I've missed like three or four of these in a row, but at least this game had a nice combination of positive and negative whereas the ones I missed were one sided as hell...
Short Version: This might be the most painful loss of the season, but that's because of all the promise it showed. KP and AA both stepped up and flashed the potential of their fit as number two and number three scorers for the team. The bench unit played really well, going back to a more spaced out rotation that let guys play to their strengths. Fisher had ups and downs, he gave Early a bit of a shot and he actually picked a big and stuck with him off the bench...but he still waits to long to fight momentum swings with TO's and subs which hurts in an OT loss. The team TO's were really bad and 4th quarter unraveling continues to be a scary issue for this squad, even last night without Melo to stand around; these guys just shifted to the next scorer in the group and ISO'ed AA to close out (he stepped up but it was still ISO ball). It's tempting to blame the refs with Houston's abundance of FT's to go along with the clear missed call on that moving screen; but you don't lead by double digits with less than 10 minutes to go and blame the refs...you HAVE to get it done.
KP: 20 points, 13 boards and 2 blocks as the only starter with a positive +/-. He really balled last night, with a mix of a few post ups, catch and shoots and hard slashing finishes. There were times where I was frustrated by the guards being unable to get him the ball deep when Trevor Ariza was mismatched on him, but at this point he should probably just adjust his positioning because they won't get him the ball if he's being fronted regardless of how much taller he is than his defender. He really had a quality performance even dealing with Capela who is a pretty athletic, long defender.
Afflalo: He stepped up and the more he had the ball, the more pronounced his impact. 31, 4 and 7 on 13 of 19 scoring in post ups, midrange, drives and deep. He truly kept up with Harden and honestly imo he outplayed the guy. He did well in his defensive match-ups which switched depending on Lance being out there or not also. At a point where the whole team seemed to be fading fast with Jose struggling to protect the ball and nobody else scoring, AA was the calming presence that provided scoring and kept us from falling off completely. He also had a nice moment of consolation for KP after missing an easy alley-oop, KP locked back in and finished a similar alley-oop not long after; it's not a situation that you give AA too much credit for but it's what you want to see from vets.
Lance Thomas: He got the start and he played pretty well. Rocking with Lance, you have to accept his limitations...dude is bad on the boards and a below average passer but at least he's pretty smart and safe with his passing. He shot the ball well though which gave him a two-fold impact along with his typically reliable man to man defense. His defensive value really shined here too, because he matched with Harden and did a good job pretty much all night. He really dive bombed his own quality performance with his most memorable play of the game being that terrible decision in crunch time; but as long as you look beyond that he played a solid game having been pushed into a role much bigger than he should ever have to be in. 15 and 3 on 6/10.
Jose: Patrick Beverly is an impact defender and made Calderon's otherwise solid performance look a mess with the late TO's. To Calderon's credit he made some jumpers, some nice passes and even grabbed a few boards. 7 points, 4 assists, 5 boards; but you can't have a starting PG with 5 TO's and that really kills this game for him. He's supposed to be reliable protecting the ball, that along with his jumper is what makes him worthwhile in spite of athletic limitations.
RoLo: Honestly, he wasn't bad in the 15 minutes he got and he wasn't good either. His defensive play was probably missed late in the game when that run went down, but KS was playing well so it kinda makes sense...then again, this seems to be a running theme with RoLo seeing second half minute cuts and I don't like it. He may not stand out on the stat sheet, but he makes plays and you'd have to think some of those second chance opportunities get stolen away by a hard Lopez box out.
Seraphin: It's tough to be hard on a bench big who puts up 14 points, 7 boards, 4 assists AND 4 blocks in 30+ minutes which is probably too much for what he's been conditioned on...but wtf is with the inbounding TO's? Again, I can't laud his effort enough especially since he matched up with Dwight a LOT of the time but some of those TO's were really bad (fatigue driven? Maybe). He stepped up overall though, taking advantage of the wide open space smaller line-ups provided and eating anyone in the post that wanted to try. His passing is a revelation and at its best when he has cutters while he's on the block. My preference is still KOQ as a young developing cat with more face-up skills but in this system the post play is important.
Galloway: His slump continued, just not able to knock down jumpers that were looking routine for him early on and turning the ball over more lately. He did chime in 4 assists and play some good defense, but this continued his downward trend in overall effective play and I'm not sure about a solution for him other than to get some easier looks closer to the rack. 4 and 4 (assists) with 3 TO's...I always applaud his ability to grab a tough rebound or two but he didn't manage any boards which isn't fun.
Grant: Got to play with the preseason group for a bit and continued an upward trend in play the past two or three games. He had some added space to rock with the smaller line-ups (both teams went small a LOT with Lance and Ariza getting minutes at the 4) and it translated to some impact play. Two of his three makes were jumpers, one being a three pointer and that's HUGE for the kid's confidence in his jumper. 7,2 and 1 in 12 mins without missing a shot. He was good, probably good enough to take some minutes from the struggling G's (Galloway and Calderon) tbh.
D-Will: 4 of 5 from the field, 3 for 3 from the line and he notched 4 rebounds in 15 minutes. So he notched 12 points and 4 boards in 15 and it was completely efficient. At one point, he grabbed a board and started racing down court and even though the Rockets had 4 guys ahead of him, a guard took the foul to slow the pace down. That's the kinda thing that happens when he gets out there and hits his flow, because you can't really slow him down otherwise. That he hit his jumpers was a pleasant sight after struggling for some time. I really just feel that the bench looks better when this guy gets minutes in the teens for the most part, you still have to reign him in when he's out of control but getting him to create controlled chaos consistently would absolutely improve the bench in ways no other play could (maybe Early but he'd have to show a LOT of improvement in some areas to be that).
Early: Hey he got past the 5 minutes mark! In 6 minutes he was 0-1 with no box score numbers to point to. However, I will say that he was in with the preseason bench crew and they looked good as a unit. He actually cuts off the ball which is nice to see because he runs hard. Defensively he didn't do anything to stand out either way. He got himself open for a three point attempt but missed it. Nothing crazy in short minutes, but I'd like to see more.
KOQ: 4 minutes, not much to judge. I thought he shoulda been credited with a block. Didn't hurt us in his few minutes in fact, he showed effort in a few plays that had impacts not showing on the box score but it was clearly Seraphin's night and Fish did the right thing limiting KOQ's minutes and letting the hot hands rock.
Fisher: On the positives; He suited Lou up and gave Early a look, he stuck with a single big off the bench (outside of spot duty for KOQ) and his rotation felt tighter (lot of variables on this but it was good regardless). On the bad end; I think he left Seraphin out there too long with RoLo fresh and on the bench while we led, late TO's and subs just didn't do anything to cut Rockets momentum and he for the love of God STOP PUTTING THE BALL IN LANCE THOMAS' HANDS ON GAME DECIDING PLAYS! This is the third time Lance has the ball in hand on the final offensive play of a tight game and we haven't scored in any of those plays (3 losses). He keyed Afflalo who was hot late while everyone was struggling and it was the right choice, even though it once again meant abandoning the system somewhat to close. At the end of the day, if two of his four guard rotation play that poorly and the team is giving up that many free throws; his decisions aren't gonna be the main contributing factor to an L...but I do think he made some poor decisions late that turned a fairly well coached game into one that slipped through his fingers.
Random: Really woulda been nice for Jose to play well and show value to a team that might actually find him useful and serviceable but oh well. I'll be interested to see how the DNP's work when Melo is back from illness, I think Lou belongs in a suit for the near future but I wonder if Early just got dressed because we were down one SF.
it all makes sense
