ClutchFans Game Thread: Rockets @ Grizzlies 11/4/2019

Man. With that logic CP is the goat not Harden

 

I had to tune out of the game a few times last night. Just ugly basketball. These Rocket games look like summer league games. The Rockets are playing faster this year. But, it seems like they run very few organized plays. Looks like a pickup game or something. Maybe this is just a team still figuring out how to put the pieces together early in the season. But, right now this is not very entertaining to watch.

 

I agree. It’s just ugly and not very interesting.

 

yeah that's what happens when shots aint falling and team is missing $40M on the court

 

WB deserves 28 mill by all accounts but not 40......

 

Houston Rockets guard James Harden (13) reacts after scoring a three-point basket in the second half of an NBA basketball game against the Memphis Grizzlies, Monday, Nov. 4, 2019, in Memphis, Tenn. (AP Photo/Brandon Dill)

Spoiler

MEMPHIS - Takeaways from the Rockets' 107-100 win against the Memphis Grizzlies:

If the Rockets had indulged in a look at the schedule before it began, they would not have imagined themselves pleased with having to scrap to beat the Grizzlies. It has been that sort of a start. It was that kind of loss the night before.

The Rockets did not celebrate the win. Mike D’Antoni, especially, still seemed to be smarting from the loss to the Heat. But the Rockets not only played a team worse than the one that whipped them in Miami, they were better, too.

Their aspirations are considerably greater than finding ways to win against a team in a deep rebuild playing without one of its two most vital players, Jaren Jackson Jr. They will eventually have to do more than just play harder than they had been.

For now, that represented progress. After getting blasted in Miami, the Rockets could take the win and the steps in a better direction and not be too picky about how it looked.

1. The Rockets did not just flush Sunday’s loss, as James Harden suggested. They gave it the usual attention in Monday’s game-day video session and meeting. They let it hurt, the way smacking a bruise brings pain greater if not for the injury.

The Rockets might have needed to feel that pain, though if their pride was not hurt, they would have greater problems than just taking an embarrassing loss. D’Antoni’s comment about the Rockets only being in trouble if they think they are not made perfect sense.

The Rockets needed to feel a sense of urgency. They needed, he said, “appropriate fear.”

They still do.

The Rockets probably did not fear a loss to the Grizzlies, but they played much harder than in Miami (which is not saying much) and probably harder than since the season opener.

They have games on the schedule ahead they should be able to win while struggling to find themselves, with the Warriors coming in with a starting lineup that does not include a single member of the team that left Toyota Center last spring before a trip to Chicago to play the Bulls.

The Rockets also will have to get themselves together quickly. Playing in New Orleans, where the Pelicans’ pace will give a slow-footed defense all kinds of trouble, will not be easy. After that, they face the Clippers. They play in Minnesota in the second half of a back-to-back. After coming home for the Trail Blazers, they play at Denver and in Los Angeles against the Clippers.

The team that beat the Grizzlies on Monday is not ready for that. It is closer than when it arrived in Memphis. The Rockets showed signs of productive hustle, a few help-defense blocked shots, some offensive boards. They held the Grizzlies to 34.7 percent shooting in the second half including 0 for 13 from deep, though it was hard to tell how much of that was a credit to the Rockets’ defense and how much was from the Grizzlies’ inability to make an outside shot.

The Rockets could not consider any opponent or win as beneath them. Neither could they bring themselves to celebrate a win in Memphis. Instead, they could look at it as a start, with a need for as much urgent determination to build on those signs of progress as to leave Miami behind.

2. If the Rockets must win this way early in the season, that would be far from ideal but workable. They have relied that heavily on Harden before.

Perhaps Harden will not have to score 44 to win, as he did on Monday, never mind the 59 he put up when the Rockets began the road trip with a win in Washington. But the Rockets have a long way to go to defend reliably or execute consistently. They are showing only glimpses of what they can be and will need to be to contend in the West. Even offensively, they did not look sharp on Monday.

Harden, however, can get his points.

It was evident early on Monday he would have to carry much of the offense. Though he seemed to tire in some stretches in the second half of the back-to-back, Harden had a season-high seven 3-pointers (on 16 attempts) and added 10 rebounds and six assists.

He pushed his average back to 36.6 points per game and it appears he might have to score that way for a while.

If that can bridge the Rockets’ rocky start to the season and what they expect to be with wins, that is probably not the worst way to get by. A year ago, they won just one of their first six games. They would not have a winning record until their 15th game of the season.

Harden’s dominant offensive run last season did not begin until after 25 games, when the Rockets were 11-14 and about to be hit with injuries. He dragged the Rockets out of that bad start of the season and might have to carry them for a stretch again.

That did not seem as if it would be necessary, particularly when Russell Westbrook got off to a good start. It did not seem as if Harden was ready for that kind of load when he went into Monday’s game making 21.5 percent of his 3-pointers. But even if Westbrook continues to play well – he and Harden are the first Rockets teammates to each average at least 20 points through seven games since Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady in 2007 – the Rockets might need Harden to keep putting up numbers comparable to last season.

They eventually will have to find their shooting touch. They will have to defend well far more regularly even than in Monday’s bounceback performance. Eric Gordon will have to be not just better than he has been to start the season but a reliable force. For at least a few more games, Harden’s scoring can keep them winning while building. It might have to.

3. Clint Capela is not where he had been last season, but at least in one regard, he looked much more like the center the Rockets need him to be.

After another slow start, Capela had a season-high 13 rebounds in 29 minutes. His six offensive rebounds were the most for a Rockets player this season, three shy of his total in the first six games.

He had managed just one rebound in the first quarter but seemed to build on some success.

The Rockets need more from him. They need him to be better defensively. They need him to finish more effectively. They need him to play with more force. But Capela had always relied on energy and athleticism and showed more of that on Monday. That is how he rebounds and how he had his best rebounding game of the season on Monday.

He got some of those rebounds against the undersized, shorthanded Grizzlies bench, but plenty were while battling Jonas Valanciunas, too. It was a step toward where the Rockets need him to be. It was also a key to a win the Rockets must have felt as if they had to have.

 

Have to admit, it’s crazy that Haarden is averaging 36 with his FG and 3P% in particular.

 

Tucker’s minutes should be better managed, but putting him on the bench is wasting his skill set. He’s the Rockets best perimeter and post defender and needs to get 25-30 minutes a game guarding either the opponent’s best wing or shorter power forwards in the post. Having him guard bench wings and power forwards is a mistake.

 

of course he is you silly!
hes the best ever to lace them up

 

no

 

Here we go with the BS. Atleast WB will be back....we should still blow the scrubs out the water.

 

Everyone gets injured, Harden has to average 46ppg to save us. Repeat of last year?

 

that dunk was too much for him

 

it will be refreshing to play without Gordon

 

Hahaha another Mbah situation, no more dunking for him.

 

he made up for it by driving 20-25% more than times than last year

so the most important stat for offensive efficiency TS% Harden is still at the same rate as last year. He's still as efficent shooting the ball as Luka