The "Big Men Crush Smallball" argument has absolutely won.

It's been proven a correct line-up of small ball will win the Championship.

We're not losing this series because we're playing small ball.

We're losing this series because we just aren't that good a basketball team. We have incredibly low IQ players who handle the ball an awful lot. We have a coach who cannot make an in game adjustment to save his life. We shoot a ridiculous amount when we don't have that good of shooters on the team. The coach not only doesn't make in game adjustments, he's failed to make a rudimentary adjustment to combat James Harden being double teamed. Something he's had longer than a year to fix.

Small ball may be on the list of why we lose, but it'll be way way down that list.

 

This. The reason we are losing has nothing to do with small ball etc. They're double teaming James Harden literally 90% of possessions, and we don't have an answer for it. I don't know if that's because Russ can't shoot, or because Harden is unwilling to play off ball, or we don't have enough high IQ players. Regardless, D'antoni hasn't figured it out a good solution (if there is one). The series took a wrong turn ever since the Lakers started trapping James every single play.

 

Funny that folks keep saying that Lakers went small... they went small-er than normal but they didnt go small...
AD is a 6'10 center vs 6'5 PJ... LBJ towers...

 

That is ridiculous. It's perfect for small-ball. We have 2 league MVPs as our starting backcourt, one of which is superhuman. We have a 6th man of the year as our 3rd guard. We have Austin Rivers who can make plays. We have Covington shooting 50% from the 3-point line. We have PJ hitting corner 3's. Everyone on the team is built like a fast linebacker, being able to defend much taller guys.

What perfect world do we get a better shot creating, stretch lineup that can still defend bigs than that? Golden State's small lineup is possibly the only one in league history.

We also tried out every other version with Capela and it looks like the best Capela lineup may be better than the best non-Capela lineup.

 

If you are a basketball player, you will know the small ball doesn’t work.

 

Welp.... one good thing, when they bring in the new coach and gm.... small ball won’t be joining them

 

If they have Nurkic and Melo instead Bron and AD, nope.

They have 2 of the Top 5 players being bigs.

 

Lebron at the 5 would have destroyed more.

Thank Vogel for not doing that every time.

 

I was feeling that way a long time ago.

You build a system where gambling for steals, taking charges and relying solely on hot shooting are your go to mantras.

And you have personnel that are average at shooting the ball and average at closing out games.

Then you have 2 stars that have mental blockades during crunch time most games.

A coach that is running every 30 year old into the ground.

A GM that is interested in activism and politics and who developed this type of system that fails, an owner who won't spend top money.

 

What do you think is the biggest problem?
Rebound
Defense
More 3 point attempts

 

Smallball theory is right.
And the Rockets are not the best smallball team.

 

F*ck danuel house

 

It has 100% to do with smallball. No team has won it without playing guys like Looney, Bogut, etc. Not all the time, granted, but when necessary. We NEVER do it and that ends the conversation. You can’t continuously fight the upgill battle of being small with no Center in this league. You eventually get exhausted and it catches up with you. I agree that we don’t have the sharp shooters either, but time to get some bigger help for Harden and company!!!

 

It's Morey to recruit so many bad shooters for his small ball. You can't blame anyone but Morey.

 

LTS will be though. Good luck with that.

 

The only thing you’ve proven is that really dumb people tend to start threads after a loss.

 

The theory is correct is just that:

1. The Lakers are better than us using our strategy. The ideal "small ball" is actually having the biggest possbile 5 guys on the floor that can shoot and switch on defense. It's not about height per se.

2. Westbrook reverted to a bad version of himself and we need him at his peak to beat LA.

3. We have no idea how to counter the Harden trap.

4. My main issue with the way our "small ball" is constructed is the fact that we have a really short rotation and there is a reason GSW didn't use their death line up full game. It's an exhausting model, where you get zero breaks. Just not sure it's physically viable if you happen to be shorter at every position.

 

More like too many critical calls their way.

 

I disagree about the shooting thing. Yes our shooters are bad but shooting a lot of 3's isn't. I do agree with the Dantoni thing, the guy has to go. Not just one year, its been more than a year they been doing that. They should have been running drills in practice to specifically combat that. The defense being played on Harden is a surprise to nobody, actually commentators are shocked then they don't double him.

All though Westbrook's handles are worse than your average middle schooler, he should be the one bring the ball up when they are both on the floor and James should be playing the 2 guard. James walking the ball up at snails pace while Westbrook is on the floor renders Westbrook near obsolete.