Carmelo Anthony ruined the Houston Rockets



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Yes, all right, James Harden has a tense thigh that keeps him from playing in the last two games, including the Blazers' home defeat by last night's blast, which brought the record back Rockets at 1-5. And yes, Chris Paul missed the two games leading up to Harden's loss – his two losses – by being suspended for fighting with Rajon Rondo. It did not help; The Rockets had their two best players in uniform at the same time twice until now. But rest! I call him! The Rockets suck the ass now !!!!!

Here are some tips from last night's game. I especially call your attention to the first half of the video, in which different Rockets launch various bad shots in other places than inside the hoop.

They fired 32% of the ground and made 10 of their 43 attempts in three points. Frame.

Here are some fun statistics. Last season, the Rockets finished with the NBA's best attack (114.0 attack rating), seventh-place defense (105.6 defense rating) and best-in-class (+8, 4). As a team, they posted the second highest percentage of goals scored (55.1) and the percentage of real shots (59.0). These are all good. This season, however, they record the league's 26th offensive (103.8), its 24th defense (113.3) and its 26th best net score (-9.6). Their eFG is an abominable 48.7, good for 27th in the league; their TS, 51.6, ranks 28th. These are all extremely bad!

Separating from Luc Mbah a Moute and Trevor Ariza and replacing them with Carmelo Anthony seemed crazy when Houston made it last summer, but in retrospect, this seems even more stupid and ridiculous. The Rockets broke the NBA's regular season record last season and made it to the seventh game of the conference finals. They played a highly idiosyncratic and personalized style of basketball (ugly), a commitment that almost resembled an area. to move from the defensive side and the offensive side to the ground around Harden, Paul and center, Clint Capela, with shooters who no longer needed the ball in their hands. They then dropped, at Mbah a Moute and Ariza, the two players who best embodied the long-time interchangeability of the long-serving, defense-minded Rockets, and replaced them with an aging defender who also enjoys a turnstile. The worst shooters in the NBA. The results are the only part that makes sense.

Here's a pair of gruesome shooting boards, courtesy of the NBA stats site:

Turn away the eyes, for the love of God!
Chart: NBA.com

I think what I appreciate most about these nightmarish images of the darkest depths of hell is that Melo has only taken two of his 35 attempts in three points from the corner. Look at that little green stick there, right. A lil 'narrow sandbar of common sense in a whirlwind of madness. I can not stop laughing when I look at him. This is the kind of scoring efficiency you like to see among the 377 best defenders in the NBA.

He has already gone back a bit, but after the Rockets lost 20 points at home last Friday, coach Mike D'Antoni kicked off the idea of ​​changing the way his team plays defense. In a way, it's too early and too late for that, but it may not be the worst idea. Last season, the Rockets lit up almost every screen successfully and successfully, accepting the occasional inappropriate mismatch in exchange for the resilience that gave them their defensive form against, for example, Golden State's constant off-ball movement and distortion. from threesome. stitch shooters. But this season, this approach has been to let the opposition choose and attack Melo on every possession, and … well. This is what D'Antoni told ESPN's Tim McMahon:

It's really a big problem, where they just blow. We can not keep on the perimeter, it looks like.

Looks great!

Not all, or even most, of Rockets' ailments at the moment can be solved by replacing two defenders of versatile wings and pinned shooters with, generally speaking, a mailbox with a pair of wide-eyed eyes .. They need Harden and Paul to come back together; maybe when that happens, they'll win 10 straight wins and come out of the Western toilet to get back to the playoff race. If nothing else, it's hard to imagine a team consisting of Harden, Paul and Capela without participating in the playoffs, even wearing Melo as a backpack filled with wet sand. But it seems quite undeniable at this stage that the composition of the team changes from last season to this one – which, although all parties insisted on the contrary, might have been more about reducing the payroll to the direction of the new team owner, Tilman Fertitta, rather than anything that is directly related to basketball – has made them worse. A lot worst. Hilariously worse!

I will not lie to you, reader. I wrote this blog to make fun of Carmelo Anthony and the Rockets for having it. Now I did that. This blog is finished.

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