12 replies to this topic

[Red94]

New post: Preview: Houston Rockets @ Chicago Bulls

[Red94]

New post: Recap: Houston Rockets 120, Chicago Bulls 97

[carlosrod]

Come on Red94 is better than this. Just read the opening paragraph and tell me this is Truehoop quality:
"The Rockets continue to blast opponents, beating Bulls and the NBA’s 4th best offense in a blowout that featured a 35 point lead in the third quarter. Nate Robinson may have been able to unload 27 points in 27 minutes, but it was too little, too late. The Rockets done to the Bulls the same thing they’d done to the Grizzlies."

For one, the Bulls are awful offensively, I believe you're referring to the defense. And "The Rockets done to the Bulls the same thing they'd done to the Grizzlies." I'm not any grammar nazi, but this stuff is pretty bad. In general, it's just not good writing.

[Sir Thursday]

Since I'm in San Francisco for the Christmas period, I was able to have the novel experience of watching this game at a reasonable time of day for once. Makes a nice change to not be falling asleep at the end of the game! I thought the Bulls looked incredibly sluggish tonight - it feels as though it shouldn't be possible to run a fast break off a made basket against any half awake NBA team, yet the Rockets seemed to be able to do It almost at will. There were some gorgeous scores in delayed transition out of situations like that in the second half.

It occurs to me that this is the most dominant stretch of basketball I've seen the Rockets play since I've been following them seriously (2-3 years). I can't recall the team stringing together a series of wins with this margin of victory, anyway. It is worth noting though that there are asterisks to be put against each of our wins in this streak though: New York had no Melo, Philly had no Holiday, Memphis were in the second night of a back-to-back and the Bulls had obviously had too much Christmas lunch (incidentally, I hate that the NBA schedules the marquee matchups for Christmas Day, as the standard of play is generally lower and it makes it less likely that we'll see the high quality game you'd get at any other time of the year. This year there were some close ones though, so maybe I'm just being a bit Bah Humbug). I might start to get excited if we can beat Minnesota in similar fashion tomorrow.

ST

[Bigtkirk]

It's also interesting that the Rockets' surge has coincided with Patterson's injury. Morris hasn't been a world beater as a replacement, but his advanced stats are far superior to Patterson's and he is within 60 minutes of so of Patterson in terms of total playing time. My sense is that this episode may usher Patterson to his proper role as an NBA player, which is as a backup big.

[rockets best fan]

It's also interesting that the Rockets' surge has coincided with Patterson's injury. Morris hasn't been a world beater as a replacement, but his advanced stats are far superior to Patterson's and he is within 60 minutes of so of Patterson in terms of total playing time. My sense is that this episode may usher Patterson to his proper role as an NBA player, which is as a backup big.

I agree. this may be the beginning of the end for patterson. while morris is not as good defensively he is better offensively which is spreading the floor better which in turn is creating better shots.

[Rahat Huq]

But Patterson was spacing the floor as well.

[rockets best fan]

But Patterson was spacing the floor as well.

but morris shoots a better 3 ball which pulls the D man just a little futher out.

[kjunfood]

Longtime lurker, first time poster.

While I do agree that Morris probably stretches the floor a bit better than 2Pat, and is better offensively, aren't the Rockets the last team to need to worry about offensive production? Esp. at the expense of any defense?

[Rahat Huq]

But wasn't Patterson shooting the 3 at a 40% clip? Why would Morris be pulling the man further out? You all know I'm as big a Morris fan as there is out there, but not sure if I can attribute this surge to that swap.

[kjunfood]

Wow I hadn't realized 2Pat was shooting it at THAT high of a clip. But wasn't it mainly the corner 3? I actually don't know the answer to this, but is Morris a bit more "varied" in where he can go/expected to go to shoot that 3?

[bob schmidt]

According to http://www.basketbal...s/HOU/2013.html , Morris shoots the 3 at .398 while PP shoots it at .333 . In the area of advanced stats, Morris rates a couple of points better at defense than PP.

[kjunfood]

Ah so Morris does shoot the 3 better than 2Pat. Paradigm shift once again in my head haha. As far as the advanced defensive stats though, I wonder how much of that is affected by Morris having played secondary units for most of this season (as opposed to 2Pat starting). Also, I remember reading on here that part of 2Pat's defensive skill set, which seems rare, esp. for younger players, is something about his adeptness at defensive rotations, etc.?, which would not be caught by the advanced stats I presume.