Playoffs 2017: WC First Round - Houston Rockets (3) vs Oklahoma City Thunder (6)

[hardenASG13]

As for Roberson.....he needs to be locking down harden thoroughly to be able to play in this series. Playing 4 on 5 offensively will not work vs houston. If houston is able to not guard him, clogging the lane for oladipo and Westbrook, giving houston free doubles on kanter and adams, making those guys who absolutely have to produce jobs even harder, it simply won't warrant him playing just to be sticking with harden and doing an ok job (about the best you can hope vs harden).

I agree with pretty much this whole post, but of all the guys you need to worry about Robes on, Harden's not one of them—or hasn't been so far. Robes has pretty much shackled him every time we play.

Hope you are right, he does give him problems as far as shooting over him. Just worried they will take him out with that middle screen, force a switch, then spread the floor like last game. I think Westbrook can guard him in a playoff scenario as well, can't wait to see all the fouls on 3s they both draw when guys go over the screens.

[Andre Roberstan]

As for Roberson.....he needs to be locking down harden thoroughly to be able to play in this series. Playing 4 on 5 offensively will not work vs houston. If houston is able to not guard him, clogging the lane for oladipo and Westbrook, giving houston free doubles on kanter and adams, making those guys who absolutely have to produce jobs even harder, it simply won't warrant him playing just to be sticking with harden and doing an ok job (about the best you can hope vs harden).

I agree with pretty much this whole post, but of all the guys you need to worry about Robes on, Harden's not one of them—or hasn't been so far. Robes has pretty much shackled him every time we play.

Hope you are right, he does give him problems as far as shooting over him. Just worried they will take him out with that middle screen, force a switch, then spread the floor like last game. I think Westbrook can guard him in a playoff scenario as well, can't wait to see all the fouls on 3s they both draw when guys go over the screens.

I'd MUCH rather see Russ guarding Beverley or Gordon than Harden. Doesn't have the length to bother him, and Russ's tendency to be a little handsy for steals probably wouldn't do him favors cause of Harden's supernatural foul-drawing ability.

[oken]

I'd MUCH rather see Russ guarding Beverley or Gordon than Harden. Doesn't have the length to bother him, and Russ's tendency to be a little handsy for steals probably wouldn't do him favors cause of Harden's supernatural foul-drawing ability.

Everyone has a superpower of their own

[TMU]

I think it will be closer than most of guys are giving your team credit for. Rockets' defense sucks in general, but it's been atrocious lately and we've been barely beating our opponents. OKC is still a great rebounding and a better defensive team, which could be a problem for the Rockets. As you know, we rely on our 3s falling and while we have a lot of weapon, if we have a poor shooting night, we are going to be in trouble.

Definitely hoping for a good series!

[bondom34]

I think it will be closer than most of guys are giving your team credit for. Rockets' defense sucks in general, but it's been atrocious lately and we've been barely beating our opponents. OKC is still a good rebounding and better defensive team, which could be a problem for the Rockets. As you know, we rely on our 3s falling and while we have a lot of weapon, if we have a poor shooting night, we are going to be in trouble.

Definitely hoping for a good series!

Kidding, kidding. Good luck man, see you for the series, hoping they can just hang!

[Pillendreher]

I think it will be closer than most of guys are giving your team credit for. Rockets' defense sucks in general, but it's been atrocious lately and we've been barely beating our opponents. OKC is still a great rebounding and a better defensive team, which could be a problem for the Rockets. As you know, we rely on our 3s falling and while we have a lot of weapon, if we have a poor shooting night, we are going to be in trouble.

Definitely hoping for a good series!

It will be an interesting series for sure. Adjusted for opponents' strength, the Rockets are 2nd in ORtG and 18th in DRtG, whereas the Thunder are 15th in ORtG and 8th in DRtG.
Cutting rotations should help your offense, possibly hurt your defense. It should help our defense and help our offense as well if we refrain from giving the trash we call our 2nd unit extended minutes.

We have played very lackadaisical as of late. We might get serious once the pressure is on the postseason, but I don't know if that's possible with this young of a core. Russ will have to play out of his mind, which he's already doing since the ASB

[InTheSabonus]

So say, as hopefully expected, we roll with a reduced, probably 9 man rotation, what do you want it to be?

So Westbrook/Oladipo/Roberson/Gibson/Adams

Bench: Abrines/Grant/Kanter, Christon for 8-10 minutes a game.

Christon needs to play as little as possible. If we could stagger Russ and Oladipo to achieve this, that'd be great.

Doubt Dougie plays even if he gets healthy. He plays only if Abrines goes completely cold.

Sabonis needs to be completely benched. Send him out there if we're getting blown out only.

If we see Singler out there I'll die.

[spearsy23]

Rockets in 5.

[bondom34]

Just keep it respectable. Agree with spearsy.

[Pillendreher]

Smh guys show some faith.

[spearsy23]

Smh guys show some faith.

Our role players are so horrible on the road that we don't have a chance and I think we probably split at home. Optimistic I'd say 6 games, but we just aren't stealing a road win.

[Pillendreher]

Smh guys show some faith.

Our role players are so horrible on the road that we don't have a chance and I think we probably split at home. Optimistic I'd say 6 games, but we just aren't stealing a road win.

We're beating them in 6.

[Old Man Game]

I just hope to god Billy gets his rotations in order. We can be at least competitive in this series, but not if he's going to do stupid things like play Doug and Semaj.

[Pillendreher]

I think our best approach defensively is to let Robes handle Harden (he's owned him safe for Game 4 in the RS, but that's an outlier given how every guy on Houston was hitting bs shots) and try to cover his teammates as best as possible. That way, you take away their shooting (to at least some extent) and force them into isolation, which basically pits Harden against Robes, which is good for us. Williams should be a capable shot creator as well in those situations, but he's been complete ass in the Playoffs for over more than 40 games (95 ORtG, 23.8 % from 3 in over 1000 minutes) and is a bad defender, which puts them in a tough spot playing next to Harden. You could list Gordon as a shot creator also, but he's more known for his spot up shooting now.

Interestingly enough, some parts of Houston's team have low key struggled since the ASB.

Pullup shooting

Anderson, Harden, Gordon, Williams and Ariza have all shot below 36 % on pullup shots (Gordon and Williams below 33 %).
As a team, they've ranked 27th in FG% and 8th in 3P%. They've taken by far the most pull-up 3s, but their 33 % on them as a team is something I could live with, even if it is a good % league-wise.
So far, they've taken every 4th FGA as a pull-up shot and every 3rd 3PA as a pull-up shot. Compared to the rest of their FGA, their shooting drops by 12 % overall and 2 % on 3s.


Catch & Shoot shooting

Ryan Anderson is the only guy who's shot well from the c&s since the ASB (41.1 3P%). Beverley, Williams, Gordon, Ariza and Harden have shot 33.7 % from 3 in those situations while being right at the top in terms of volume as a team. They've actually shot WORSE THAN US if you can believe it (36.2 % for us, 35.2 % for them from the 3pt line).
For the season, roughly every 3rd FGA and 2 out of 3PA comes from C&S.

Houston's Defense

Houston's DRtG since the ASB is 18th. With both Harden and Ariza on the floor together, they'd rank 28th league wide. In fact, the Rockets have four 2-man-lineups within the bottom 3rd of the league in terms of DRtG after the ASB (min. 400 mp).
They've allowed the 5th highest oppFG% in the restriced area (10th in oppFGA), while we have the had the 6th most FGM in the restricted area (on bad shooting however).

This gives me hope. Seems to me the Rockets have 'gotten by' on their shooting talent (at least to some extent), but haven't actually played like a 55-60 win team for 1/4th of the season/2 months now. They haven't shot efficiently in major departments of their offense and have had big troubles defending. They have had some very impressive lineups (positive double digit NetRtG), but have had major problems with certain combinations still. Harden-Gordon-Ariza has not been able to defend at all and is their 2nd most used 3-Man-Lineup.
There certainly is something there we should be looking to exploit. We have defended well against great shooting teams several times in the past (granted we had Durant and Ibaka, but still), so I have faith that Donovan et. al can actually come up with something. We need every hand on board and a bit of luck to make this happen, but I think we can.

[alessandrux]

So say, as hopefully expected, we roll with a reduced, probably 9 man rotation, what do you want it to be?

So Westbrook/Oladipo/Roberson/Gibson/Adams

Bench: Abrines/Grant/Kanter, Christon for 8-10 minutes a game.

Christon needs to play as little as possible. If we could stagger Russ and Oladipo to achieve this, that'd be great.

Doubt Dougie plays even if he gets healthy. He plays only if Abrines goes completely cold.

Sabonis needs to be completely benched. Send him out there if we're getting blown out only.

If we see Singler out there I'll die.

I agree in most parts.

I hope we will see also the following 7-8 man rotation(I'm not that high on Grant but he may allow to rest Roberson a little), with heavy minutes for Westbrook, Oladipo, Roberson and Adams. I could see Sabonis being an option

I think Abrines will be crucial, not playing McDermott and Christon(only possible if we stagger Oladipo and Russ a bit) also.

Playing Kanter as much as possible is a goal, but probably pretty hard, because he will be exploited on defense.

I'm not that low on Singler, I think he might be able to give Roberson some rest(if Grant is not able to).

It hurts that we have no wing, we could run some good small-ball lineups with Adams/Gibson/Sabonis being the only big.

If we have some luck we might steal one game in Houston, hopefully the first. If this would be the case I could see Houston struggling, they don't seem to be that mentally strong, on the other hand, if their shots fall, they can win each game.

Nevertheless, I see Houston as the favorite in this series to advance.

[QPR]

Three of the four season match-ups were decided by three points or less, and Houston shot a ridiculous percentage from three in the last one. I don't see any reason why OKC can't win this series.

[Pillendreher]

Three of the four season match-ups were decided by three points or less, and Houston shot a ridiculous percentage from three in the last one. I don't see any reason why OKC can't win this series.

I think a lot of that has to do with that Houston simply overwhelms teams and the Thunder have struggled all season long. We have been very up and down this season: We've had 5 winnings streaks of 4 straight wins or more, but we've also had 5 losing streaks of 3 straight losses or more. Look at our MOV for each game on the season:



22 out of our 47 wins have been by double digits, but we also have 22 double digit losses. Our variance and lack of consistency has been killing us this season.

Some of Houston's 'struggles' have gone under the radar though. They've had a very strong first two months (7.5 NetRtG, which would be good for 60 wins on the season), but haven't played as well ever since January (3.9 NetRtG, which would be good for 51 wins).

What stands out to me with Houston is that they rely heavily on quantity, not quality. Since 1/1, they've shot 34 % from 3:

Gordon 32.7 %
Ariza 31.5 %
Williams 31.8 %
Anderson 39.6 %
Beverley 37.4 %
Harden 33.6 %

Safe for the injured Decker and the now gone Brewer, this is Houston's 3PT shooting. That's 34.2 % (34.0 % overall) and puts them 24th over the span of close to 50 games. In comparison: We're 26th over that same timeframe at 32.6 %. They've still made the most 3s tho because they take the most per game by far.

I can't help but feel like this is something that other teams can take advantage off. The game slows down in the Playoffs and possessions become more valuable. You can't just keep playing the % like that. On the season, they're 18-21 in games in which they've shot 35 % from or worse. 25 out of those 39 games happened after 1/1 and they're 10-15 in those.
Now of course their ORtG has been extremely good despite that, but you have to ask if that's maybe more of a 'mirage' than some might think. They have very streaky guys and when they get hot as a team, it's tough to beat them (38-7 in games in which they've made 35 % or more of their 3s). Yet I would argue that's not a viable strategy for postseason success. I think Donovan's not a good coach, but you can't deny the fact that we adjusted pretty well to both the Spurs and the Warriors last postseason, so it seems like we are indeed capable of scheming for opponents.

Our rotations have to be on point and we have to take advantage of their below average to bad defense (contrary to what the Dunc'd On guys think, Houston isn't a good defensive team).
We can win this.

[gom]

In.

Thunder in 7. Ready for a great series.

[bondom34]

Oh gom's here. It's gonna be lit.

[bondom34]

Also just added a pic to the OP from reddit.