The Jeff Van Gundy era is officially over.

[tha_rock220]

I'm not trying to predict doom and gloom for the Rockets tonight, but it's clear that the players have lost their defensive discipline, and Rick Adelman has no interest in giving it back. JVG would have switched Artest over to Ray Allen at some point instead of letting him go 11-15 uncontested. At least last season the players still worked very hard on defense, they reacted quickly, the rotations were great, defensive possessions ended in rebounds, and the guys got back in transition. Now they don't, but the offense still isn't working, and that's what Adelman thinks will lead the Rockets to victory.

Obviously we have the talent to be an awesome team, and we're currently a very good team, but the observations the led me to the conclusion above are a concern.

[RaoulDuke79]

Wait until Battier comes back, he's basically a coach on the floor anyways and I think he will help us especially in transition.

Also, Artest did switch over to guard Allen but I think it came way too late..

I also would like to see us sign Dikembe and play Yao less minutes. I think he could have helped alot tonight, but whatever...we lost because Yao and Artest were terrible on the offensive end more than anything(though I wasn't paying nearly as much attention as I normally would because of the election!).

[jove9]

Yeah, our defense is horrible. How many open shots are we going to give opposing centers?

[MaxRider]

because Artest, Scola, Landry, Brooks, Barry didn't learn their defense from JVG & Thibodeau

[HTown4Life]

it's early in the season guys. our big 3 have played 4 games together. the celtics are the defending champs. Im taking this game away tonight as very promising. Battier is still yet to be seen.

[Iggyemu]

The defense is still there but it lost its head. Without Battier our transition defense isn't good and our rotations aren't gonna be as good. He is easily the smartest defensive player in the NBA and we really miss him. Tonight I agree...Adelman made a poor call. McGrady is not shape to chase Ray Allen. He should have been on Pierce. But I am sure he won't make that mistake again. Our defensive break downs were in large part b/c McGrady just couldn't keep up with Allen.

Considering all of that...we only lost by a few points and really had a chance at the end to beat a team thats ready to go if the playoffs started today. We can only hope to get to where they are...but we aren't far off. If we continue to give ourselves chances to win games even when we play poorly we'll win ALOT of games this season.

[fisterkev]

I am impressed, considering the early date. I also cannot wait to see Shane Battier back in action. Any opposing team can expect either Battier or Artest guarding their best guy.

That's nuts, and I can't wait to see it happen.

[hackle]

i cant wait to see a Yao redemption game. i mean Yao & Ron Redemption game.

[Alex_De_Large]

First 2 months of last year was same story. Shane is not playing also.

[ShaY]

It's mostly tranisiton defense , Shane will really help with that.
Also T-Mac is struggling defesively right now , we will be ok.

[BaYBaller]

There is no mystery or coined phrase you need to explain our poor transition D. It's just simple basketball and you guys have to realize some the fundamentals of basketball first to understand. Our transition D looks really bad because of 3 reasons:

1) Traditionally transition D falls a lot on the SG and SF, perimeter positions quick enough and long enough to challenge guards pushing the ball. Since Artest is playing a lot in the post or off drives however he can't get back on transition D. Battier OTOH is always standing on the perimeter on offense so that he can get back on transition, and that's a major difference. T-Mac has never been known to run back on transition D and we don't have any other swingmen capable of being effective in this capacity.

2) A good offense is good transition defense. If you convert it becomes much harder for opposing players to push the ball in transition because you have to inbound the ball. It's that simple.

3) Offensive rebounding is a very, very strong deterrent of leaking guards. However the Rockets problem here is two-fold. One is that the Rockets have never been a strong offensive rebounding team, our frontcourt is pretty small outside of Yao (who isn't really even quick, strong, or athletic enough to be a good offensive rebounder). The second is that it is almost always Alston's man who leaks out, and in a worst-case scenario for the opposing team, you give Alston a wide-open 3, which right now is a shot most defenses will give us. On the other side of the spectrum you have a team like the Jazz who are not only great offensive rebounders but have players like DWill and Korver as their guards. Are defenses going to leak off these players? You figure it out.

Right now it is easy how opponents game plan vs us. Battier will help our transition D, we know what he brings to the table, but realize he's not going to help much in our offense we are trying to run. Right now looking at the 3 ways to improve our transition D the most plausible solution is simply running our offense and converting more (unless T-Mac suddenly gets 10 years younger and becomes like how he was in TOR).

[MaxRider]

There is no mystery or coined phrase you need to explain our poor transition D. It's just simple basketball and you guys have to realize some the fundamentals of basketball first to understand. Our transition D looks really bad because of 3 reasons:

1) Traditionally transition D falls a lot on the SG and SF, perimeter positions quick enough and long enough to challenge guards pushing the ball. Since Artest is playing a lot in the post or off drives however he can't get back on transition D. Battier OTOH is always standing on the perimeter on offense so that he can get back on transition, and that's a major difference. T-Mac has never been known to run back on transition D and we don't have any other swingmen capable of being effective in this capacity.

2) A good offense is good transition defense. If you convert it becomes much harder for opposing players to push the ball in transition because you have to inbound the ball. It's that simple.

3) Offensive rebounding is a very, very strong deterrent of leaking guards. However the Rockets problem here is two-fold. One is that the Rockets have never been a strong offensive rebounding team, our frontcourt is pretty small outside of Yao (who isn't really even quick, strong, or athletic enough to be a good offensive rebounder). The second is that it is almost always Alston's man who leaks out, and in a worst-case scenario for the opposing team, you give Alston a wide-open 3, which right now is a shot most defenses will give us. On the otherhand of the spectrum you have a team like the Jazz who are not only great offensive rebounders but have players like DWill and Korver as their guards. Are defenses going to leak off these players? You figure it out.

1) Our transition defense is depended on Alston and Battier (PG/SF). Battier is not here, Artest is still learning our defense. It's actually not T-Mac job to run back for defense. When T-Mac and Barry are on the floor, Barry is too slow to get back. Brooks is lost out there for defense. We did a better job on the 2nd half, problem is nobody going for offensive rebound. Didn't really matter yesterday because we can't get any rebound anyway.

2) We are forcing too many passes to Yao when he clearly doesn't have position. Isn't it easy for Yao to get offensive rebound when they are fronting him? I thought we did it pretty good in one of the game against GSW. Hope with Battier we can spread the floor more. T-Mac, Artest, and Alston aint 3pts threat. Thibodeau defense is to force opponent to shoot the three. You guys should be familiar with that.

[King Roosk]

I don't think it's fair to make an assessment like this when we're missing our best defender (and arguably the best wing defender in the league). Yao looks a little slow/lost on defense, but he's still adjusting from the injury. We played poor defense late against Boston, but we've been stellar defensively in the other 3 games this season. We're fine.

[BaYBaller]

Max:

1) Yes Rafer does get back, and PGs do contribute to transition D too, but at the same time you cannot expect Alston to stop a Jason Terry or Josh Howard or Rondo on the break.

2) And theoretically Yao should be able to clean up the boards because by fronting Yao he basically boxes himself out. However you can obviously tell rebounding is not Yao's focus, yet for what this team needs right now it should be. Instead Yao usually tries to go block-to-block trying to get the entry pass, same as always. I want Yao to score in the flow of the offense, not through force-feeding. It would greatly benefit the team if Yao was something like an 18/13 guy instead of 22/10. Becoming better on the offensive glass (and finishing it instead of bringing it down low to get stripped) in itself is a huge deterrent of fronting.

[PocketRockets]

Yao sucks...or sucked...when teams double and triple team you....you find ways to get into the game...he didn't do that tonight. We need help on the front line, but then again...not many teams are as big as the Celtics with their two 7 footers, Powe, and Baby Davis (Not tall but covers a lot of ground). The Lakers are probably the only other team with this luxury of big men. Hence their trips to the finals. If we had Dike, there's no doubt we win this game. Hayes/Landry are way too small to be grabbing rebounds over KG/Perkins, etc.

Now some praise, AB played his heart out tonight. Sure he took a couple of bad shots and forced it on 2-3 possessions, but that's what we needed tonight and that's what we need him to do when we're down or playing like crap on offense. On nights where we are up, Adelman can tell him to tone it down, but when the starters suck, Rick needs to let him loose.

[MaxRider]

Just because our best perimeter defender is not in the game that doesn't give us the excuse to play bad on transition defense. It's like common sense in basketball defense. Two players will be giving the assignment to get back down the court for defense when we shoot the ball. Our coaches need to do a better job at it. I thought we spent most of our time working on defense during preseason?

[ChinaTown]

Can anyone here please explain to me how come we are missing to mention Alston in this discussion? When ever we talk about "LOSE" we cant let him go away with this.

I want to make only one question: What is the reason for having an starting PG who shot 1-6 and 0-3 for 4 points in an important game like this???

I hope when Battier comes back, the lineup will forced to be:

T-Mac = PG
Artest = SG
Battier = SF
Scola = PF
Yao = C

[MaxRider]

Can anyone here please explain to me how come we are missing to mention Alston in this discussion? When ever we talk about "LOSE" we cant let him go away with this.

I want to make only one question: What is the reason for having an starting PG who shot 1-6 and 0-3 for 4 points in an important game like this???

I hope when Battier comes back, the lineup will forced to be:

T-Mac = PG
Artest = SG
Battier = SF
Scola = PF
Yao = C

Hahaha, I guess you are the only one here still expect Alston to make shots.
With your lineup PG like CP3, Deron, Rondo, Parker are going to kill us.
I don't know about this season, but last year during training camp, Alston is the fastest between him, Brooks, Francis, and James.

[Iggyemu]

Can anyone here please explain to me how come we are missing to mention Alston in this discussion? When ever we talk about "LOSE" we cant let him go away with this.

I want to make only one question: What is the reason for having an starting PG who shot 1-6 and 0-3 for 4 points in an important game like this???

I hope when Battier comes back, the lineup will forced to be:

T-Mac = PG
Artest = SG
Battier = SF
Scola = PF
Yao = C

IMO thats the ONLY lineup that will get it done. I think when McGrady is healthy you can run that. The biggest thing will be guard the point guards but look we practice how to cross match and get Battier on them depending on the match ups. There aren't any teams in this league that have a great scoring PG and a great scoring win player...much less 2 great wing scorers.

I just think that lineup best utilizes all of our guys. McGrady has been masquerading a point guard for years as his offensive game has declined. He has gotten a whole better at creating. If defense at the point is the only problem with such a line up then thats a small thing. Something we can work on.

Rondo may not be able to shoot but he can penetrate and finish. You can't have a guy thats liability on offense and expect to win. Brooks provides a great spark but I don't think he would be as effective if he was starting. Alston must go. Or at least not be in there during key stretches of a game.

[ChinaTown]

Rondo may not be able to shoot but he can penetrate and finish. You can't have a guy thats liability on offense and expect to win. Brooks provides a great spark but I don't think he would be as effective if he was starting. Alston must go. Or at least not be in there during key stretches of a game.

Indeed. The only issue will be defending the opposite PG but made you can make some kind of switching with Battier and Artest to defend Mcgrady's man. Man! Im just almost developing a bleeding ulcerate watching Alston missing open shot after open shot, C''mon this is the NBA, if you are not a low post defensive threat you MOST make your open shots, period.