This was an insane magnetball game for the Bulls. Still, my big takeaway is a lesson in why roles and hierarchy matter for NBA teams. When a team doesn't have enough handling and offensive creation, you get 3-4 guys on the floor whose "job" is offensive creator. That's a lot of your team conserving their energy for the offensive end. As others have said - a team can't carry three of their five guys defensively. And Amen isn't doing much carrying defensively anymore either.
I mean....his extremely obvious Invisalign is hilarious....His odd slouching posture is amusing... His ( or the SCHN Wardrobe crew's ) awkward choice of vests is funny ( but NOOOWHERE NEAR Calvin Murphy funny ) , his awkward incomprehension of extremely basic turns of phrase or simple wordplay is at times slightly affable, but he's intrinsically mediocre, his sole vaguely attributable catchphrase is the imminently forgettable "Hey !!! " on Rockets slam dunks, which really doesn't seem ( to me, at least ) to convey any unique, profound, nuanced, textured, or even unusual level of inherent hoops expertise...he contributes nothing at all to the consistently underwhelming and uninspired Rockets broadcast team...
PREACH!!! These youngsters n NewStonians didn't even look up as that glorious reference flew right over their collective heads. #TwoSton #DoubleClutchCity #WhenH*//Froze0ver
Fair point, I just get extra sensitive when the Rockets lose. Which is way more than I'd like, recently
Durant, Sengun, Amen combined for 39/54 FG. 72.2% shooting. 96 total points. Rockets will win a lot of games doing that But they still lost Average defense should be enough to win with that. It's how the other top seeds are winning. That is Lakers Luka, Lebron, Reeves way. The Pistons and T-Wolves play bigs, they're not high volume 3 point shooters. But rest of Rockets team was 10-38 FG, 26.3%. (Or a typical DFS game, now Tari). If Reed or Sengun are off, combined with their defense being off, it's a tough time for the Rockets. Combined with sometimes Durant disrupting the offense as much as contributing, its a very thin margin for error.
And this is where you expose yourself as a ****ing idiot Where did I say Eason needs to start? Reed however is a huge defensive liability. He's fools gold. Is Durant lazy? Sure, is sengun horrible defensively? Yes. But Reed is absolutely atrocious and commits stupid reaching fouls more often than any other player on the roster. And Reed definitely has not won the Rockets 10 games singlehandedly. You are exaggerating. Your assumptions are wrong. Debate better.
Reed usually gives back more to our offense than what he takes from our defense. I can live with that.
I remember the "deepest team / bench in the league" talk. Looks laughable now. We basically have no bench and I'd bet that Jeff Green can outperform all of them. It's a shame because he's always money from deep, yet Ime doesn't want to use him. Reminds me of Adelman who refused to use Mutombo.
Our starting lineup over the last 3 games has been Reed, Amen, KD, Jabari, Sengun. In those 3 games, that lineup has a net rating of -23.1. How long are we sticking with this? https://www.nba.com/stats/lineups/a...dvanced&sort=MIN&LastNGames=3&GroupQuantity=5
One play that bothered me was late in 4th about 2 min left. The guy beat Sengun in right corner and went baseline. Sengun called out to Sheppard and he saw the guy coming and literally just stood there. His assignment was to cover left corner and he was in the paint but there were a couple rockets there that could cover that up. He could have at least slid to the baseline and jumped straight up and down instead of just standing there. That’s effort not talent and he gave none
You can't play Sengun and Reed together because the defense sucks too bad You can play Amen and Sengun together because the spacing sucks too bad You can't play Tari at all lately because his offensive game fell into a deep, dark abyss Jabari is about the only young player we've got who fits with everybody, but he's just a decent starter, he's not carrying the team to wins more than once in a blue moon. Our roster construction is broken. We need to completely re-tool in the offseason. More and more I do think trading Sengun is becoming inevitable because the other three fit together OK and Amen just has one major weakness to fix that would make things work (shooting) whereas Sengun has two (shooting and defense). It's just a question of whether we can find an offer that makes sense and doesn't feel like selling low. On that, I have no clue.
Our original starting lineup of Amen, Okogie, KD, Jabari, Sengun is still statistically our best lineup. Probably should have just left it at that. We would all prefer one of our young guys to step in and take that 5th spot, but Okogie as the 5th starter gives that lineup the best net rating. It's honestly disappointing that our young guys don't all fit well together.
