The issue is that the Rockets strategy works against weaker teams It creates a false sense of confidence that it will work all the time This season we’ve blown so many leads and it’s because we aren’t making adjustments at all No timeouts no substitutions no new plays Nothing Same problem, no ball movement , rely heavily on harden in the regular season The goal is to win the title, not the mvp
He said "no doubt" Durant was best player. Geez, he must have felt awful after that. I think he was just trying to balance out saying the Warriors were tougher without KD because "different team" where the bench knew their jobs.
I hear you but I really felt like we were robbed Game 1. If you feel the same, then we were looking at a 3 each situation admittedly going back to their Court. Hard for me to believe that we are so easy and predictable when we kept the games so close and I feel like we should have won at least three but for some horrible officiating Game 1
I have a ton of respect for former players with multiple championships. They know what it takes. They have done it. Everyone else is just guessing. It's like a personal trainer. Do you want a ****** telling you how to get in shape or do you want someone who has actually done it themselves? I still don't like Scottie Quiten though. He screwed us over.
The whole system criticism is garbage. You know what I'd love to see? The Warriors played a cloned version of itself, except one team plays the way it currently does, and the cloned team plays exactly like the Rockets. The Rockets go with the math. I'm almost certain the Warriors playing Mathball would beat the Warriors playing Spurs/Kerr ball.
Ooof, that was not pretty. Tucker saying that he has to believe in it and the way he looked nervous and looking for how to phrase it, makes me think he's not 100% behind it. The fact that he brought up points per shot and analytics just shows this team has been all analytics driven and there's no room for anything else. Scottie Pippen is 100% right too, this is too predictable as I've been saying.
I find it amusing, yet unfortunate that Tucker was basically put in an awkward position to defend the team and all its faults. It was like watching a political pundit get grilled on cable news.
He just said same thing Morey told EG/CP/Ariza/maybe even Harden when they said this system is bullshit
Daaang... it seemed like PJ wanted to say he DOESN'T think he could win playing this style, but was unable to speak his mind openly.
Our offense was fine (110 offensive rating against Utah and GSW). We didn't get the key stops we needed.
Simply put our offense needs to grow. In Pj's defense Pippen has been making this argument since back in the early 90's when the Bulls wouldn't pay him because they figured he couldn't survive without a heavy iso player in MJ. So he is a little salty about iso players anyway from the abuse he took back in the day. He ambushed Pj a little bit i feel. With that said we need our offense to run some of that Rick Adelman offense alongside MDA's offense. One of the advantages that Ricks offense gave is as the defense starts to hone in on your style you can change with off the ball movement via back cuts and slips. To work James has got to get off that ball a little bit more. Pippens a chump though
I’m not gonna defend our style, because our style of play sucked this year. Even more iso-driven than last year. Way less ball movement. Terrible in transition (on both ends). But you can’t argue with the success of our play last year. I think we need to go back to last year and figure out what made that team special. Personnel, style, whatever, but there were significant differences between last year’s team and this year’s team. More ball movement, better in transition, more length and defense in the front court. We need to recreate those elements and we have a shot next year.
Rockets offense is all time great. PJ was right about the points per possession. The problem comes down to maintaining leads and closing games with this style. I lost count of how many leads the team blew this past year. MDA was famous was his 7 seconds or less offense. He has abandoned the philosophy he created in favor of ISO heavy 17 seconds or more offense. As PJ pointed out James and CP's isolation efficiency make this system of offense one of the most efficient ever. The question for me is can we have a little of both. A mix of Moreyball and old school MDA ball when the offense becomes stagnant late in games. MDA still has a ton of go to plays for easier buckets, but he only uses them out of timeouts for whatever reason. In the final matchup with the Clippers we actually ran a few a MDA type plays and they all seemed to work. Clint was getting wide open lobs with no one even near him. We have alternate sets that lead to open, non contested 3's and layups. We just hardly use them. How about we keep the same offense we run currently because it works. But when teams lock in and the iso game starts to sputter, how about mixing in just a few more MDA type plays. Blowing 4th quarter leads was a disturbing trend all season. It cost the team the 2 seed for sure, and possibly the 1 seed considering how many leads the team blew. It cost the team even more late in games 5 and 6 vs GS. There has to be 4th quarter late game contingency plan. MDA is supposed to be an offensive genius. The Godfather of the modern offense. Late in games maybe just a little more MDA inspired offense, coupled with Morey/Harden iso ball would be enough to get the team over the hump.
Soo, Why hasn't anyone in the West beaten the Warriors in 5 years? Should every team in the West fire their coach, change their system and trade their stars? Because they obviously can't win playing the way the play. PJ should have asked Joe Camel , Why was he 0 for life at winning rings without Phil Jackson and Michael Jordan.
Exactly. There is no reason that the Rockets should be this competitive with the Warriors given the gap in talent. If MDA/Morey swapped with Myers/Kerr, the Rockets would struggle to win 1 game in a series. Tactically, Kerr is constantly ******** the bed and getting bailed out by talent. On a psychological/motivational level though, he is wiping the floor with the Rockets. To have a 2-time championship team losing players to injury and still have them fight for rebounds and loose balls harder than us is no small feat.
