He did not like the ball movement in the second half nor the transition defense. He did like how Jabari Smith Jr. and Jalen Green bounced back from poor games in Minnesota.
5 minutes the 3rd to end :96-89 Rockets lead 3.5 minutes of the 4th: 115-104 Pacers lead 26-8 Run for Pacers, 18 points switch Loss by 3. Udoka nap at the end of the 3rd and the beginning of the 4th, as usual.
No Alpi to create, no Jalen either…that end of the third group destroyed us. That stretch was LITERALLY what cost us the game. Sad, but I think Ime is a smart coach and he’ll have his reservations about putting that particular lineup on the floor again.
It is not the first time. Repeating. I guess Udoka is just good for two and a half quarters. He is not a 4 quarters coach yet.
He’s still a young head coach, and growing too! He’s about as deep into his HC tenure as Jabari is into his playing one. So hopefully he’ll keep getting better and we will have little to complain about
I’ll set up the joke, you guys come up with the punchline. “what do ime udoka and curtis jackson have in common?”
Alpi and Jabari played the most minutes. 36 and 40. I don't know how much more time they could have gotten to prevent that bench break down.
Sometimes you Zag when they Zig, but the smart man will just Zig even harder. Time for Mike Dantoni to join the team as consultant/HCIW. This is the pace & space era maximized - can't go wrong with Magic Mike - a 100% certified Rockets Legend. Ime can stay on as lead assistant - defense, if Jeff Bzdelik is unavailable
I want the Rockets to give him full control and get out of his way, and keep him for a long time to build a culture. But some of his rotations are just ludicrous, and this is happening multiple times now. He definitely needs to improve that part of his coaching.
i hate to say this..but after tons of frustrated losses, it seems we're fading away from play-ins picture. though i know Rafel may not think play-ins is that important to this young rebuilding team, IT IS ime’s job to think below things over if he do wanna see some improvements out there this season: - help Bari find his rhythm earlier, to involve him more and early in the games, only when we keep him involved early we can see him take some pressure off from alpi in the paint; - emphasize over and over to our guards that alpi is our point center! let’em to keep in mind serving Alpi as a offensive HUB, go everything through him, let him kick out to right mates; - sheesh how stupid it is to let both holiday and tater stay in the game longer than 2min, how many breakdowns right kicks in when ime subs in our midgets smh; (though i know their beautiful stat line might help our trade bargain) - if we gotta stick to teamwork, team bball, cut down those pathetic isoballs or heroballs not matter it’s from fvv, holiday or jg whoever, be sure to emphasize more cuts, more off ball movement, more PnR between different players (alpi-fvv or alpi-jg PnRs are asses! that’s nothing but ’two trick pony’); - if we do wanna keep ourselves in the game, keep the momentum or preventing blowout losses, our kids gotta learn to be patient, gotta learn to work their asses off on defensive end, THAT is the only way when your offense cooling off, they gotta understand even great teams in nba history can NOT ensure their offense not lose steam, suffocating D is THE only way keep yourselves in the game, there aint and short cuts!
The FO is already mediocre.....if you let Udoka play Assistant GM.....things are not going to be that better.....because dude is only going after defenders and people that are not really great 2 way players.
It just feels like the team is not responding to Ime. They are probably physically exhausted, tired of him expecting too much defensively and sick of trade rumors. They're young humans so I find that to be the most likely explanation. Having said that we were missing our 2nd most important player and lost by 3 to arguably a top 4 Eastern team on the road. It was a good effort despite the annoying loss while we're trying to get back to .500 basketball. My only complaint is Cam and Holiday made too many defensive mistakes and they were the most preventable mistakes in the game. We weren't poised enough in crunch time. The players should take accountability for that part. However, the fact that there's no movement is 90% on Ime. This is a season-long problem, whatever he is trying to install he has been failing at it all season with almost ALL the players. This is not a lazy group of players. Ime has to do something different. Hold them accountable for movement the same way you yank them from the game for a defensive mistake. At least Ime finally understands we need to play faster and get more transition. When I created that FVV-Sengun thread predicting that the offense had peaked, Ime had incidentally mentioned pace once early in the season and no one else talked about it. In the past few weeks we've heard Ime and several Rockets stress a higher pace in interviews. It's clearly a focus right now and we are adjusting to how to defend in a higher pace. We were on beginner mode all season running one of the slowest paces in the NBA. They are learning something about how to get easy points and inject some easily attainable confidence in his shooters. Don't worry, we haven't seen this team's longest winning streak yet. I also think our lineup without Fred is going to show some monstrous defense in the next few games. Amen is a vicious defender and he's going to get comfy game by game in that role. Oh and we have needed a backup C all season. That's on Ime and the front office, they need to deliver that for these players who have worked their a$$ off all season defensively. Help them help you.
It's always good to hear the opposing coach share their perspective of why the game was won/lost. Carlisle: Rockets have lots of talent and high effort level. Amen was a tough matchup for Tyrese.
Jabrari is not a player who is good enough to warrant those minutes. He scores points but doesn’t do it consistently or when you need it.
