Silas thinks defense will improve with time
Rockets coach Stephen
Silas said the team’s seemingly slow-footed defensive play in recent weeks could come from the inexperience that makes them slow to recognize what needs to be done, rather than a lack of effort to do it.
“The more they do it, the better they’ll get at it,” Silas said before Sunday’s game with the Rockets 29th defensively. “We’re at the point we’re trying to get them to where they’re recognizing things that are coming. If you watch us a lot, most people would say, ‘Yeah, there’s a lot of times they don’t recognize things because they’ve never seen them before.’
“Just wait until Jalen
Green can recognize everything that’s happening on the floor and then can use his gifts to go from stop to go so quickly and beat someone to the spot because he knows where they’re going to be or recognizing a set that he’s seen time after time after time. ‘Oh, OK, here it comes.’ Those times are going to come. We got to go through it. At times, it’s not going to look great as we’re building it, but we’re going to get there.”
Silas said that makes practice days such as Saturday so valuable, almost always concentrating nearly exclusively on the defense.
“We just learn from it,” he said. “We’re a young group and we haven’t been together long. We understand there’s going to be mistakes made. Hopefully, those mistakes as we go through, as we learn, as we watch film, as we practice, as we do shootaround, the mistakes will be minimized.
“(Saturday) we went through basic pick-and-roll protection stuff. We understand where we are as a group. We didn’t expect that we were just going to come out here and be a great defensive team, especially when it comes to schematically. Now, the effort part is something that each individual guy has to pay attention to, and me, as a head coach, has to make sure the guys are doing what they have to do when it comes to the effort and the try.”
3 starters likely to play vs. 76ers
After many games in which Rockets guards have missed at least one game when the Rockets have played on consecutive nights, Silas said he expects to have Eric Gordon,
Green and Kevin Porter Jr. available to play the 76ers on Monday.
There would be no need to limit playing time in the first game of the back-toback, he said, because he already is trying to keep the playing time from getting too great.
“For everybody, I’m trying not to get their minutes into the high 30s,” Silas said. “I’m trying to get everybody in the low 30s, or even less than that, every game. With the backto-back coming, it doesn’t make any difference.” Rockets guard/forward
Garrison Mathews, who was listed as questionable to pla Sunday with a sprained ankle, was cleared to play Sunday.
Edwards a good model for Green
As much as the Rockets would love to see Green progress in the second half of his rookie season the way the Timberwolves’
Anthony Edwards did as a rookie last season, Timberwolves coach Chris Finch said he already sees some similarities in their growth.
“I understand the key is for their growth and development, settling in to who they are,” Finch said Sunday before the Rockets completed the first half of their season against the same team they faced to begin the season. “You can see he’s getting to his spots better.
“A lot of guys think they can make these tough shots all the time. They can make them once in a while, but they’re harder to live on. That’s the challenge of playing those guys. How much rope do you give them, particularly in a lot of systems now where there’s a lot of freedom? Really dial in on their shot selection, I think, is key for their growth.”
Ink the first half of his rookie season, Edwards made 37.1 percent of his shots and 30.2 percent of his 3-pointers, averaging 14.9 points per game. He made 45.4 percent of attempts, 34.9 percent of his 3s the rest of the season.
In the seven games since Green returned from his hamstring injury going into Sunday’s game, he had averaged 19.3 points on 45.1 percent shooting. He had averaged 14 points on 38.2 percent shooting in his first 18 games.
“When we first came on board (Feb. 22, 2021), it was just basically getting Ant to take shots he was really good at and less of the ones that were challenging and then building up from there,” Finch said of Edwards, who is averaging 22.3 points on 44.2 percent shooting in his second season.
“He’s super committed to the shots he’s taking. Maybe at times he’s been unsure to step into a shot or shoot the ball on the catch, which would lend itself to a lot of long dribble isos, which oftentimes became even harder shots. Those are downs, even though his off-the-dribble 3 is his most comfortable rhythm. It’s how you get to that off-the-dribble 3. He’s getting to them in the flow of the offense, and he’s getting right to them.”