Never in my lifetime have I witnessed an NBA team that can’t finish a simple 2 on 1 fastbreak. Seems like the Rockets muff more of these shots than should be acceptable by NBA standards. Even guys like Eason and Green who are athletic always seem to struggle with what should be easy points. Last night was no different and our failure on multiple fastbreaks cost us a winnable game. Udoka is awesome and I am sure he will fix the issue, but very frustrating for now.
Maybe Udoka himself doesn't want fast breaks. We have the slowest pace in the entire NBA. Jalen and Tari are the only players athletic enough to thrive on fast breaks and unfortunately Tari's handle is pretty bad and Jalen is playing like a GLeague recently.
This is a good point but I'm not so sure I trust Udoka to fix it. Of all the things Udoka is really good at, it doesn't seem like offense is one of them. Our offense is a bit uninspiring. We are currently 20th out of 30 in points per play in transition. We are 15th in transition frequency, so right in the middle of the pack there. So average at creating transition, and below average at scoring in transition. But all that aside, we just have a lot of players who are very poor in transition. Not a lot of our guys can think quickly and make good decisions in transition. Jabari and Tari can't dribble, Tari smokes layups, Jalen is a poor decision maker and has trouble finishing because of his decision making, Fred is too small/slow plus he can't throw lobs, Sengun can't dribble and seems VERY slow to process the play - he rarely makes the right decision. I guess I don't have any problems with Brooks from what my eyes tell me, but his transition stats are extremely poor.
We have to pick up the pace and get some more easy points. I think we're just now starting to work on the offense and once there's faster execution and better chemistry the transition points will come.
Tari, Green can't make layups and Sengun is a little selfish in transition. Fvv tries acrobatic layups.
Video of Tari trying to make a bunny: Fortunately, his overall hustle outweighs his severe lack of layup prowess.
Tari dribbles like he's dribbling a ball with one hand and holding a seafood platter for a family up in the other. Alpi runs like a t-rex. Jalen does some weird long-striding trot sometimes going back on d. We've got some interesting dribblers/runners on our team. I'm not complaining, but ... I'm complaining.
Baffling how they only got 9 pts from 18 Suns TO today as I write this. Seems a trend not to convert TOs to points
Harold Bingo and all other posters….first time I agree with every single post in one of my threads. Great and very astute answers by each and every one of you and it now makes more sense why we struggle when broken out as each of you have done. Thanks for the great feedback!!!
Do any of you think that playing Amen and Cam more will help the poor fastbreak situation, as they both appear to be pretty good when driving the basket?
Seems like they're leaving points on the board by what can only be described at this point as an outright refusal to throw lobs. That and Tari Dunk > Tari Layup. Mans is just gonna keep ripping the handle off of opponents just go ahead and dunk it too.
This used to drive me absolutely bonkers watching Steve Francis. “Holy crap it’s a 3 on 2 break! You have numbers! What was that!!??!!” - Me, back then
Selfishness - many times on break they look for themselves first and to pass last second when they can’t get a layup … only person who really unselfish in breaks is Bari
It’s sad to see other teams run a break and get the shot they want (the short, easy-make corner 3). When the Rockets run, it’s a chaotic sprint that gets blocked 60% of the time (unless it’s Cam). Zero passes. No movement to create indecision. This needs to be a point of coaching emphasis.
I think the issue is our main ball handler, FVV, is too small to consistently see/hit those oop opportunities in transition. That or he just doesn't look. The amount of times he's missed Jalen, Tari, whoever on the break has been annoying this season. That said, Amen is an excellent trans player (both passing and finishing) so him getting more playing time should help somewhat
Rockets are scoring about 1.15 points off per opponent turnover. They are ranked 21st in Opp TO per game at 13.4 and ranked 24th in pts scored off TO per game at 15.5. They are18th in opponent TO% at 13.6% per game. Teams that avg near or around the Rockets avg for opponent TO per game include Lakers Knicks DEN Celtics and Warriors but these teams have a higher pts scored off TO per game and points per TO than the Rockets. Celtics for instance are 29th in opp TO per game at 12.3 but 20th in points off TO per game at 15.8 and avg 1.28 pts per TO. DEN is 25th in opp TO per game but 21st in points off TO per game and scoring 1.25 points per TO. While not all TO’s result in fast breaks or transition these numbers tell a bigger story in terms of Rockets’ struggle to score in this case it’s off turnovers whether in half court or the break. This really hurts this team as we often see with our eyes a muffed fast break or missed jumper on our end after getting a TO.
