Red94 | Houston Rockets news and musings

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The Spurs-Mavericks back-to-back last week was interesting. With Harden out, the Rockets three remaining guards were more aggressive (again, no data, you’ll just have to take my word for it). Not only Lin and Brooks, but also Beverley was penetrating with regularity. He even showed off a spin move I didn’t know he had. Motiejunas went into Lithuanian lion mode. He crashed the boards (19 in 44 combined minutes) and showed some tenacity defensively. The team as a whole was much less talented with Harden out, but I’m positive each player felt more ownership over the final product.

That cohesion continued into the Cavs game, in which the Rockets bench ignited two runs and were clearly the difference in the game. My favorite sequence came in the third quarter immediately after Howard was whistled for a 3-seconds violation. On the previous defensive possession, Motiejunas was called for a blocking foul. While Kyrie Irving shot his technical free throw, I could clearly see Beverley talking to Motiejunas and demonstrating defensive positioning techniques. On the ensuing inbounds play, Motiejunas drew a charge on Irving. On the next defensive possession, he made a stop by himself.

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NOTE: Despite being the data guy, there is no statistical analysis in this post. Once in a while, I, like everyone else, am allowed to form an opinion that is unsubstantiated by data. And now I’m going to shout that opinion through a megaphone to convince the internet that it is correct.

Last year I found myself in an employment situation that could be politely described as shitastic. My workplace was small, about ten people, two of whom were bosses. Because my office was my office, otherwise merely bad situations became apocalyptic ones. I’ll spare everyone the gory details, but I do want to share one anecdote from those dark days.

Before the start of a big office project, one of our bosses declared publicly that there were two types of people in the office, “visionaries and worker bees.” He then identified himself, the other boss, and two others as visionaries, and the rest of us as worker bees. Then he told us to submit ideas for the project.

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