They can play great perimeter defense when they want to. CP3, Mbah a Moute, Ariza, and Tucker can all guard out there and do a good job switching. Hell, even Harden can stay in front of his man occasionally when he tries. I think they just went a little soft in the last 2 games because they've been winning by such large margins coupled with some hot shooting by the opposing teams.
he probably just became an Astros fans two months ago and has some strong opinions on their upcoming free agency period
I think we just ran into guards who were feeling it those nights. Not much you can do when everything is going in.
First of all the Rockets are not a top 3 defensive team. They are likely in the 5-8 category by the end of the season. Second the Rockets have had teams miss an inordinate amount of easy/high percentage of shots. There are various theories on what that is the case, some say it is the Rockets offense that forces teams to miss shots, some say Paul and Ariza and Harden are excellent at getting opponents to rush shots. Regardless, some of that trend is going to level off. Teams are going to have games against the Rockets were they shoot well from the field. Third, the Rockets limited the Pelicans to 47 points in the second half, and only 20 in the 4th quarter. The Rockets limited the Blazers to 19 points in the 4th quarter in the other game you listed that concerned you. The Pelicans dropped 115 points on the Warriors a week ago and almost beat them as well. The Lakers dropped 123 points on the Warriors the last time they played. I am not sure what all this doom and gloom BS is about.... the Rockets are 21-4 and have the best record in the league. If Paul had started the year healthy, the Rockets could easily be 23-2 or 24-1. The Rockets are going to have some rough patches coming up and will lose some games, but every team has those. Hell the Warriors even have them. If you expect the Rockets defense to be top 3 in the NBA, then you may be let down; but it is still overall a good defensive team.
Not counting last game, but the game before saw poor defense as well. Last night the Pelis hit a ridiculous amount of contested 3s. They had open shots too, but they hit A TON of contested 3s.
Defense in the NBA is not like defense in the NFL or MLS. You aren't going to shut people out very often, rather, you identify a weakness and push a team to down the weaker route. Pick your poison is often used to describe this. For the Rockets, they appreciate that teams like Portland and NO won't set the world on fire with their 3 point shooting and play the law of averages to get them to shoot threes. Dame is more dangerous on the drive, as is Boogie being dangerous in the post. However, if you push them to shoot shots they are worse at you create a potential gap. That's what makes good offensive teams hard to handle. Golden State and Houston don't set an offensive focus, rather they probe the defense and are proficient in all aspects. All the Rockets (or any NBA team for that matter) can do is know where those teams are good, and don't let them get too many opportunities in that area. Again, this is why if you see a Roberson, a Rondo, a Beasely open for three, you let him take it. You hope he hits his average, misses the shot, and barrel back down on them on offense. Sometimes, those guys do better than average, that will give you closer games than you'd like to have.
They hit ****ing idiotic, lucky contested threes and our team defense over committed to drive them off the three point line (where they hit those contested threes as well) and they utilized the midrange game to get open looks when they got successfully chased off. Not the team's fault.
Our record thus far is based on a weak opening schedule. But I'm confident this team's defense will improve from this point forward while they develop chemistry on the defensive end. Some of our problem is: we're not an athletic team. There's going to be some stuff in transition and on switches that we won't deal with very well. But this team is going to get better as Paul, Tucker, Moute, Ariza, Capela get familiar with each other on defense and I actually think Harden will get better defensively too. Paul will keep him more focused and rested, which will help Harden play defense.
No, in fact, Jrue and Moore got hot at the same damn time. Most nights those guys wouldn't shoot that well against air much less with some defending them(even if you consider it poor defense). Rockets did start playing some lockdown defense at the end of the fourth tho I think the effort just wasn't there in the first half, but their starters were unconscious. When you have Rondo going 3 of 5 from three they are just plain having a hot night
Our defense allows a lot of 3's for some reason. I'm not sure if this is by design, but in the last 2 games, we just let the hot person take the 3's. Lillard and Moore were lights out.
If we're being honest...we had a long stretch of games against non-elite offensive teams. That's probably the biggest reason.
