[ESPN/MacMahon] 'There's too much damn turmoil': An unsettling vibe surrounds these Rockets

This happens in a lot of teams but usually it is kept in house. Loose lips sink ships. I wonder who leaked this out?

 

Of course they needed other guys to fill their roles, but outside of that collaborative effort of the 04 Pistons those are the only guys who did it without another top 20 in the league type talent. No other all nba types on those teams. Kidd has been an all nba type for Dirk, but those days were done and he was nowhere near his peak powers anymore.

 

Yeah, except that Chauncey Billups was Top 25, Hamilton was Top 30 and Sheed was Top 40 or something.
Ben Wallace was also Top 40-45
Prince was also up there.

They were collectively not worse than Top 50. At least the starting lineup.

A group without a clear superstar but all were close to being Allstar bench players.

 

Absolutely. That’s why I said collaborative effort. There is quality in quantity sometimes. The pistons are the oddball outlier that showed that could be a winner.

 

Let's not forget ... that Finals was basically the public, on-court divorce of Shaq & Kobe
Mailman & Glove were completely done by the end of that long season

Not taking anything away from the Pistons, but ...
The ATL Hawks with 4/5 All-Stars also tried this model a few years ago, and never even made the Finals

Plus, not really a good comp for any iteration of these Harden Rockets
We have a clear Top 5-10 superstar in his prime who is clearly focused on 'getting his' in the course of winning
I've seen nothing from Harden in his time here to suggest he's going to take a back seat in favor of true team ball anytime soon

 

as soon as they really start diving into it..... host: Lets move on from this

 

THE. OFFENSE. WAS. NOT. THE. PROBLEM.

First off, maybe the best defense in the league's strategy for dealing with the Rockets' offense in the playoffs was to literally give Harden a free lane. It hurt the offense, but we still won.

We had an offensive rating of 114 against the Warriors. That would be top-20 all-time in the regular season. The problem was the defense, particularly rebounding. Our initial defense was posting sub-100 defensive ratings against the Warriors through most of the series. The problem was that after an offensive rounding they had something like a 120 offensive rating. Ultimately, the Warriors had a 116 offensive rating.

We lost that series by a TOTAL of 5 or 6 possessions. That's it.

We rebound only slightly better, we win.
We get one or two of the four missed three calls in Game 1, we win.
If the ball bounces of EG's butt in only a slightly different way in Game 5, we win.
Hell, Austin Rivers plays game 1, we win.

But first and foremost, the offense was not the problem in the playoffs. It was rebounding and defense.

 

I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

 

It is ridiculous that everyone is talking about the offensive problems. This post nails it. It was the defense that was the issue.

Sure the offense could be tweaked a bit, but the defense is what let them down.

 

Sonnets are the devil’s work!

 

The wing players are too damn small. Weak closeouts, weak on the defensive glass and it hurts you on 50/50 balls. Size and length on the wings are needed. This is just a bunch of BS used to fill empty TV segments.

 

Except the offense dropped from 116.5 to 114. The warriors defense dropped from 116.5 to 115.7.


Not sure how that's clearly a defensive problem. The warriors were only the 12th ranked defense.

 

Per Basketball Reference, our Ortg on the season was 115.5; playoffs against the Warriors 113.8
Warriors regular season Ortg was 115.9; playoffs against us 115.7.

The point is that 114 should be enough to win any series. You would be hard-pressed to find many teams that lost a series while posting a 114 Ortg.

Obviously scoring more always helps. Literally being better on offense would always win every series. The point is that (1) we were really close already and (2) the defense needed to be better.

 

114 should be enough to win any series? Why? Because it's unfair to have a good offense and lose?

It isn't the regular season

 

Looking at these last 2 years, if you actually take the time to look at the regular season results each year for the teams Houston played in the playoffs then look at the actual results of those playoff series nothing has been that surprising.

Our defense has been better(than our regular season number)in the playoffs when we played teams who were mediocre to crap on offense during the regular season.(Utah)

Our defense has been worse(than our regular season number) in the playoffs against offenses that were towards the top during the regular season.(Minny and GS both years)

Our offense has been better during the playoffs when we have played crappy regular season defenses.(Minny)

Our offense has been worse in the playoffs against the high end regular season defenses.(Utah and GS of 17/18)

None of these 4 things should really surprise anyone.

Our biggest problem has been the fact that GS has just been better than us.

I don’t think our offensive strategy is a problem. This season against GS was the only series that a mediocre(regular season) defense held us down. One could argue that GS did a lot of coasting and their defensive number from the regular season wasn’t exactly accurate, but can’t say by how much it was off.

I don’t think our defensive strategy is a big problem either. We haven’t run into crap offenses who all of a sudden are dismantling our defense.

Again it’s simpler than people want to make it. Talent. GS has just been a better team than us.

 

I'm thinking it was some talking between cp3 and harden. But I feel alot of this is being blown up by the Lespn. With the warriors hobbled, who stands in L.A. way for a title? Trying to Saratoga out team from the outside.

 

It was a fun run, but this era is over.

 

Find me how many series teams lose when they post a 114 Ortg. I can tell you its probably less than 10 all-time.