Mike D'Antoni: "do what we do harder, better, longer"

Posted: October 29, 2018 -- 9:14 a.m.

After Friday's 133-113 loss to the L.A. Clippers, Rockets' Head Coach Mike D'Antoni mentioned during his postgame press conference, he and his coaching staff would watch the film to see if the Rockets should switch less on defense. D'Antoni said, "We' can't guard on the perimeter. It looks like."

Sunday, before practice, D'Antoni said the Rockets would not switch less on defense.

"No. No. Because that's not our problem," D'Antoni said. "We showed them (the players) numbers; looking at the film; that's not our problem."

D'Antoni says his postgame comments were due to his adrenaline rush after the game.

"Well, I said that. I said. Like I told you, especially after the game, I've got too much adrenaline going."

"We always tweak everything; but, what it comes down to: we gotta do what we do harder, better, longer. I used that phrase last year a lot of times; and, we gotta do it now.

"It's complicated with James (Harden) being out; Chris (Paul) being out before; James Ennis. We've got rookies playing that we've never had that before. And, so, we've just got to do a better job of what we do. Tweak it when we need to tweak; and, we'll find that going forward. But, you don't know when to tweak something if you're not playing hard enough. Not hard enough. But, good enough.

"Doing the right things. Rotations. We were hesitating maybe because we don't know. Not because we don't want to that we were a little bit slow reacting."

Rockets forward Carmelo Anthony said the Rockets' issues on defense are correctable.

"Just small things on the defensive end: lack of communication; not talking; being in the wrong spots at the wrong time," said Melo. "Some of those things are very correctable. We will correct them."

Gerald Green added: "We're not communicating on the floor, on the defensive end, like we should."

Through five games, per Basketball-Reference.com, the Rockets' rank 26th (out of 30) in points allowed per game (118. ppg) and 28th in defensive rating (116.9 points allowed per 100 possession).

The Rockets host the Portland Trail Blazers Tuesday, October 30. Tip time is set for 7 p.m. The Blazers, per Basketball-Reference.com, rank 2nd in scoring averaging 122.4 ppg and 3rd in offensive rating with 117.9. The Blazers rank 21st in points allowed per game (117.2 ppg) and 20th in defensive rating (112.8).

CLICK HERE for Rockets' news and information.