Toronto Raptors @ Houston Rockets - Friday Jan. 25 at 8pm Eastern, 5pm Pacifc

[chris]

everyone shitting on nurse’s play call as if he drew up a fadeaway contested three is pretty hilarious. the only play call there was to have whoever harden was guarding set a screen up top for kawhi, knowing the rockets switch absolutely everything all of the time, to isolate our best player against their worst defender on the floor. i’m sure he would have told him to create the best shot he could for himself or for others, whether that be a two or a three, but not to leave too much time on the clock.

you’re not going to run some crazy play with multiple screens being set and mis-directions as if there are 2 seconds on the clock because you don’t want to give houston the ball back with time if you score.

the only hitch in the plan is that harden played great defense (which he’s always been capable of - he was one of OKCs best defenders until he started playing a bigger role on offense) and kawhi did a pretty poor job. he was bumbling the ball on his drives all game.

but i have no issue with the call and most coaches would have done the same i suspect.

[MACK11]

Nurse is starting to piss me off. Stop fucking playing FVV and Lowry together, they get abused on defence every night


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[MACK11]

Toronto Raptors @ Houston Rockets - Friday Jan. 25 at 8pm Eastern, 5pm Pacifc

Also Greg Monroe is absolute garbage, he needs to be outta the league soon. Can’t score can’t play defense wtf


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[Superjudge]

Also Greg Monroe is absolute garbage, he needs to be outta the league soon. Can’t score can’t play defense wtf


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Greg Monroe is a solid third center. Literally shut up.

[G__Deane]

Playing for the greatest franchise in the NBA + be "the man" on the team. Yes i would.

LeBron is getting up there in age. If Kawhi signs with the Lakers he's going to be the go to scorer ther e in the clutch.

lebron will defer to another shooter in the clutch the day he dies lol, maybe after

[MACK11]

Greg Monroe is a solid third center. Literally shut up.

Go fuck yourself. Don’t ever tell me what the fuck to say


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[G__Deane]

everyone shitting on nurse’s play call as if he drew up a fadeaway contested three is pretty hilarious. the only play call there was to have whoever harden was guarding set a screen up top for kawhi, knowing the rockets switch absolutely everything all of the time, to isolate our best player against their worst defender on the floor. i’m sure he would have told him to create the best shot he could for himself or for others, whether that be a two or a three, but not to leave too much time on the clock.

you’re not going to run some crazy play with multiple screens being set and mis-directions as if there are 2 seconds on the clock because you don’t want to give houston the ball back with time if you score.

the only hitch in the plan is that harden played great defense (which he’s always been capable of - he was one of OKCs best defenders until he started playing a bigger role on offense) and kawhi did a pretty poor job. he was bumbling the ball on his drives all game.

but i have no issue with the call and most coaches would have done the same i suspect.

FINALLY some sanity amongst the hysteria. Do fans actually think Nurse drew up a contested fadeaway 3 pointer as the final play? Kawhi broke in and Harden cut him off. I would have sooner seen a corner 3 from Green but it didn't happen. Off to Dallas where there's another load of a C to deal with without JV

[Mitchell Duong]

I'm coming around to the conspiracy theory that Kyle is purposely sabatoging games when Kawhi is playing.

[G__Deane]

Nurse: "It wasn't a timing thing, we just didn't get to where we wanted to be" for the last shot
and
"Kawhi probably shot half the free throws that he should have shot"

[JimiCliff]

I'm coming around to the conspiracy theory that Kyle is purposely sabatoging games when Kawhi is playing.

Something bizarre is going on. We've seen him douche his way through an entire season before, way back in his first season when he began as the starter, got injured, Jose took his place, the team started winning, Colangelo publicly said 'we need to be moving the ball like this all the time', Kyle came back, and for the rest of the season played like, 'fine, we're moving the ball now? Then that's all I'm going to do.'

Zach Lowe isn't a conspiracy theory guy, and he never, ever says things just to generate clicks or stir the pot. (He's basically the anti Skip Bayless.) For him to write in a column:

Lowry is going out of his way to defer to Leonard, to the point that you wonder if he is following some organizational fiat or throwing a mini-tantrum -- or both.

http://www.espn.com/nba/story/_/id/2...-reserve-picks

...is pretty damning.

[JimiCliff]

I'll bet Masai and Bobby are trying everything to figure out a way to move Lowry for Mike Conley.

[inthepaint]

everyone shitting on nurse’s play call as if he drew up a fadeaway contested three is pretty hilarious. the only play call there was to have whoever harden was guarding set a screen up top for kawhi, knowing the rockets switch absolutely everything all of the time, to isolate our best player against their worst defender on the floor. i’m sure he would have told him to create the best shot he could for himself or for others, whether that be a two or a three, but not to leave too much time on the clock.

you’re not going to run some crazy play with multiple screens being set and mis-directions as if there are 2 seconds on the clock because you don’t want to give houston the ball back with time if you score.

the only hitch in the plan is that harden played great defense (which he’s always been capable of - he was one of OKCs best defenders until he started playing a bigger role on offense) and kawhi did a pretty poor job. he was bumbling the ball on his drives all game.

but i have no issue with the call and most coaches would have done the same i suspect.

Disagree. Yes, Nurse did not "draw" a fadeway 3, but the player movement on the offence could have led to a better shot. It was too static. Just telling whoever is guarding Harden to go set the screen for a switch is too simplistic, if that's indeed what happened. The screen should have been set by someone with the ability to roll well towards the paint (usually a big like Ibaka or Siakam), to keep an outlet pass to the big in play and the defence honest, even if the goal was a Kawhi ISO.

With the threat of roll, help defenders originally stationed on the corner shooters tend to move inside to help, opening up the corner 3. We've seen several times this season Ibaka (and sometimes Siakam) pass from the post to the corner when the paint is collapsed. Quick baseline back cuts from an off ball screen by a wing can also be in play, seen GSW run that in the clutch several times when the defence is focused on a Durant ISO or a corner 3. When you have 15+ secs on the clock, you can afford to keep the defence guessing. If you wanna run an ISO fine, but don't do it like everyone else on the team is out of the building.

And sure, you don't want to leave time for Houston to get the last shot but at the same time, if you dribble up to the last second, now you're up against the defender and the clock. To me on you get on it sooner so you can get a more comfortable shot AND have a chance for an offence board/tip in. If Houston gets the ball back with the game tied and 2 or 3 secs left, you live with it. They would have to inbound it from their baseline so you do a full court press on D, and let them hoist a poor shot against the clock, not you. It was a dull, ineffective, predictable, and uncreative play at the end, there's no way around it. Even Kawhi himself said before that in late games they need more movement.

The silver lining is the more they find themselves in these clutch situations in the regular season, the better they'll be at it in the playoffs.

[JimiCliff]

I don't have a problem with the final play last night. The team's execution was brutal all night. They weren't playing together. I wouldn't have trusted them to pull off anything complicated. Plus, Houston defended that pick and roll perfectly. Kudos to them.

[MACK11]

I’m noticing the same things about Lowry as y’all have. I’m not saying he’s sabotaging the team but he plays way different when Kawhi is there vs when he isn’t


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[Superjudge]

Go fuck yourself. Don’t ever tell me what the fuck to say


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Literally.