[Grades] Grades v. Rockets 4/1/2015

[Ron]

We need a wing defender on this team, it is no surprise that SG's tend to light us up more than any other position. Mclemore needs to get stronger, he's a decent defender but tends to get bullied pretty easily by most NBA SG's. McLemore also has really bad hands, which really makes me question his potential. At his best he will be a off the ball scorer like Kevin Martin or Peja but if he's bobbling balls left and right it takes away the cuts that can take advantage of his quickness. I was really bullish on Ben earlier in the year but I've seen a ton of red flags of late.

OK, ONE THING:
I'm all for getting an elite wing defender (I AM, a 100% for! Let's make this clear, and loud, from the start).

Now, having said that - I just found out we all (myself included) assigned some very unjustified blame, refering to a general, equal shortcoming of our perimeter defenders tonight.

In fact (HARD fact) - Omri Casspi stood out tonight, and though he made quite a lot of mistakes and TO's, he somehow proved HIGHLY effective (or lucky) in perimeter D, preventing 3pt shots from being made or even being taken.

I went over the whole game again, focusing on Rockets' perimeter shooting, and found:

The Rockets made no less than 18 3's tonight (of 40 taken!). 14 of those 18 were made by Harden and Ariza.

Now, although Omri Casspi was on the floor longer than ANY other perimeter Kings player (38 minutes!), and was facing those 2 sharpshooters in a great number of occasions, THERE WAS ONLY ONE 3PT SHOT MADE ON HIM ALL NIGHT (and you can even argue that this single one should perhaps not count as well)!!

This looks hard to believe, and our eye test may have suggested otherwise, so please check this yourselves and don't take my word for it on sheer faith.

The only Rockets' 3 point I could assign to Casspi's D somehow, is a shot from the right top, made by Ariza with 8:33 remaining in the 3rd.
Even this 3, however, was taken in transition, after Casspi was sent forward all alone on a fast-break (blocked), and so Omri was still just at half court running back, and was too late to contest the shot.

There were no other long range shots made on Casspi tonight. All those raining 3's were allowed by others. OTOH - Omri stole 3 balls from Harden in just 2 short minutes while defending the perimeter, and quite regularly caused Rockets' players to give up the 3, and try driving or passing, instead.
Just watch it and see, especially the last Q.

So, if tonight could serve as a test-case (which it CAN'T) - one could be tempted to say that we already HAVE an elite perimeter defender...

Surprised? Even I was.

 

[Bricklayer]

Things not mentioned about this game:

* Kayte's post-game interview question to Karl was very intriguing.
I think she basically was kinda challenging coach about how many steal attempts the Kings are making, leading to easy buckets when they miss. She seemed to be questioning the philosophy of cheating for steals (in the attempt to spring your pacey offense) instead of just playing solid, no-lunging defense.

* That last play - whoof.
What was the playcall there? Anyone know? There didn't seem to be much attempt to score 4 points in those last seconds whatsoever.

* Karl is looking pretty bad still. His right eye was so bloodshot, I can't imagine he's in good health.

Having interacted with Kayte on that topic, I doubt it was a challenge. She sees it as the key to his defensive philosophy.

 

[Amit149]

Guess that is a list of better D centers based on the memory of the glory past.
Joakim, Howard, Tyson and Duncan are not even close to Cousins anymore due to injuries and old age (none of which seems to be curable for those guys).

I would put DeAndre as the only one clearly ahead.
Everybody else is more than arguable.

I'll start by stating that I don't think Cousins is a top 5 defensive Center- I think a lot of guys here are over-correcting his bad rep on this side of the floor by going all out, kind of (but to a lesser extent) like some rockets fans try to make a claim for Harden being DPOY after being mocked last year.

1. GET OFF THE DEANDRE JORDAN BANDWAGON- I don't know how or why he got this great defensive player name for himself, but he's not all that.
"He’s a surprisingly mediocre one-on-one defender, as craftier scorers like Al Horford and the Gasols keep proving." that was said by one Bill Simmons on his trade value ratings, here is another quote from the same article (different part) about Cousins- "Did you know his rim protection numbers are slightly better than DeAndre Jordan’s numbers this season?"- and I can actually put numbers to that one- DeAndre's opponent's fg precentage at Rim (Opp FGP at Rim) is 48.5% that's not great. Cousins stands at a better 47.6%.
So DeAndre ain't that good a Rim protecter and records less steals (1.0) than Cousins (1.5) to go with a so-so one-on-one defense, if you take Rebounding out of the defense equation DeAndre isn't a great defender and his Block numbers are misleading.

2. Who are the guys that's great at Rim protecting- Gobert is a beast with 39.2% at that category, Bogut is probably the best if you like a player who is a little more proven at 40.6% (and a track record of creating a top defensive team on any team he plays), Ibaka is more of a PF but defend the Rim greatly at 40.8%, Hibbert lives up to the hype at 42.6% and Noel is great for a rookie at 44.9%.
Perk and Howard are at 45.5%, Mozgov at 45.6%, Duncan is at 46.4% and Nurkic is surpirsingly good at 46.9%.

3. Whiteside (48.2%), Anthony Davis (48.4%), Andre Drummond (48.4%) and Marcin Gortat (48.8%) are all slightly worse than Cousins at rim protecting.

4. Guys like Marc Gasol (49.6%), Omer Asik (49.8%) and Tiago Splitter (50.2%) that made a name for themselves as defensive big men are worse protecting the Rim than Cousins.

5. Al Horford (50.2%), Tyson Chandler (51.3%) and Joakim Noah (51.9%) are far from their peak when it comes to rim protection and are far worse than Boogie on this aspect.

6. Still as I started Cousins isn't a top 5 defensive center imo, he made terrific progress and he is a plus on that side but still I would say the top 5 are probably- Bogut, Hibbert, Marc (does a ton of things other than rim protection), Duncan and Gobert. with Howard, AD, Ibaka and some other guys before Cousins.

 

[mac]

GAH I can't stand the f'ing Rockets. From "the Beard" to their annoying announcers ... hope they got swept in the first round of the playoffs.

 

[John Galt]

I wanna be a homer on the poll, but whichever team scores the most points wins and Harden had wtf 27 extra on the same number of attempts?? Is that a misprint?

 

[Siranthony]

I know it is the nature of people to complain. People complain when we lose but unfortunately that is not a bad thing at this moment. The new coach has not been able to implement his system or put his entire staff in place either. Cousins talent is not being wasted. He is building a following and working on his skills. Next season we will have at least two new players plus who knows what trades. Stop talking about players leaving and talent wasting bla bla bla. It's a broken record around here. This team will be much improved next year. Even is nothing changed from right now, the team will be better next year.

 

[Capt. Factorial]

I wanna be a homer on the poll, but whichever team scores the most points wins and Harden had wtf 27 extra on the same number of attempts?? Is that a misprint?

Well, it should be more like 28 shot for Cousins and 31 shots for Harden (because FGA is a bad denominator - it doesn't count the times you get fouled and miss) but yeah. That's what happens when you go 8-9 from three.

 

[Hadlowe]

GAH I can't stand the f'ing Rockets. From "the Beard" to their annoying announcers ... hope they got swept in the first round of the playoffs.

I don't mind Harden. He is talented as all get out. I can't stand their announcing crew, though. Not as bad as the Portland crew, but still pretty awful.

 

[Hadlowe]

He's looking more and more dominant every time we turn around. Amazing what a difference a real coach can make. Now if the front office can just get a few more pieces to put around our franchise center, we're gonna be real interesting.

Cousins' play lately could be the attractor for a couple of vet F.A. who want to get into the playoff mix. TDOS is going to be interesting this year.

 

[pshn80]

Congratulations to the coach and team for using our play to be competitive with a very good team. I put this game in the plus column for team play. In saying this I want to differ from those who say that now this team is Cuz and a pile of c***. T'ain't so.