We have three gravity guys, Durant (on and off ball), Reed (on and off ball), and Sengun (on ball). Durant and Sengun demand double team on ball. Reed doesn't demand double team but a defender needs to stick close to him all time. And Jabari can hit shots if left open and Amen can slash if you don't pay attention to him. With three gravity drawers and two assassins, you can do a lot of things on offense, forcing the defense to pick the poison. I've said it for a long time. We have all the ingredients for a good offense. We just need someone to put them together and cook.
I’m surprised people haven’t figured it out yet. don’t score for the first 8 minutes? oh that’s great well turn it around every game
KD doesn't go to the ball, asks for it, and doesn't help the passer out at all, then lolligags back on D. Meanwhile REED channels his inner HAKEEM and gets back and cleans up his own mess.... I MEAN....FFS......he is the one ...... DD
Ok, but rockets were down 2, when Tari subbed in. The bigger difference was when Reed came back in later, when he normally does as a bench player. But whatever, theory always sound good, bc you get to frame outcomes anyway you want. what I’m interested in is more a Durant thing. Trying to get Durant off early is what KD always wants. But is that really effective, or needed? Especially if Reed starts.
There were two things I never understood about Ime's obsession with the Alpi, Jabari, Tari, Amen, KD starting five. First was that it clearly wasn't working. The team was 9-9 in games they started. Conversely the team was 16-8 in the games Josh started with those other 4 players instead of Tari. So even Ime's hatred of Reed wasn't a justifiable excuse to keep going with Tari. Josh was still the better option if defense was the priority. The second thing is that presumably if Fred is healthy next season(and he better be since it'll start 13 months after his ACL tear), wouldn't he be reinserted into the starting lineup? Which means that someone has to go to the bench and it clearly won't be Alpi, Amen, or KD, so that leaves either Jabari or Tari. And Jabari has definitely had the better season of the two. So even the argument that Tari losing his starting spot would hurt his confidence or bruise his ego didn't hold water. If he resigns with the Rockets this summer, he's going to be a reserve next season.
No they weren't, they were up one. Tari came in and they almost immediately went down 5. It was 7:48 in the first when Reed got pulled immediately after hitting a 3 to put them up 13-12. That's when Tari comes in and by 7:22 the Rockets are down 13-18 having not scored a single point since Reed went out. Starting Reed is a nice step, but it still doesn't change the fact that Ime is completely incompetent when running rotations and has no clue when it comes to anything related to offense.....but you take what you can get.
Something else Ive been wanting to point out is the difficulty of shots Reed takes. He does miss some he should absolutely make, but on the whole he takes difficult threes. Lots of deep ones, no dip threes, quick dribble pull up threes. Compared to Jabari who is mostly getting catch and shoot opportunities with decent def pressure. Here is the expected field goal percentages for a few of our guys: https://www.nba.com/inside-the-game...mID=1610612745&dir=A&sort=FG3PCTABOVEEXPECTED Its based on shot difficulty. Only KD and Reed are shooting above their expected percentage relative to the difficulty of shots they take.
Very simple. Tari is a career 33-34% shooter. No one was expecting him to shoot 5% over the past 10 games or whatever. It’s not a realistic expectation. If you were betting on it, how many people would bet a 33-34% shooter who’s shooting over 40% on the season would suddenly have that kind of stretch? Not even a pessimist would have believed it. Ultimately, Jabari beat Tari out fair and square and these two are both more important to our future than Okogie. The good news is now Ime has committed to starting Reed for 5-6 more games. Better late than never.
Yeah. Defense knows that they can't leave him open. So they have a guy sticking to him the whole time. A few times when his man slacked, he made them pay.
I said they were down 2 when Tari came in at 8:07, you got your facts wrong again and I’m not even arguing. I want Reed starting. I was addressing your theory about Reed starting being the difference to getting off to a good start. I hope it does. But last game was not an example. It was when Reed came back in (like a Chris Paul staggering with JH role, which I’m not advocating, just observing) that made the 1st Q good. I’m merely observing, will we continue doing a 4-5 min sub out like CP3, to come back in to close the first, or have him play a full 8-9min to start. And considering Reed leads the league in 4th Q minutes over last 13 games, it’s clear to me there isn’t really an minutes problem. It’s just about how do we make him most effective on a team where KD is the main problem wrt disrupting offensive flow. your constant bashing of Ime makes it so you can’t see the true elephant in the room, Durant did the same thing to GSW. Getting in Curry’s way. Not running split actions. But it didn’t matter then, bc they were so stacked. Here, again he isn’t running our split actions … bumping into ppl all the time. Basically trying to convert things to ISO, when he can. Few fans can actually see this like I can, I guess. The coaches are clearly practicing split action, Princeton, zoom, all sorts of modern offense, along with AT doing his early probes … so, yeah, you can still blame them for not insisting on execution by pulling ppl who don’t comply, but it really is about KD disrupting our offensive growth.
The point was about Reed, not Sengun. That's why I posted about when Reed checked out...about how we had a lead at that point that IMMEDIATELY turned into trailing by 5 when he went out. Reed starting is the difference between the starting unit being able to score and the starting unit NOT being able to score. I have no doubt that Ime will continue to **** up the rotations by pulling Reed quickly...he's an absolutely terrible coach, so of course he's going to **** it up. The point is about the proper starters.
Hey, it’s still a theory. Last game wasn’t an example of the starters doing better. We were very sloppy in those 1st 4 minutes, as usual. I hope it happens, though. wrt “getting pulled” … there’s a good chance we continue doing that early MDA-type subbing of CP3 to stagger the starters, which, imo, is fine, as long as Reed gets his minutes still. I think the early sub out (”getting pulled”) might continue because KD is the problem with our flow more than anyone, including the coaches. I know it’s fun to bash coaches, though. Feels powerful, too. But we clearly practice schemes and actions that you say we don’t do. It’s ok, you’re not the only one. And I don’t even want to bother anymore showing the disruption KD causes, and the split action that get ignored. Dude is ruining the games for me. I knew this would happen, bc he did it to Kerr and Curry, too.
Look my guy, if you want to pick defending Ime...one of the worst coaches in the league, as the hill to die on, by all means. At this point, I'm just not even going to argue with anyone still defending him, there's no point.
lulz … what hill? And what argument? We were talking about the offense not looking any better to start last game, which is true, and you retreat to that. I know you love to pigeon-hole ppl. I know that’s your thing. It feels powerful. I get it. “my guy” lols
It is what it is man, I'm just not inclined to argue with someone who genuinely believes that Ime Udoka is a competent coach especially when it comes to lineups and rotations. That's just a position that is entirely outside the basketball equivalent of the Overton window and puts it on par with flat earth BS.
To be fair, Okongwu thought he was all alone and took his sweet time. If he went full speed, Reed wouldn't have been able to chase him down. But props to Reed for not giving up. And a 6'2 guy block a 6'10 guy is something.
benched after 3 ****ing minutes and we go down double digits after leading He comes in and we lead again, hits 2 more 3s. This coach is ****ing stupid
