Houston Rockets Thread - Preseason vs Spurs (Friday)

[bartleby929]

Future is bright. Went back to Houston and went to Game 4 (for stupid cheap) and then got stuck in a flood. Came back to SJ and tried to get tickets but nose bleed seats were going for 1.5x the price of behind the backboard Row C seats at Toyota Center. 

Harden's a franchise player and his focus in Game 4 was incredible up close. He just gassed too hard. Primary ball handler, primary scorer, and facing an elite team. 

Love Ariza, like Brewer and JET, not sure about the Howard situation. Playoff Howard is great but I can't say I wouldn't rather have Tyson Chandler or someone. Refs seem to hate Dwight as much as fans. 

I'm still believing in that KD to Houston rumor. Heck I'll probably move back if that happens. 

Great season. Amazing comeback against Rivers & Rivers. Always going to wonder what would have happened had we won Game 2...we still would have lost in 5 probably. 

As for the Warriors... aren't they going to basically have to lose some pieces in a few years? They got the bargain bin deal on Curry, they have to pay Draymond, Klay, Harrison Barnes... I don't know how they will afford everything or keep that team together. 

Last note: McHale seems like he is just twiddling his thumbs but he's a great fit IMO for Harden & Co. He's not going anywhere anytime soon. 

 

[Peep Game]

You'd rather have Tyson Chandler than Dwight? Remember the Dallas series ? Chandler stinks, has even been cooked by Roy Hibbert, and the only think he does better than Dwight is shoot FTs.

 

[bartleby929]

You'd rather have Tyson Chandler than Dwight? Remember the Dallas series

? Chandler stinks, has even been cooked by Roy Hibbert, and the only think he does better than Dwight is shoot FTs.

I'm dreaming along the lines of Tyson Chandler and KD instead of Dwight. I always thought Dwight was underrated but he got man handled by DeAndre and is pretty sloppy at times when he's frustrated. We already have Josh Smith (for beans) and a bunch of sloppy guys. Dwight's also sorta getting old and you never know when he's going to go back to Lakers Dwight. 

Also the refs seriously hate him. He gets hit and fouled hard all the time and doesn't get calls. Problem is he's arguing with the refs while the other team is already running the other way. 

I think Dwight's best years are behind him and if we can trade him to some team like Phoenix or Washington, I wouldn't mind. 

 

[pmatic]

Cap wise, how would it have to work to get a LMA or Love?

Ariza, Jones or Montiejunas and Papinikolaou in exchange for Love or Aldridge.

 

[bartleby929]

I don't want Love on the Rockets. LMA and Harden would be palpable. 

 

[jinkazama]

do respect, but I disagree on a few fronts. 1. Our roster after we acquired Brewer/Josh took away the whole concept of over-achieving. Yes DMO/Bev got hurt, but we were/are still very deep. These guys have competed well enough to win a ring multiple times. It's an easy out to say McHale just doesnt have the talent/players but I think that's more or less ludicrous to believe. You got more value on this team that you'd possibly be able to pay for in the long run. He has more than enough talent and a bunch of versatility. Better coaches adjust and coach to their players strengths.

Also, you can't blame a series loss on a guy who's putting up near triple doubles with 34+ points a night in wins. James put up astronomical playoff numbers in 3/5 games and we still lost 2 of them:

59/55/90 percentages averaging 7+ assists

Meanwhile, the Warriors had games where either Curry or Klay were laying duds, if not both of them for heavy stretches.
Meanwhile you also have Lebron giving you 43/18/76 percentages in the playoffs, shooting high volume.

I think its unfair to particularly compare him to Lebron because he's not as good, but I think it's unfair not to heavily consider the systems they're playing in and their team playing styles. Can't deny the critical moment thing will be a sticking point for him to get better, but he's not really doing much more than Lebron has done. Lebron has relied on magic from his teammates multiple times when shooting poorly.

I could go on, but I think Harden doing what he does at 25 has been more than enough to be a playoff option 1 and lead our team, but we really need to get a new system...even if that means getting a new coach. (I think it does)

I agree with most of this but the contract extension and getting to the WCF Mchale's going nowhere. As I have said many times in this thread i think Mchale is an average coach at best, but he made some good adjustments in the Warriors series. So I'm hoping that carries over into next season because he is who the Rockets are gonna have for at least the next 1-2 years.

 

[bonafide hustla]

I agree with most of this but the contract extension and getting to the WCF Mchale's going nowhere.
So I'm hoping that carries over into next season because he is who the Rockets are gonna have for at least the next 1-2 years.

I'd say most in this thread are aware of the extension. Doesn't mean he shouldn't take heat for his deficiencies.

As I have said many times in this thread i think Mchale is an average coach at best, but he made some good adjustments in the Warriors series.

that's the thing, what adjustments were "good adjustments"?

I thought he flopped

Jet averaged 31 mins in the playoffs. Brewer averaged 23

We have the proper bodies to start Harden at the 1 on offense and let Brewer/Ariza guard Klay/Curry. I don't see how people aren't BLASTING him for this. It got posed in the thread and I don't remember anyone ever saying why starting JET and giving him primary minutes makes sense over starting Brewer and giving him prime mins. We don't even use a PG to facilitate. Stupid *** IQ team because of a stupid system/coach.

We acquired all of that value and wasted it on guy who won't be on the roster. We wasted a good opportunity because of our coaching/system.

 

[bonafide hustla]

We're probably "stuck" with Dwight, but we just have to live with what he provides. He's still elite at rim protection. More than Chandler. But we're paying 22 mil for Dwight. It's not realistic that we go after an aging Tyson though.

I wouldnt be mad at us getting some young big out of him, but at the end of the day, nobody is going to trade potential talent for Dwight.

Cousins, Gobert seem like the only two guys that might make sense, and I doubt either of their rebuilding teams would come off them for Dwight.

 

[do work son]

mchale's "adjustments" were lineup changes, which shouldn't be scoffed at, but those aren't enough. too often we play 1-4 down and run PnR with no one back. turnovers will always equal transition layups for the other team.

mchale's offense is like mark jackson. we have to move more offensively to get a more fine tuned product. our offense right now only forces 2-3 guys to play defense while the other 2 can just hang tight in the corner and relax.

 

[jewbacca2]

And Jackson is unemployed, and his former team is in the finals now

Follow the logical links, DM

 

[do work son]

i just don't even know potential options to replace him with?


we could go scott brooks, and hope KD comes with him next year




































but seriously

 

[bonafide hustla]

mchale's "adjustments" were lineup changes, which shouldn't be scoffed at, .

What lineup changes? Starting Josh Smith?

He didn't take Jason Terry out of the starting lineup when he had the ability to. I don't see much change there.

or are we talking about something more fluidly happening in game? I'm legitimately trying to figure out what yall are talking about

 

[do work son]

mchale's "adjustments" were lineup changes, which shouldn't be scoffed at, .

What lineup changes? Starting Josh Smith?

He didn't take Jason Terry out of the starting lineup when he had the ability to. I don't see much change there.

or are we talking about something more fluidly happening in game? I'm legitimately trying to figure out what yall are talking about

i don't get what you wanted him to do

our second unit routinely got their brains beaten in by their 2nd unit. hence the 2nd quarter meltdowns. so you wanted us to make our 2nd unit even worse by putting terry in there, and taking out brewer?

if anything it ends up being a wash. i get the argument that, hey he makes it tougher on steph and maybe we jump out to bigger leads. iggy livingston and barbosa still would've destroyed terry prigioni and terrence jones though.

 

[jewbacca2]

i just don't even know potential options to replace him with?


we could go scott brooks, and hope KD comes with him next year




































but seriously

Maybe we only extended Mchale to bring in Love

 

[bonafide hustla]

i don't get what you wanted him to do

our second unit routinely got their brains beaten in by their 2nd unit. hence the 2nd quarter meltdowns. so you wanted us to make our 2nd unit even worse by putting terry in there, and taking out brewer?

if anything it ends up being a wash. i get the argument that, hey he makes it tougher on steph and maybe we jump out to bigger leads. iggy livingston and barbosa still would've destroyed terry prigioni and terrence jones though.

haa, so Jet can play 35 mins against Steph Curry/Klay. Being targeted in pickNroll and iso for the majority of those mins and sustain, but we're concerned about him getting ran against the 2s

if you start Brewer and give him primary mins it changes the dynamic of the game completely. and it all cascades down to affecting the 2nd man lineups. We have guys (Terrance Jones if he doesn't start, Jet even) that can be "anchors" for our 2nd unit. I mean, that's what these dudes were hired for. and what they've done all season long. Not start/play 35 mins in the offs

 

[do work son]

starting jet =/= wanting him to play 35 minutes. but i see your point, and i'm not gonna argue with you on it. we lost. on to the offseason.

 

[bonafide hustla]

im ok with starting him ( i guess) if he's going to get minimal mins and most of the mins are going to shift to brewer, but at that point, why even start him?

this is line of thought/questioning is all specific to game plannnig for the warriors. memphis showed us a lite version of what needed to be done to affect this team, and we had the bodies to do it. we didn't even try.

and I'm still legit lost on what lineup changes/moves he made this playoffs that were so legendary.

Are we putting everything he did under the umbrella of leaving Harden on the bench for a game when we came back against LAC? Not gonna let dude ride that wave into saying he's doing the right things throughout the playoffs. that's crazy to me

 

[Peep Game]

In reference to the Dwight subject, it would be best for Capela to continue to develop and legit take the load off of him. Dwight should've have to log heavy minutes going forward. It should get to the point where Capela is so productive that Dwight can max out at 28-30 minutes. That would be ideal.

 

[jinkazama]

I'd say most in this thread are aware of the extension. Doesn't mean he shouldn't take heat for his deficiencies.
that's the thing, what adjustments were "good adjustments"?

He should take heat...i've been on him all year but he did do some good things high level coaching wise against GSW I hadn't seen him do all year...

He "FINALLY" started running some actions to get James in scoring position without the ball in Games 1 and 2 (didn't do nearly enough). They switched how they defended Curry setting the back pick and popping out for a wide open 3 in Games 3, 4, and 5; which basically shut that play down. They ran pick and rolls with Curry's defender to get him on James (didn't do this nearly enough)...made Dwight pressue Bogut when he had the ball on the perimeter to make the pass to an open Curry or Thompson harder (problem was back side help usually fell asleep or didn't get there). Back side help was terrible the entire series. GSW runs actions that have a 2nd, 3rd and and sometimes 4th option. If backside falls asleep on D they are gonna get a layup or an open 3. 95% of the time Dwight got pissed on D was because somebody didn't rotate. On TV it looked like Dwight missed an assignment but it was really Josh, Tjones, or Jet who should have been there. Hard to say how much of that was coaching or the players fault but the design was there so I gotta give him credit for at least designing an effective D.

The list goes on but I saw some hope that he was improving as an X's and O's coach.

The Bulls (former) coach would be perfect for this team. You put his ability to get his teams to play D and getting the most out of his players with Harden's scoring, Dwight, and the long athletic players the Rockets have and this team would be terrifying to the Western Conference. There isn't a longer, deeper, or more athletic team in the league when fully healthy. I'd pencil this team in for the WCF next year easy if Thibs got hired. Sadly that won't happen so we can only hope Mchale improves.

 

[bonafide hustla]

He should take heat...i've been on him all year but he did do some good things high level coaching wise against GSW I hadn't seen him do all year...

He "FINALLY" started running some actions to get James in scoring position without the ball in Games 1 and 2 (didn't do nearly enough). They switched how they defended Curry setting the back pick and popping out for a wide open 3 in Games 3, 4, and 5; which basically shut that play down. They ran pick and rolls with Curry's defender to get him on James (didn't do this nearly enough)...made Dwight pressue Bogut when he had the ball on the perimeter to make the pass to an open Curry or Thompson harder (problem was back side help usually fell asleep or didn't get there). Back side help was terrible the entire series. GSW runs actions that have a 2nd, 3rd and and sometimes 4th option. If backside falls asleep on D they are gonna get a layup or an open 3. 95% of the time Dwight got pissed on D was because somebody didn't rotate. On TV it looked like Dwight missed an assignment but it was really Josh, Tjones, or Jet who should have been there. Hard to say how much of that was coaching or the players fault but the design was there so I gotta give him credit for at least designing an effective D.

The list goes on but I saw some hope that he was improving as an X's and O's coach.

The Bulls (former) coach would be perfect for this team. You put his ability to get his teams to play D and getting the most out of his players with Harden's scoring, Dwight, and the long athletic players the Rockets have and this team would be terrifying to the Western Conference. There isn't a longer, deeper, or more athletic team in the league when fully healthy. I'd pencil this team in for the WCF next year easy if Thibs got hired. Sadly that won't happen so we can only hope Mchale improves.

Thank you sir. I was waiting for somebody to elaborate.

Defense is all JB...has been well documented since early this season.

I agree and do respect the extra action though. I even saw us do that some (very early) in the Mavs series too.
Same with the pNr situation with Curry

but those last 2, we did for like a handful of possessions AT BEST.

same with the "bigger lineup" we randomly did it for 2 possessions (effectively) in the game we won .

 

[do work son]

so if the defense is all JB, he should get fired too right? since we were horrible on that end too? missed assignments, not switching properly. that all falls on JB?

 

[bonafide hustla]

well JB's an assistant. i can live with what he does more because I think he helped take our team from a completely lost IQ team defensively to implementing a few specific techniques that held up relatively well this season (compared to last). He's been credited with us picking guys up early in the half court game and forcing guys out to the baseline.

However, I think offense/defense play off each other heavily and McHale is the one that has to make that connection.


So JB gets kudos for some of his granular,in game adjustments ie: what the op mentioned about us fluidly switching how we defend Curry.

If JB is responsible for getting our transition defense together, implementing a better overall high level defensive system, and the guys that are out on the court, then yea fire that man.

 

[do work son]

well JB's an assistant. i can live with what he does more because I think he helped take our team from a completely lost IQ team defensively to implementing a few specific techniques that held up relatively well this season (compared to last). He's been credited with us picking guys up early in the half court game and forcing guys out to the baseline.

However, I think offense/defense play off each other heavily and McHale is the one that has to make that connection.


So JB gets kudos for some of his granular,in game adjustments ie: what the op mentioned about us fluidly switching how we defend Curry.

If JB is responsible for getting our transition defense together, implementing a better overall high level defensive system, and the guys that are out on the court, then yea fire that man.

can you quote that post? i missed it and can't find it.

also, JB had us switching everything in the half court. EVERYTHING. why are we switching terry or prigioni onto forwards? most teams hedge, and let the OG defender get back to his man. we didn't do that at all. we just switched around lazily and let the warriors get whatever matchup they wanted.

we finally started trapping the PnR a little and had some success but went away from it.

 

[bonafide hustla]

The post is the one a few up from the homie JinK

They switched how they defended Curry setting the back pick and popping out for a wide open 3 in Games 3, 4, and 5; which basically shut that play down.

I was basically saying those tendencies are controlled by JB. and somebody posted (in here or the general NBA thread), even the media got wind of it on TV. Dwight was looking to correct a situational defensively.... Walked to McHale who immediately motioned him to talk to JB. and i mean we see the guys go talk to JB all the time. He's obviously out there coaching up the D if you watch the games.


I agree with what you said though: we didn't do what worked right consistently. We were switching against Blake too

However, big caveat to this is if the coach allocates Jet's minutes to Brewer, I'm convinced we would not have suffered NEARLY as much against GSW by switching the picks. With Brew we could have changed it up. Made them think about how we'd defend it every play. Instead, they just waited to see where JET would be so they could attack him regardless. knowing they'd need a full blown double. Dray is good in the post, but he's far from lethal. What he can do is pass if we double though. Brew's a stick, but he's taller and much better defensively. I'd be much more ok with leaving him in the post against Dray situationally for a few plays. He's a dog. with Jet out there, he's literally the one man they continued to search for mismatches/go at

and I even though we didn't do it consistently either, I liked how we doubled Blake later in the shot clock. Seemed to mess with his decision making at times.

What he's doing is much less overall impacting imo though. than the HC. as you'd like to think the impact of HC/AC should be

 

[jinkazama]

The post is the one a few up from the homie JinK
I was basically saying those tendencies are controlled by JB.


I agree with what you said though: we didn't do what worked right consistently. We were switching against Blake too

However, big caveat to this is if the coach allocates Jet's minutes to Brewer, I'm convinced we would not have suffered NEARLY as much against GSW. Dray is good in the post, but he's far from lethal. Brew's a stick, but he's taller and much better defensively. He's a dog. with Jet out there, he's literally the one man they continued to search for mismatches/go at

and I even though we didn't do it consistently either, I liked how we doubled Blake later in the shot clock. Seemed to mess with his decision making at times.

What he's doing is much less overall impacting imo though. than the HC. as you'd like to think the impact of HC/AC should be

The only thing with playing Brewer more is that he's a horrid shooter; which would have allowed the Warriors to sag on D more to keep James out of the lane and/or force a pass to Brewer to shoot an outside shot he's likely not gonna hit.

we finally started trapping the PnR a little and had some success but went away from it.

They should have trapped the pick and roll with Curry WAY more, but with how terrible the back side rotations were I think they thought GSW would eventually get easy layups off of it.

so if the defense is all JB, he should get fired too right? since we were horrible on that end too? missed assignments, not switching properly. that all falls on JB?

It does put players have to execute, I think he designed a good D but too many times the Rockets fell asleep. To me that falls on the HC. I woulda sat Josh and Jet several times throughout the series for missing rotation assignments. Mchale almost never did. Most they got was Dwight yelling at them. We you don't get sat down for f****** up you just gonna keep f****** up!