Houston tie 64-64 before Hack a Smith 73-72 wining After Hack a Smith. Houston losing 86-89 before Hack a Smith 98-98 After Hack a Smith. Houston + 4 during Hack a Smith. I think you are the imbecile.
Why the **** is Calvin Murphy not teaching Smoove like he did a while back? Just give Murph a couple g's before shootaround FFS
took us out of our offensive rhythm which hurts us even more. keeps the ball out of harden's hand as well.
I know McHale wants to instill confidence in his players but leaving Smith in the game was not a good move. He's shooting a little over 50% for the year and obviously wasn't in a shooting groove tonight. 12-26? are you kidding me? He left 14 points on the board in a 1 point loss. McHale should have yanked him but that's what stubbornness gets you... A LOSS. Overall, the Rockets made 32-53 FT's leaving 21 points off the board. They had 20 TO's... 20!!! It's actually crazy to think that we lost by only 1 point on a no-call against Harden, given all the missed FT's and TO's. Amazing, really.
On the one possession when Timmy forgot to foul, Ariza hit a three. The hacks took the ball out of not just Harden's hands, but the whole unit, all rhythm or possible momentum was sucked out of the team.
I kept seeing 2 players try to foul smith as soon as he inbounded... Couldn't smith inbound to harden, stay out of bounds, and have harden dead sprint the court for 4 on 3 while 2 spurs go after smith while he stays out of bounds
Hack-a-Smith will not work in playoffs. It's pretty borderline to intentionally hack a 50% shooter. Pop was lucky that he didn't make 1 or 2 more free throws.
Next practice McHale should just cancel the normal routine and just shoot free throws the whole time. Dwight and James are not going to let their teammates blow it from the line in the playoffs.
That happen because they didn't got back in defense trying to foul and got confuse. Anther reason why Hacking doesn't work. Here I made a post of why. http://bbs.clutchfans.net/showthread.php?t=264349
Sign the petition to make Dorsey shoot underhanded FT's: https://www.change.org/p/houston-rockets-make-joey-dorsey-shoot-free-throws-underhanded
Unfortunately, I believe there is some rule against staying intentionally staying out-of-bounds for more than 4-5 seconds or so... someone else will have to fact-check that though. This is amazing... it both makes me laugh out loud and cry a little inside
UPDATE We are now 22-22 against teams with winning records. We are now 15-8 when we win the rebounding war and 7-14 when we lose the rebounding war against teams with winning record. We are 15-9 against teams with winning records when we shoot over 70% from the free throw line. We are 7-13 against teams with winning records when we shoot less than 70% from the line. We are 13-7 against teams with winning records when we shoot 24 or more free throws in the game. We are 9-15 against teams with winning records when we shoot 23 or less free throws in a game. We average 28.2 FTA's in our 21 wins versus teams with a winning record. We average 21.8 FTA's in our 22 losses versus teams with a winning record. We are 14-6 against teams with winning records when our FTr is 0.275 or higher. We are 8-16 against teams with winning record when our FTr is below 0.275. We are 12-4 against teams with winning records when James Harden shoots 10 or more free throws. We are 10-18 against teams with winning records when James Harden shoots less than 10 free throws. +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ ADDITION: We are 9-15 against the top 8 teams in the league (GS, MEM, LAC, SAS, ATL, CLE, CHI, TOR) In those 24 games against the top 8 teams in the league we are: 1. 5-2 when we have an advantage in rebounding and 4-13 when we either tie or lose the rebounding war. 2. 7-4 when we have an advantage in FTAs over the opponent and 2-11 when we have a disadvantage in FTAs. 3. 4-0 when we win the rebounding war and shoot more FTs than the opponent and 5-15 when we do not win both the rebounding war and the FTAs. 4. 5-1 when James Harden shoots 10 or more free throws and 5-12 when James Harden shoots less than 10 free throws.
We are making our FTs: Josh, Dwight and Capela. The latter has a great rainbow shot, going to be a good FT shooter in the future!!!
SHORT UPDATE Just keeping up with things for the playoffs, through the first 4 games against Dallas, we are 3-1. Game 1: They outrebounded us 52.7% to 47.3% but we shot 28 more free throws than they did with Harden shooting as many free throws (17) as the whole Mavs team. Game 2: We outrebounded them 51.6% to 48.4% and we shot more free throws than them (35 to 28) and Harden once again shot double-digit FTAs with 13. Game 3: We outrebounded them 51.7% TO 48.3% but they got to the FT line more often than us (35 to 28) and Harden only got 7 FTAs. Still won. Game 4: The deadly combo strikes again. We got killed on the glass (57.8% to 42.2%) and Harden only got 9 FTAs. We did get a ton more FTAs than they did but those were attempts to Dwight and the bigs. LOSS ====================================================== The 2 main factors this team needs to advance are: 1. Rebounding - For us to win a championship we have to win the rebounding battle or at least KEEP IT VERY, VERY CLOSE. If we lose rebounding edge by over 2-3% we have virtually no chance of winning playoff games. 2. Harden has got to get to the FT line in double-digits. When he doesn't our winning margins shrink considerably and our losing margins grow and our odds of winning the game decrease. Doesn't really matter what the bigs shoot at the FT line. Yesterday, Dwight, Smith, and Terrence were a combined 9 for 22 with Dwight having the big gopher at 3 for 13. But if those guys had combined to shoot 60% we would've still lost. Because we lost the rebounding battle so badly. Rebounding is the critical #1 determinant of our success. Harden getting to the FT line is the #2 determinant of our success and a lot of Harden's FTAs are predicated on #1, controlling the glass, rebounding, and getting into the defense in transition.
