There is no other way to put it . The Rockets HAVE to start building a more consistent level of play starting now . We will have close to a full roster and hopefully health . Even if we do not have full health , there is no excuse . You can't expect every matchup to go your way . Players CAN bring maximum focus and communication at all times . The defense CANNOT be as regularly bad as it has been . If we have nights like tonight , it has to be only once or twice the rest of the way . The rockets have one of the better records in the NBA agaisnt teams that are .500 are better. Cool . Now it's time to bring it every night . Warm - up time is over. Of course , we don't want players to get worn out either . But the best (and only way with MDA) to get rest is to have blowouts . If there is a game and it's close .... harden is playing 35 minutes regardless of if he's knicked up . MDA doesn't have the balls to sit him agaisnt his will . Although it's technically not the playoffs yet. It's about time to see how good this team is . I'm as big of a homer as anyone , but if we don't start looking a lot better than we have, it's hard for me to believe that we are all of a sudden gonna find our form come round 1. That's why this next stretch coming out of ASB is so critical . It's our time to build chemistry , and hold everyone accountable. This falls on the players to come with effort and focus .... but that effort and focus needs direction and THAT is firmly on the coaching staff . We have had one guy be consistent for us this year . It's time for everyone to get together and come up with a plan so he doesnt have to keep doing things by himself .
We ARE consistent. Consistently mediocre. Big changes have to come this off-season in moving Cp3 for a better player or we're really going to do this all over again next season but with worse talent after our vet mins are gone. If Morey can't move Cp3, then prepare for another nightmare season. A bunch of our key guys are entering their mid-30s, we need to get younger not older.
It's easy to point to energy and effort, but the problem to me is that we don't have a formula this year because of the personnel. It's hard to be consistent without the formula or the system. Without Harden's brilliance, we would still be out of the playoff picture and the saddest story of NBA this year. So maybe we even overperfomed at this point.
We've had maybe 10 "complete" defensive games this season . And maybe add another 10-20 good halves . The energy level of our defenders when locked in vs when not on the string is palpable. I would say it's a symptom of playing small too much . Playing small and switching is only good when your team has ample energy for it ... and packs that little extra punch . But when you try to do it too often , guys run out of energy from trying to physically battle bigger / more athletic players ... and then it effects our legs on offense and if we start missing shots and giving them transition buckets ... that's the game right there . If we put in hartenstein... even if he sucks . That's making their bigs move a extra weight coming from an energetic kid . 10 minutes of that can turn the balance of a game . MDA just consistently plays small .... and it wears guys out . We are so worried about trying to stop their big that's dominating , that we ignore the cuts right to them rim from the athletic 3-4's . We have no excuse not to shore up our defense once we get our full roster . And like I said earlier ... we have no excuse even if we don't have our full roster . Hartenstein and Clark played good Denfese earlier in the season . Let's hope that they still remember how to play after not getting action for the last 3 months
Unfortunately, maybe . I still have hope at this point . But if we don't get rolling quickly coming out of ASB ... time really has run out . You can't limp into the playoffs and hope to beat a good team that is playing hard and focused . Any progress we make at that point will be solely based on how well we shoot . Our denfese has to come together
So what does this supposedly getting better after the ASB? Are we changing the coaching staf? Are we trading for some stars ? What exactly do you mean by “ consistency after ASB” like it’s a magic word or a flip you press after the break and the team turns it around? ISO and hero ball aka street ball will not get you anywhere, not calling timeouts to stop the bleeding when teams go on runs isn’t going to help either. Not drawing a play out of timeouts will results in more **** ups. I hope I’m wrong but I feel like CP3 is trying hard but it’s not his style of play either.
What I mean is the rockets have to achieve more focus and more consistency in effort and in execution post ASB . Yeah the team has to turn it around ... they have to change it up . The coaching staff has to learn some things and figure some things out . We have to stop relying on harden so much . Other guys have to get involved on offense and the defense has to get WAY tighter . Harden has done what he's done out of need. Now the team around him NEEDS to figure out how to play better . The break is time off to think about problems and get your body ready for the next stretch. We should also have some practices . We could practice even more if MDA believed in it . But , he would rather play harden 40 minutes
we have a real chance to sneak up on some folks when we establish our identity as a team. This is what Morey cannot understand thru analytics. When you have team chemistry problems by not signing key players like House everybody is playing their role plus a piece of someone else's which equates to no identity.. Right now we are like playing mission impossible basketball where we see Ethan Hunt putting on Masks and fake identities to accomplish his objective. The parlor tricks where out after a while now you just have what you have. You cannot expect a team to0 win a championship[ by not committing to a roster fully.
That might apply to a rookie coach, not for a veteran one who has seen it all year in and year out. If the coach hasn't figured it out by now ( game adjustments, and timeouts ) i'm afraid he never will. You keep saying " has to " and players " have to" but you'er not suggesting a solution here.
The Rockets are what they are. They're not magically becoming good at defense after being terrible all year.
MDA makes his best adjustments when he has time in between games . I'm relatively confident that over the break the coaching staff will have time to break down film . What has to happen then ... is MDA has to implement solutions to the problems we've been having by working on it in practice . The team then has to find the mindset to bring energy and excute every night to build mental toughness . MDA as the coach needs to motivate the players to do so . If you want an example ; mike could teach guys how to move off ball , or what to do when it's 4 on 3 because James got doubled
It seems to me that a switching defense needs continuity and players of a certain skill-set with length and intelligence. In search of more financial flexibility, the Rockets decided to punt on this and hope that increased offense output would fill the gaps. The unintended consequences of this is that PJ Tucker has been overworked and has sharply declined. Maybe Capela can help them right the ship, but let's be clear about this- Shumpert is not going to move the needle more than House did.
Thank goodness clint is already paid because if he wasn’t, he could command 22 mill per year easily from us
i hope you'er right , but i just don't see it. This has been the style he adopted ever since he became our coach ( street ball).
Maybe you are right . I'm holding out hope . However , if any hope does exist for the rockets to become solid defensively ... it will have to happen now . There's about 30 games left . You can get into a nice little rhythm over 25 games . We will have time off and practices . We should have health . It's time for mike to earn his paycheck and for some of the others guys to step up is all I'm sayin
