[Game 73] Rockets @ Nets - 4/1 Game Thread

[ghostowl]

Some observations last night:

- Mchale loves smallball. Even with Dwight injured, there's no reason why Parsons / Garcia should be the biggest guys on the court. These guys are not elite rebounders. The only way you play small ball is if your forwards are good rebounders.

- Canaan is not ready yet. He throws an air ball, commits an offensive foul, and a TO within a short time. We really need Aaron Brooks bad

- Yesterday's game really showed me that Lin is not being used correctly with this offense. Even though he was doing hot, Mchale pulled him out for some reason, and didn't get as much touches as he should have. We need to let the point guard handle the ball because Harden scores more efficiently from a catch-n-shoot, and Lin is elite at getting to the rim, so it's better to let him handle the ball and passes. Harden's passing was just terrible which led to bad TOs and he just threw the ball away

- Harden needs to cut down his TOs. If you just look at the stats, it looks like Harden did well putting up that many points on that many shots. The truth is, however, he took stupid contested shots, and made dumb turnovers and let his guy score a ton of points. He was our biggest reason for the loss last night, not Parsons.

- Dwight needs to come back asap. Asik was HUGE last night, but the time when he sat out, we had no boards. Even when Asik gets boards, he let the ball slip so easily from his hands. It's like he put butter all of his hand or something. He can never catch the ball. And that air-ball free-throw.......Mchale's reaction explains everything

The fact that we lost to the Nets...shows that our team has a lot of glaring flaws. Even with Howard out, we shoulda closed this team easily.

[Trader_Joe]

Some observations last night:

- Mchale loves smallball. Even with Dwight injured, there's no reason why Parsons / Garcia should be the biggest guys on the court. These guys are not elite rebounders. The only way you play small ball is if your forwards are good rebounders.

- Canaan is not ready yet. He throws an air ball, commits an offensive foul, and a TO within a short time. We really need Aaron Brooks bad

- Yesterday's game really showed me that Lin is not being used correctly with this offense. Even though he was doing hot, Mchale pulled him out for some reason, and didn't get as much touches as he should have. We need to let the point guard handle the ball because Harden scores more efficiently from a catch-n-shoot, and Lin is elite at getting to the rim, so it's better to let him handle the ball and passes. Harden's passing was just terrible which led to bad TOs and he just threw the ball away

- Harden needs to cut down his TOs. If you just look at the stats, it looks like Harden did well putting up that many points on that many shots. The truth is, however, he took stupid contested shots, and made dumb turnovers and let his guy score a ton of points. He was our biggest reason for the loss last night, not Parsons.

- Dwight needs to come back asap. Asik was HUGE last night, but the time when he sat out, we had no boards. Even when Asik gets boards, he let the ball slip so easily from his hands. It's like he put butter all of his hand or something. He can never catch the ball. And that air-ball free-throw.......Mchale's reaction explains everything

The fact that we lost to the Nets...shows that our team has a lot of glaring flaws. Even with Howard out, we shoulda closed this team easily.

A lot of teams have lost to the Nets in 2014 alone

OKC, MIAx2, GSW, DALx2, SAS, MEM, CHI, TOR, PHO, HOU

Nets haven't been an easy win at home for some time (13 game win streak, 11 straight opponents under 100 points), I think they still have the best record in the EC in 2014 and are 18-12 against the Western Conference. Considering we were down KG + AK (by far our two best defenders) and Thornton (who has been big for us) and the dominance you guys have had over us for some time, I was expecting a Rox win.. but not "easily".

But I don't think the game exposed many glaring flaws considering who you were missing. The only things I really took away about your team, was that the bench could use some extra depth (but I expect it to be improved over the off-season), that T.Jones is a very important piece and your best PF. (always been a T.Jones fan too) and that's a nice luxury to have 2 starters from a PO team from last year ready to start when needed.