The Warriors are playing really Small Ball Lineup with length and quickness Chris Paul - Stephen Curry Austin Rivers - Klay Thompson P.J Tucker - Kevin Durant Danuel House - Andre Iguodala James Harden - Draymond Green Off the Bench Clint Capela - Andrew Bogut
Capela is the problem. I'm usually not one to put all the blame on one person, and I always get mad at other people for doing this because there are always a ton of reasons why we lose, but I really think it all comes down to Capela here. I hate to say it because he might be my favorite rocket but he has been pathetic this series. Game 1 27 minutes with Capela, -17 21 minutes without Capela, +13 Game 2 33 minutes with Capela, -19 15 minutes without Capela, +13 Every minute he is on the floor is a disaster. He sucks on defense, he can't rebound, he can't catch a pass in traffic, he can't even get a shot off even if he catches the pass directly under the basket. It's so sad to watch. I don't really know what the solution is here other than Capela needs to play better. And it's made even worse because of how good Nene has looked. Nene makes it clear that it is possible to get productive minutes from a big. Nene has been great. I really don't have any suggestion on how to fix this, but this is how I see it. Lastly I'm going to dump a bunch of tweets with some stats that back up what my eyes have been telling me.
House has been first off the bench, the first two games and you can expect house to do the same at home where he is expected to play better since game 3 is indeed a home game. Capaela coming off of thumb surgery but if people fake a chest pass but give him a quick bounc e into the post. Kerr has resorted to the old Lakers Phil Jackson triangle set for Durant. Kerr is outcoaching us 3 to 1 against "small ball" and they are still running their old DeMarcus cousins inside out set instead Durant is in high post smh.
And the cherry on top of this **** sundae is that a certain newsletter author appears to have been right all along
From my perspective: Cant dribble the ball for 21 secs of the shot clock and then finally try to do something the last 4. This happened on numerous occasions in both games with terrible results. Gotta limit TO's, especially against GS when they're likely to capitalize on them. IMO, this is more of an issue than giving up offensive rebounds. TO's creates fast breaks, while offensive rebounds also allows the defense to reset. They were 6th in the league in TO's for the season with 13 TO's/game. Last 2 games - 17 TO's/game. Rebounding - while i think TO's are more detrimental, you cant overlook the fact that GS, an elite offensive team, is getting 2nd chance opportunities. They gotta get back to fundamentals and put a body on them/box them out, whatever you gotta do. For the love of God, stop playing Shump. I'd much rather see our G-Leaguers get some burn. He's been a scrub all year with Houston, he's not gonna all of a sudden turn into 2016 Shump (who was "good enough" play). I'd much rather D'Antoni go back to a 6/7 man rotation. Shump is worse than last year's playoff Luc. At least Luc proved himself during the season. That's all i got right now. I'm sure i'll think of more as the day progresses.
During the regular season vs GSW, Faried and Capela played on the floor together 28 minutes. Faried at PF....Capela at Center. Offensive Rating: 120.0 Defensive Rating: 91.9 Net Rating: +28.1 Rebound Percentage : 54.7% Common sense and analytics prove that they should be playing on the court TOGETHER against GSW.
Get way more physical on D. The Warriors 3 best shooters (hell, their only good shooters) hate being played physically. They prefer teams that just let them run around until they manage to create a little bit of daylight, and at that point it's too late. We want to play them so tight that their only thought from one minute to the next is how they've always got someone pushing on them. As for this: I'm not that's gonna help much, tbh.
how about we fire Dtony on the spot and let someone else make the adjustment? This guy literally font do jack or know jack. Hard to win with a guy so passive.
Gary Clark instead of Shump. When Nene/Clint in PnR with Curry, switch temporarily but recover. More Cp3 + Harden Mid range jumpers. Double Durant. Hope Iggy/Draymond finally have a bad shooting night. BOX OUT Limit turnovers. Stop foul hunting. Sub Capela out early (get him back against Looney). Maybe even consider not starting him.
Maybe the foul lobbying done by harden could help capaela at some point. Only problem is harden is the only rocket benefitting from the 2019 charity stripe begging campaign.
Can't play Clint against the small lineup right now, he's getting destroyed. I'd bring him in to match with Looney and start House at the 4. See if House can bust out of his slump surrounded by starters. If he can't, yank him fast for Faried.
Discussing injuries with the media only rallies the other side. Their bigs are looking to out muscle the rockets with every opportunity.
I'd like MDA to open Game 3 with a B-12 injection; the Seven Seconds or Less offense for the first 6-7 min of the 1st, CP running it and Harden playing off-ball for at least half of that first shift. Emphasis on high percentage passes, high percentage looks. Get the crowd REALLY amped-up, which in turn gets the bench geeked up and focused. For the ENTIRE game - get back fast on defense, take away W's quick-strike capability. I'm happy with the perimeter defense for the most part; more than anything else I'm chagrined by their being outstretched and out-hustled on rebounds within the flow of the game. That HAS to change. The biggest thing, though- ditch the schlimazel mindset! Yeah, Harden caught an 'accidentally purposeful' dirty fingernail from a dirty player doing the dirty work of hurting our catalyst to compensate for their catalyst catching his off-hand finger on Capela's wrist... but GET MAD AND PLAY LIKE YOU MEAN IT! You said you wanted this fight... prove it.
Isiah Thomas (the hall of famer) made a great point about the Rockets having a predictable game plan. The Rockets are a pattern orientated team so it's really easy to disrupt their pattern come playoffs. MDA's system mostly allows you to score from three areas: the 3pt line, layups and the foul line (free throws). On the other hand, GSW play with a perfect randomness so it's hard to predict them from game to game in the playoffs. Plus, it doesn't hurt when you have three scoring threats in KD, Curry and Klay. All three can attack in all four areas of the floor: 3pt, foul line, mid-range and layups. They don't have a system like the Rockets so they tend to be a lot more fluid. Hard to make adjustments when your entire style of play revolves around a system.
No defensive game plan is successful when you accept committing that many mistakes. Rockets gameplan is more than fine, it has shown to be the one that causes more issues to the Warriors . We just have to commit less mistakes. Mistakes like: - Second chances, terrible job on the weak side at blocking out their man. - Turnovers. too many easy points in transition for them. - Mistakes at false screens or screens not switched in time. Here we did it better last year and can do it better this one. Part of it it happens at the start of any series against GSW, it improves as the series go and players get familiarized with their offense. Having issues with our normal rotation (Capela sick at game 1, Rivers out, Harden unexpectedly out, and Shump in at the first half yesterday) it does not help, specially at that hostile atmosphere. You can change the gameplan but NO GAMEPLAN will work it you're accepting mistakes. Regroup, watch film, man up and do a better job at your successful gameplan. We can do it and I think we will, in Houston.
D'Antoni has been very successful, but I think this is as far as he can bring us. We will need someone else to get us the final little bit. I also think the best chance for a title was to try for Zion or Ja Morant, instead of trying to win this series with the current team (extremely unlikely, and the betting odds said so as well). It's too late however now to try for the above players.
