Rob Dover

*Insert joke about your least favourite team shooting bricks*

Thanks, that was interesting!

Carson Breber on X: "The Suns just forced Wemby into by far his worst game of the year by... 1. Denying him off-ball, making every catch hard 2. Attacking the ball when he brings it low 3. Crisp double-teaming Dealing with this level of physicality & swarming is gonna be *the* challenge for him now https://t.co/jYJAfXZGrR" / X The Suns just forced Wemby into by far his worst game of the year by... 1. Denying him off-ball, making every catch hard 2. Attacking the ball when he brings it low 3. Crisp double-teaming Dealing with this level of physicality & swarming is gonna be *the* challenge for him now https://t.co/jYJAfXZGrR

Thought this a good video breakdown (sorry can only see it on x)

x.com/Carsobi/stat...

Anyone have a good breakdown on what the Suns did to shut down Wemby? Was it just an off night, or did they figure out something that worked?

More recently they have tightened up the cap to make it more punitive though, and since they've done that there haven't been any repeat winners for the last six years.

It's specific game days rather than a whole weekend. You can tell whether it's an NBA cup game by looking at the court - if it's a weird colour, that's why.

*Pretends to forget about that four point play he committed in the season opener*

Pacers and Celtics are willing to punt on this year, whereas the Rockets aren't, and that could lead to different choices being made.

That being said, I think @thebao.bsky.social's point about it being hard to find a better replacement than Okogie holds water. I can't see the Cs letting White go.

I think the logic is slightly different here. Without Haliburton/Tatum, those teams don't have a shot at winning it all. Whereas I can see a path to the #Rockets challenging for a title without FVV if they could find a high level PG. Whether anyone's willing to trade us one though...

So my take is that Josh Okogie is the perfect guy as the other guard for this team in this moment. We get all of the upside of an Amen and Sengun lead offense with a Kevin failsafe. And are only faced with some easily mitigated downsides (8 seconds of anxiety, turnovers). This may be true all year.

I love the Steven Adams double-big groups for the Rockets (& his bench flurries of crashing the glass are a spectacle) but moving Okogie to the starting lineup was a great pivot.

It's just more overall balance: a 2nd player you can deploy at the PoA or as a chaser and you always -
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Yeah, definitely agree. It's noticeable how good the offense looks when they don't dawdle into a halfcourt set. I think switching away from the double big starting lineup has helped there - they can get up and down the court a bit quicker.

Worth noting that the #Rockets have shot fewer threes than their opponents in every game this season! I expect that to continue throughout the year - KD and Sengun both default to inside the arc. Maybe we'll see a game where a team just dares the #Rockets to shoot every time? Hasn't happened yet.

Another massive FT disparity in the #Rockets' favour in this one. Durant is so good at drawing fouls, and the rest of the team is benefiting from them getting into the bonus early. If the #Rockets aren't going to take a ton of threes, they're going to need an edge somewhere else and this is it.

Hat tip to Josh Okogie for another excellent all around game. Relentless defensive effort, canning his threes, can't ask for more! There was one excellent defensive sequence in the third where he hounded the ball handler, wore down the clock and then Jabari finished it with a block. Great stuff!

The team continues to lean into the kick ahead passes to great effect. Gets the ball moving well, and a really effective way to punish tired legs from the opposition. Love it! Feels like Amen's good at getting his head up and looking for opportunities for this.

This was the first team the #Rockets have played that didn't look to apply much pressure in the backcourt. Not sure whether that was fatigue prevention or just how the #Celtics play, but it made Houston's offense look a lot better for it! I think Brown had one backcourt steal on KD - acceptable!

The #Rockets rode obscenely hot shooting to the win here. 19-29 is a scorching 65.5%! They're not going to do that every night, but the fact that they're capable of doing it on any night at all is pretty cool. Still not massive volume, but it's enough when the team plays good defense to go with it.

The four blocks were great, and a real area of growth for him. For him it's always been a question of getting the timing right and it felt like it clicked in this one. But also, he was locking up whoever he was on, be it Simons or Brown. Several fantastic shutdown sequences in the first half.

To me Jabari Smith Jr was the standout player in this game. His defense was magnificent in every facet - on-ball, rotations, rim protection, he had it all! This kind of defensive versatility is so useful for the team and really unlocks a lot of defensive concepts for them.

#Rockets with the emphatic win over the #Celtics last night to get back above .500. Cs definitely looked tired out there with a big rest disadvantage, but still a very nice win for Houston! Some thoughts in a thread: 🧵

I'm prety confident that other teams will be watching that tape. Dillon Brooks had success with a particular technique last year and then other teams adopted it. Right now teams are going to be grasping at anything that might stand a chance of working.

What's different? More/less intense? Weird?

My TL is a 50/50 split of people saying "nobody cares about the NBA cup!" and "I care about the NBA cup!", so I think the answer is that some people do! I personally find it mildly entertaining having something extra to play for.

...VPN? International League Pass is great! (International Timezones...less so for NBA watching)

The other caveat is that in the Pistons game the Rockets' Offensive Rating was massively boosted by all the FTs they ended up with. Now maybe they'll just keep drawing insane numbers of fouls (KD is very good at it!), but will they continue to be #1 in the league? I expect they might cool off a bit.

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Until then, I think there's some value in normative judgements to supplement the stats. I don't have enough of an eye for shooting form to be able to make the case for myself. But @nathanfogg.bsky.social makes reasonable points about his stroke looking like it should produce a good percentage.

This is a cool article! I like it when you get glimpses into how teams motivate their players to get better like this.

Neither of these are sufficiently large sample sizes for predictive power, IMO. I think by the end of this season we'll have a big enough sample for his NBA percentage to be something we can stand behind.