change it up once in a while. The offense struggles when were in our half court offense with TT are starting.

Some of you are your more concerned about our defense which is also an issue but we're putting ourselves in a hole early in the game by playing two centers.

 

TT is a fail, it doesn't work and is the primary reason we have been behind in almost every game.

We start each game with a 3 on 5 on the offensive end, and neither Dwight nor Omer is good enough to cover PFs on the perimeter.

It will not work.

DD

 

The Rockets has no choice but to star Asik along the side of Howard, he told people that he was UNHAPPY to get off the bench when the Rockets signed Howard.

 

I think all of us here consider Morey to be a basketball genius. His initial gut feeling was that Asik and Howard together wouldn't work. He was right, but is letting McHale experiment for now.

They should've concentrated on integrating Howard only into the offense during preseason. We can't continue to trail by double digits at half. Every single game counts if we want to get home court advantage.

 

agree, the rockets need floor spacing with a pf who can shoot. and pick n roll with dwight.

its thats simple.

 

neither asik or dwight can stop blake last night. why not try casspi, at least casspi can pull blake out to the 3 line and more spacing for harden and lin to drive..

 

nice! i see you brung out the preseason game, ive just been comparing the reg. season, thanks yes something needs to change

 

Not a fan of TT. This 48 minute rim protection and rebounding thing is overblown. While it is a luxury to have, how many opponents attack the rim and excel in rebounding the entire game? They have to play their backups, too.

The major issue I have with TT is that it makes offense stagnant and takes away drive lanes for Harden and Lin's drive, which is one of our major weapons. Against good teams with bigs can shoot from outside, defense will also suffer.

 

And why do you believe that McHale is out there on an island? Just look at the contract he signed and the amount of control he ceded to the FO. This is Morey's team. McHale is the father figure who had a better NBA career than any of his players could ever possibly have. That pretty much defines their roles under Les. The TT experiment will have been discussed by the Organization, not just the coaching staff.

 

I have no doubt Morey hoped TT would work because he needs to get value(minutes played) out of Asik. I think McHale wants it to work more so because of his history in Boston playing with Parish.

I'm not sure if Morey has ever told McHale to do this or not do that on the court, but the team probably provides the coaches with lots of data strongly hinting at what should be done. I think instead of telling McHale what to do directly he imposes his will on the coaching staff by trading/acquiring players with the skills he wants or values.

 

Twin Towers 2013 will slowly, but surely become a crack in the Rockets armor as the season progresses. Because the league knows as we all know. The Rockets organization is so determined for the Twin Towers to work that they will risk over-doing it. They have already seen enough. Yet, they aren't convinced. Knowing McHale, he won't figure it out until after the break.

 

<blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><p>The Twin Towers/non-Twin Towers lineup breakdown at the bottom of this <a href="https://twitter.com/johnschuhmann">@johnschuhmann</a> x <a href="https://twitter.com/Barryathree">@Barryathree</a> post is wild: <a href="http://t.co/Mmrl5oL3Zx">http://t.co/Mmrl5oL3Zx</a></p>&mdash; Dan Devine (@YourManDevine) <a href="https://twitter.com/YourManDevine/statuses/397804790781992960">November 5, 2013</a></blockquote>
<script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

 

Yep. Pretty much sums it up. But the Rockets have great coaches backed up by a certifiable (genius) Morey. They will experiment where they see fit.