Ime Udoka not happy with Rockets selfish play, inability to make extra pass

i hear old man jj reddick is considering offers

 

He can play Sudoka with Sudokers.

The Old Sudoka and the 3.

 

It will take time for our offense to truly be something worthy of a play-off team, but I sure hope Ime and their coaching staff do more than just say make the extra pass, play hard and just make shots. We just don't have the shooting right now to really open things up consistently so either accept it or throw more sets in that involves moving and cutting so we get easier shots inside. Against the T-Wolves this is harder of course so cannot blame us for losing, but the way we are losing does require some adjustments that from the outside you'd think can be made.

 

You can say that Cam and Sengun are exceeding expectations, but how low were your expectations for 3rd and 4th pick to say that about Bari or Amen. And Tari has barely played at all this season.

 

I'd be curious to see what the rockets would be like with a Rick Adelman style offense playing through Sengun like Yao as the first option with lots of cuts and motion.

 

Jabari had 3 points on 4 shots.

Jalen had 8 points on 15 shots.

Jalen/Cam together had 22 points on 28 shots. I'm just going to start calling Jalen "Algernon" at this point because he always regresses back no matter how much progress he shows for a game or two.

 

Jabari improved from one of the worst shooters in the NBA to a 37% shooter. As a defender he went from being a very inconsistent defender to one of our best defenders (on a top 10 defensive team i.e. championship calibre).

Tari is our #1 impact player according to advanced stats. Enough said.

Amen is being developed in a very luxurious way and we can see his incredible talent minus the 3pt shot. If he were let loose on a tanking team, he would be a wrecking ball when surrounded by 4 shooters. Amen has proven the least, but personally I can see where it's going. He's an elite defender in the making, can get to the basket at will and is a high IQ passer.

 

Tonight was not fully on Jalen. He's a slasher with a known faulty 3pt shot, this is not going to change between games overnight. The offense was a$$ and so was everyone else in the offense. No pace, no movement, packed paint, two 7 footers and Sengun always in the paint. We needed shooting tonight to unpack the paint, but the shooters were getting looks after standing around motionless for 20 seconds. A lot of passes to open players were missed.

People keep talking about missing wide open shots; how many decades of NBA basketball do you need to watch to understand that a stale offense shoots worse even on equally open shots? How many years do we have to be shocked by this? Going up against a set, packed paint is not a task for an offensively challenged team.

We can't even act like it's out of fear of contact. Our guys are willing to barrell into the paint, but it's TOO packed. Teams have scouted us well, they know if they force us into being cold halfcourt shooters, our offense will struggle and Udoka will not make an adjustment. He will just be upset that they didn't make as many 3's while being extremely stationary as they would when they have some motion and rhythm. Boo-hoo, the other team is happy to move on and our team is probably getting yelled at for not being excellent in that context. Some of it is the players have to get tougher, but most of it is that whatever Udoka is telling them in terms of pace and motion is not working. He has to become as strict about it as he is with defense.

The offense needs more transition, pace, sharing (this they're usually good at), kick-outs to corner 3's. There's so much room from improvement in system only, while I also acknowledge the players can do better - especially Jalen.

 

Jabrari is not good enough to be starting and I hope he gets traded. He’s frustrating to watch as he’s good enough against subpar competition but gets pushed around and handled when playing the top notch teams.

 

Transition and pace works when your team can hit guys in stride. This team has gelatin for brains on the break. Jalen is equally bad at the rim as he is on the perimeter. He doesn't understand angles, weight distribution or how to create separation. Amen and Cam already get this and they're rookies. Amen does Jalen's job better than Jalen does. He's also a bad shooter and you can see he just doesn't take bad shots. Cam is a little different in that he takes horrible shots at times. But they are the future.

Sengun has disappeared in plenty of games this season as well. I'll give him a pass of course because he's carried us to wins against decent teams. We had this game close and the wheels completely came off in the 3rd when it came down to the fact that Edwards was clearly the best offensive player and Rudy was the best defensive player.

 

I did not expect Edwards to suck in the first half and then go HAM in the 2nd ...thought he balanced it out like the 1st encounter.

 

8 of 24 for open and wide open threes. 2 or 3 makes would have only added 6 or 9 more points in a 21 point loss. As a team, the Rockets needed to get more of those looks with how Minnesota played (i.e., passing).

I'd say this comes down to not having a number 1 option (Sengun might become one, but not there), shooting, not making the extra pass to get more shooting opportunities, Jabari is still a year or 2 away from being able to handle a physical team, and Jabari looking like crap versus how he was before the ankle injury (does not look active). Other than needing a number 1 option, not sure what is needed next, but development and/or different personel/rotation look needed.

Edit: Having Tari would help, but he's not enough for a game like last night.

 

As I've said this team should be forcing the tempo.

 

Man f**k him. They were using their size to dominate inside and daring us to shoot 3s. But instead of Cam or Uncle Jeff, Ime's first guy off the bench is Tate for Bari - swapping out a 6'11 guy who shoots 37.6% from 3 for a 6'5 guy at 29.2%.

 

Tate is the Gift that keeps on Giving.

 

Its stupid how every game there are different excuses.
There is something a little more obvious: this team SHOOTS BAD AND INCONSISTENTLY.
We fight, get close, then we choke. Usually after some brick from FVV, Green, Dillon, you name it.

We started 2024 being dogshit at shooting efficiency
https://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/HOU/2024/gamelog/

So getting into advanced stats,
WIDE OPEN and OPEN shots efficiency dramatically has dropped after Jan 10th.
NOBODY in the team shoots better than 35% in OPEN shots. (all starters ranged 35% to 40% earlier in the season)
While "shooters" like FVV and Jalen Green are shooting less than 25% at WIDE OPEN shots (avr earlier in the season was much higher than now)


You may play a little bit with stats here.
https://www.nba.com/stats/players/s...0612745&DateFrom=01/10/2024&DateTo=02/05/2024

 

For those thinking he singled out Cam, he was merely asked a question specifically about Cam which prompted that response. I guarantee he would have something negative to say about everyone last night.

 

I see a misconception or a conflict with his speech about shot selection.
I've heard him say "we gotta shoot the 1st look, you may not have a better one", so guys do it.
Then you tell them, "you have to make the extra pass".

I understand him, but a coach has to be clear with his speech, you gotta be careful with your mesage.
When you gotta shoot it? When look for the extra pass? Are we ok with 3s in transition? Are we ok with 1on1 3s before putting the ball in the lane? Maybe you're OK with some players taking some kind of shots but not with anothers... Everything has to be clear.

Then, he needs to study his offense and prepare something better for next season. He really didn't know his roster and our strenghts until we started playing games. Because nothing seen in the previous season with plenty of garbage time and empty stats it was relevant and reliable.

During a season, you can add some plays, but you can't change your philosophy or the offensive structure. Also, we have plenty of players with no winning experience. It's OK. But next season there will be no excuses for having a better offense. I have no doubts he's perfectly aware that he has to do a better job with team offense as well.

 

The next steps are still shooters, backup big, another cheap ball handler, and if a Superstar shakes loose or not.......One of Fred or Dillon has to be sacrificed, or both in the end.

Most of those are guys that cannot be seriously evaluated until they hit 23 or 24.

I hate this waiting period but it is absolutely necessary......given the friggin timeline.

 

Not saying he is Giannis, but Jabari compares favorable at the same age and experience. And rookie year Nash averaged... 3.3 PPG, 2.1 APG