RekeHavoc wrote:The Kings had that same problem when KMart paired with Evans. When you have a volume shooter like Kevin who gets a lot of plays ran for him you need a distributor/defender back there next to him. You guys need to get Lowry back and then see if you can package Brooks/Battier or Ariza or Scola for a PF that compliments Yao when he gets back. That'd be a good team IMO.
That said man I love the freaking Landry trade. We got killed in these types of games before he got here. We had nobody to go to a few times a game when we needed a basket, and he's a reliable FT shooter which JT/Brockman weren't really, now we have a guy who can post and drive and he has some range too, and when he gets fouled he usually knocks down 2 FTs. He also played good D and he did a good job getting some rebounds. He was our MVP for sure. Usually when Evans hasn't played a great game(and this was one of his only bad games all year, which for a rookie is impressive) we lose by a lot.
Brooks actually works very well with Martin; they each make double-teaming the other difficult for the opposing team.
The key stat that game was Brooks jacking up 13 threes and going 2/13. The only two players on the Rockets' active roster who are effective at the high pick-n'-roll with Martin and Brooks are Scola and Anderson. Anderson didn't play much, and Scola looked too intent on getting his against Landry. Scola was reluctant to go out and set the high picks and roll with Martin and Brooks which had been deadly effective in the last few games. The few orbital picks he did set he was rolling before he completed the picks. Scola finished with a nice stat line, but he did not play well, otherwise the Rockets would have won with Evans held to 4/22, despite all the long bounces right over the top of box outs.
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Martin really plays smart basketball on both sides of the floor. I think his defense is very underrated. He is very good at staying in front of his man and at channeling people into bigs. He looks nonchalant on defense because he apparently considers his job done if he gets his man to take the J and won't contest (whereas Battier will try to get into a jumpshooter's field of vision). Martin also plays smart on offense. If one thing is not working or he's not getting the right kinds of picks, he'll try to do something else (whereas Brooks just keeps doing what he's doing even when it's not working, or until Lowry forces a change of pace and snaps him out of it).
That said, I think the Kings did luck out being in the right place at the right time to snatch Landry. If the Rockets didn't have Yao coming back next season Landry would probably still be a Rocket.
Royal Zephyrus wrote:Then neither is Tony Parker, Aaron Brooks, Jameer Nelson, Baron Davis, Stephen Curry, Rodeny Stuckey and the other plethera of scoring guards in the league with high ball-handling skills.
Who really cares though, as long as the 5 man unit is cohesive and you're better than the other team, it doesn't matter if he a true pg or not.
It really is more a matter of full court awareness when attacking the basket than that of having a pass-first mentality. There are lots of pass-first guards who are bad at getting their teammates easy shots.
Guards like Tony Parker, CP3, and even Kyle Lowry are much better at creating streaking lanes in the paint for their bigs on drive-and-dish than guards like Aaron Brooks, Jameer Nelson, and Tyreke Evans, who more often than not packs the no-charge zone with opposing bigs on drives. The important thing is the fit. Different guards create different types of shots. It is very much a matter of creating the right shot for the right teammate.
Just because you get the ball to your big two feet from the basket doesn't necessarily an easy shot make if you pack the paint with opposing bigs in the process. This is not so much a problem for Nelson. If Howard gets the ball two feet from the basket it doesn't matter a whole lot where the D is. Having watche Casspi, Hawes, and Thompson play I think this has been a rather big problem for Evans.
Adding Landry and Dorsey certainly will help. Unlike the other Kings' bigs, both Landry and Dorsery are effective finishing in packed paint (albeit in very different ways, and Dorsey only insofar as his poor decison-making allows him to stay on the floor). Landry has excellent J and good H, and anybody who wants to contest a Dorsey shot two feet from the basket has to be prepared to lose a hand.
I think the Kings management is very conscious of this, which is why they insisted on both Landry and Dorsey before they would let Martin go. Even with the new additions, if the Kings were to get good, Evans needs to stop playing like he's blind in the left eye. Out of all the shots he set up in this game, I think only two can really qualify as easy shots, and one of them was with him driving baseline, getting stopped, turning around looking for a bailout and somebody just happened to be wide open behind him.
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The best inconspicuous moment in the game was late in the 4th when Evans fed Landry in the post and the double team came from the top. Instead of going to his usual baseline spin and one-stride to the basket (where he has a tendency to hook the defender unnecessarily), he threw the ball right back to Evans open and in rhythm, and Evans knocked down his one J of the game for one of his four field goals.
If the Kings really want to pile on the wins going forward, teammates looking to get teammates going needs to be a priority, not a last resort.
SacKingZZZ wrote:Not entirely true. The Rockets kind of employed a 2 man zone where ever Tyreke went. You had Battier up front and typically another player hovering around him to help in case Tyreke drove in. It hurt the Rockets late because Tyreke found the open man or kicked the ball back out.
And I pretty sure more than a few of those "blocks" should have been called fouls.
That is entirely untrue.
The Rockets were guarding Evans man-to-man pretty much the entire game (first time I have seen a team do this in six games). Players near the ball carrier are going to pay extra attention to the guy with the ball. That doesn't a "kind of 2 man zone" make. LOL.
Evans definitely looked fatiqued to all hell out there. Battier was playing good D, but it wasn't like he was playing unbelievable D. I mean, for a while there early, Evans had Martin guarding him and he couldn't get around Martin either.
As for finding the open man late, that is complete fabrication. If anything, Evans was tunnel-visioning even more down the stretch. Only when he couldn't get a shot off and/or picked up his dribble did he even
begin to look for a pass. That allowed the Rockets to close within striking distance at the end.
Unfortunately for the Rockets, they didn't have much of a team offense, either, with Scola unwilling to set honest picks and Brooks determined to jack up tough shots playing solo.
He got a huge standing ovation before tip off. I was never a fan of Kevin Martin, or K-Money, but he does fill a bigger position of need for the Rockets than Carl did. As much as we loved having Scolandry, the fact is both were going to be due for hefty pay raises and the Rockets wouldnt be able to keep them both. Martin has played great lately but was awful tonight. But that can be expected. Hes certainly not a Kevin Durant type of scorer. He will have his ups and downs and the Rockets brought him in for next season. He will be great with Yao down low.
