Four consecutive defeats, in which Ingram, Zion and CJ were not present. I thought it was a game for the Rockets that I had a chance to win, but I didn't expect it to be a disaster.
In a lost game, you will always find a variety of reasons. It seems to me today that Christian Wood, who sees himself as the team's top player, needs to be responsible for this game.
As an inside player, Wood only scored 8 points on 3-of-9 shooting in this game; as a spatial interior line, wood shot 2-of-0 from outside the three-point line, and both were three-not sticks; as a player who regarded himself as the core of the team, Wood scored -23 on this game, the lowest in the game.
Wood's efficiency in this field is also ridiculously low. In the first half, when Wood was on the floor, his offensive efficiency was 92.3, the lowest on the team; in the second half, when Wood was on the floor, his defensive efficiency was 141.2, which was still the lowest in the whole team.
Maybe friends who haven't watched the game will think: at least as a fifth position, Wood is qualified for 12 rebounds. Unfortunately, Wood's rebounding percentage in front of the court was only 8%, even lower than That of Shin Kyung and David Nuwaba, who played only 13 minutes and 52 seconds.
That said, Wood's rebounds are overwhelmingly much easier backcourt rebounds, and other than that, I don't see his positive help with the Rockets' interior rim.
Substituted into the game, Wood's disastrous performance in several stages directly led to the Rockets into an extremely passive situation.
1. The first quarter started with 10 minutes and 15 seconds.
After Varan had just faced Wood's mid-range hit, Wood chose a worse defensive position to block the defense. He chose to continue blocking Graham's bottom corner breakout line without Porter Jr. losing his defensive position at all, causing Varan to catch the ball and hit an easy three-point shot.
2. The first quarter is 6 minutes and 32 seconds.
The Pelicans still used the simplest one-five upper limit to block the demolition, and after Hernan Gomez completely blocked Porter Jr., Wood chose to step back two meters, and Graham was open in front of him, hitting a three-point shot.
The Pelicans' next offense still chose the same offensive approach, and Wood followed his defensive strategy, resulting in Graham hitting another three-pointer.
Before those two offensive and defensive attacks, the Rockets led 17-12 in the first half of the quarter. In just two offensive rounds, the situation took a sharp turn for the worse.
Another point of even more ironic is that Graham shot 6-of-2 from three-point range, and he also proved with practical actions that he is not a particularly top player with strong shooting ability.
If only the defensive end is wrong, only fifty percent of the power is wasted. On the offensive end, Wood still doesn't seem to recognize his job responsibilities, especially the quality of cover that the coach has stressed many times.
We say that the ultimate foothold of cover tactics is: when the opponent chooses to create an open shot or a direct attack on the frame after the defense, or to form a misalignment after changing defenses and use height or speed to play an attack.
But the defender and Wood's blocking and dismantling almost perfectly avoided all the above conditions, one is that The quality of Wood's blocking and dismantling is doubtful due to his physical condition, and the other is that Wood's intention to receive the ball after blocking and dismantling is too obvious. As a result, the Rockets guard's ability to dominate the ball at this stage cannot meet such a strict standard, and mistakes continue to occur.
After the middle of the first quarter, the Rockets and Pelicans went through a ten-minute glue period, and it was after Wood replaced Shin Kyung at 8 minutes and 15 seconds in the second quarter that this balance was broken.
During those eight minutes, the Rocket was hit 12:28 by the Pelicans. In this quarter, Varan scored 10 points and 2 rebounds on 5-of-7 shooting. The Pelicans shot 14-of-16 from the inside and shot 87.5 percent from the field.
One would say, how come you're so critical of Wood and don't look at Potter Jr.'s poor performance. The most fundamental reason is that the team has a different position for Porter and Wood.
Porter Jr. is valued by the team because of his static talent and the contract of the $3.84 million team option in the 22-23 season, in other words, he represents the team's desire for young talent, which means that Porter Jr. still has a lot of room for trial and error this season;
What about Wood? He was once considered the absolute core of the team in the post-Harden era, he was the team's largest free agent signing in the past two years, the 26-year-old Wood's technical play was close to taking shape, and the Rockets took him down for immediate combat.
If you have to argue every day about who and Woodby are the worst players on the team, does that mean wood has entered the countdown to leaving the team?
Perhaps, as Wood revealed after the game, he just felt physically weak and unpackaged in the first game of his return. I'd like to believe it's true, but I'm sorry, the article was already written by the time I saw this message.
The disappointment is real, and it's also true to wish he could punch him in the face like crazy, good luck.