Not true. Since the trade, the Rockets have beaten OKC, Brooklyn, and GSW. They also absolutely destroyed Dallas, and beat Orlando. Their losses were a 3-point loss to the Bucks on a buzzer-beater game winner, 2-point loss to Washington, 4-point loss to Dallas, and the most recent 2-point loss to the Suns. This is the same story the whole season. At home when rested, the Rockets can beat anybody. On the road, especially back to backs, they struggle. You are just more sensitive to the losses since every game counts right now since the Rockets are trying to hold on to a playoff spot.
I couldn't agree more. None of our players ever stay here long enough to build a solidified team. We start to play well, and then we trade the players. I'm not losing all hope just yet though. With the young players we have now, the only we we are going to be able to consistently win is by running the opposite team out of the building....every night like we have done before. This cannot be done with a 7-8 man rotation. Every night....we are going to need a 10 man rotation. With an efficient producer on the floor at all times. I never understand the logic of not using a full rotation. The only time we should be looking for a trade is if players absolutely suck and provide no value to the team. If that outweighs the benefits of having a producing player, then yess we should pursue a trade.
It's so obvious the team has nothing in the tank. They really tried hard tonight, they did; but the insanely fast style we play with is simply unsustainable on back to backs. I think on future back to backs, we should consider the following: 1. Play more bench: I refuse to believe Aaron Brooks or James Anderson would do any worse than the starters tonight. Tim Olbercht might have gotten some rebounds. It's would be nice to give the 3rd string fresh legs a chance when the team was struggling such as tonight. 2. Post up more: instead of trying to fly up and down the court with dead legs, I believe we should play more inside game. We have a really good post up player, his name is DMo. Use him more please.
Why doesn't Count Motiejunas get more touches in the post? He has game! Why did we go away from having Lin or harden always being in the floor? Not necessarily at the same time. Are we conserving their minutes? Something seems so off with the team.
No, he's right. We haven't played the same since the trade. We had a lot of extra effort in those first two home games (and the week off helped I'm sure) but we're disjointed. Patterson was no star, but he filled in a lot of gaps, was the best at helping the helper on defense, had that beautiful little jump shot, and was a steadying influence. Douglass always gave us a spark off the bench when we were on the road and never, never got discouraged. Robinson and Garcia have been pleasant surprises to me, but still, they were the back end of the rotation for Sacramento. We can't really expect them to bail us out.
Funny, I think the same thing but I think it's Morey that needs to learn from organizations like the Spurs. You need to build a core and keep it and when you do have new players, you're breaking them in to a team with a true team concept and defensive identity and competitive excellence. The Spurs can send their starters home before a game with Miami, the other guys know what to do - they have more experience playing together than our starters will ever have. We'll never have the type of rhythm that shows when players just know where their teammates are going to be. And that always shows up on the defensive end the most.
yeah I do think patterson worked better in this offense since he was actually a stretch 4 and did have some semblance of defense. dmo has much greater upside but at this point his d is not as good and he is much more post player than stretch.
the ball gets sticky too often. when we move the ball, it is a thing of beauty, looking like the san antonio spurs. passing up good shots for great shots. when we are draining threes it opens everything up. it makes dribble penetration for harden and especially lin much easier. you cant get out on the fast break if you dont rebound or play defense. sadly, asik is our defense. what happened to chandler? seem like he was a better defender last yr. we knock patterson and morris but those guys defense were decent enough where it wasnt a detriment.
^in the 4th and especially last 5minutes it's harden. but it's just not harden throughout the gm. lin dribbles the shot clock down trying to penetrate with his head down and either leaves his feet or picks up his dribble resulting in a turnover or wild pass with the shot clock down. parsons gets sloppy when he has to dribble and is good for a silly turnover each gm. delfino at times is dribbling and taking step back 3s when he isnt even in a rhythm.
This!! Our transition game is totally missing these days. It was the same during the losing streak. McHale, time to bring out the videos again!! And I see us relying on Harden too much again. Everyone just passes it to him after they cross the half-court line. I can't believe that the recent lack of shooting by Beverley and the passing to Harden to midcourt aren't related to the coaching staff. It looks like what Lin was doing after our 2nd game.
What has happened tonight is what I thought would happen since the start of the season. What the Rockets lack in offensive strategy nous (especially in the half-court) and discipline, they tried to make up by pushing the pace and running as little offensive schemes as possible. This gimmick offense is not sustainable and hides huge deficiencies on defence. A poster recently replied to my suggestion that DMo should sit as he is an handicap on defense that "he would score more than he would give up on defense", which is in fact the real philosophy of the coaching staff. Predictably and starting from just before the All-Star break, the energy levels of the players have been steadily falling (hence McSuccess's emphasis on his "energy guys") and their offense just fizzled out. Now that they've got no legs, our main creators, Harden and Lin are indulging into heroball and launching 3pt shots. Haddadi a defensive superstar, really? LMAO. Heroball just barely worked against the unlucky Warriors and McSuccess still came up with the same BS as he's got no clue about how to make the players on his roster play a disciplined, slow-paced half-court game. We are now late in the season and the starters legs are gone with them not having learned to execute in a slow-paced offense and there have been damning selective accountability on defense which has resulted in bad habits (like rotating to "hide" defensive liabilities while creating tougher match-ups at other positions in the process and ball watching). We can now sit back and watch COTY candidate McSuccess work his magic with 18 games to go. We are all witness.
We lost because coach doesn't play power fowards in the 4th so we get out rebounded, can't spread the floor anymore since Patterson and Morris are gone, we taking average of 30 three pointers a game etc etc
