[Game 19] Rockets @ Jazz - 12/2 Game Thread

[gcates]

The NBA...where sometimes losing to bad teams happens.

Big deal...Rockets will be fine, no moves need to be made from where I'm sitting. When we're at full strength, we're better than that effort against Utah.

[texasholdem]

I'm not surprised by the loss. We almost lost to them earlier this year. I'm sure they are still motivated by us beating them by 40 in their arena last season.

[panarama]

37pts and 8 assists. Never seen someone fill up a stat sheet like that and still have a negative impact on a team.

Are you too young for recalling Iverson? He used to have many games with ~35 pts and ~10 ast while Philly still losing games. He had similar negative impact on team effort like Harden has these days.

Did you see Allen Iverson play? Dude never quit...never question his effort. And he played defense. He wasn't so great man on man due to his size but he was a good helper, played passing lanes well. I think he even led the league in steals once.

And he led his team, as the MAN, to the finals. Scored 48 in their only win against the powerhouse lakers.

AI had some success during his prime but overall he had a negative impact on his team by hogging the ball just like Harden. They both use their team mates as scarecrows while playing a selfish ball.

The difference is AI could dance around multiple defenders(similar to MJ) to score but Harden uses his sheer brute strength to muscle through multiple defenders either to get a call or sometimes to score.
They are both reliable in defensive end but AI is a mile ahead of Harden's effort.

Guess what happened to AI, T-MAC, S. Francis, Marbury and so many other "let me do mine first" mentality "Superstars"?

In a perfect world, Harden should be coming off from the bench as a spark plug due to his low bbiq on either ends and his stubbornness of not helping his capable players surrounding him but this organization has had already heavily invested on him top to bottom and he commanded so much respect from its investment whether he plays in any fashion.

But lets not get alarmed, we can still make it work. The Rockets management has to be the leader not our max players.

[MaxRider]

Why are the Rockets so bad on guarding the perimeter? I'd like to blame Haren, but can one player make an entire team so bad? So they not even deal with this in practice?

Because their "elite" perimeter defender is 6' tall.

If Harden's going to keep on playing defense like that--and I, for one, can't blame him; he expends so much energy on offense, and that's what he's there for--then they need to flit Asik/Lin for a long perimeter defender, like Tony Allen or even Lance Stephenson. Or... wait for it... Iman Shumpert!

elite defender will do jack... if he gets picked by an opposing big

this team sucks on D because the Bigs are lazy in their PnR/screen defence

did you watch the game?
it's not the Bigs lazy on rotation
it's the other four guys
whenever the Bigs come to help he's leaving his guy open for the offensive rebound
the other guys didn't rotate to cover the Bigs' guy
our guards totally suck at fighting over the screen and rotation
they can't rely Howard to block everything
even Hakeem/Mutombo can't help much on that situation
you either let the guard pull up and shoot or you're leaving your guy open for a lop pass or offensive rebound

[MaxRider]

I'm not surprised by the loss. We almost lost to them earlier this year. I'm sure they are still motivated by us beating them by 40 in their arena last season.

i let this one pass because we are playing without Parsons and Lin
but they got to play better defense from start till end
we let them hit almost everything in the first quarter
their confident go up and then you have to spend more energy playing catch up
that's hard to win when you are missing two major rotation players
missing Haren/Lin we have Brooks to cover
but missing Parsons we don't have anyone else
Brewer is for defense he can't run play

[inquisitive]

man...harden was kinda lazy on D last nite.....at one point Bev had to guard Heyward, but he is just too small.

[MaxRider]

man...harden was kinda lazy on D last nite.....at one point Bev had to guard Heyward, but he is just too small.

lol when was the last time haren wasn't lazy on defense?
even against spurs
he was guarding leonard
2nd half leonard try to do more on offense forcing haren to play some d

[MaxRider]

Why are the Rockets so bad on guarding the perimeter? I'd like to blame Haren, but can one player make an entire team so bad? So they not even deal with this in practice?

lazy rotation

i still don't understand why they run that kind of offense after howard get the ball in the post
you know when player X pass the ball to howard in the post
player X will run toward howard
so temporary howard is double teamed
sometime howard put the ball on the floor while player X is running toward him
that's asking for player X defender to strip the ball

why player Y wont roll over to the corner when haren and howard is trying to run pick and roll?

Clearing out after posting is standard. In the triangle offense, there is 2 players that clears out. Howard is suppose to keep the ball high until the players clear to the weakside.

If Howard was getting doubled then you will have more guys on the strong side waiting for the 3pt.

problem is they are running into howard while howard already put he ball on the floor

[MKL]

lazy rotation

i still don't understand why they run that kind of offense after howard get the ball in the post
you know when player X pass the ball to howard in the post
player X will run toward howard
so temporary howard is double teamed
sometime howard put the ball on the floor while player X is running toward him
that's asking for player X defender to strip the ball

why player Y wont roll over to the corner when haren and howard is trying to run pick and roll?

Clearing out after posting is standard. In the triangle offense, there is 2 players that clears out. Howard is suppose to keep the ball high until the players clear to the weakside.

If Howard was getting doubled then you will have more guys on the strong side waiting for the 3pt.

problem is they are running into howard while howard already put he ball on the floor

Teamwork and coaching problems still exist for sure.

Now after 1 night, I think Howard should have posted up more often and have the offense go inside out. This is until Parsons or Lin returns. Harden has too much a burden and plays way too many minutes. Howard has proven in the past to play with a bunch of 3pt shooters and made it work.

[Nebula1]

Houston plays Phoenix tonight!

[MaxRider]

Houston plays Phoenix tonight!

i counted four former Rockets on Suns team
that means there is a very good chance one of them will have a career game tonight