Rockets are 29th in PACE this year. They were 13th last year. The were 3rd the year before. A disappointing 6 game meltdown vs. the Spurs, but a pretty successful team as well. I don't think the prior years are comparable as its different teams with a different coach. But they still had Harden and always were top 7. In fact Harden's first year with the team, they were 1st in PACE. But again, I'll focus on the MDA squads. Notwithstanding the fact that they have more problems defensively than offensively, and increasing PACE may not necessarily fix that... it might help. I'm not sure why they've slowed down PACE so much this year. There is an aspect of the rest of the league playing faster. Rockets were at 97.6 possession per game last year, and are down to 96 this year. Not a crazy huge drop, but a decent drop nonetheless. These are bball reference #s. NBA numbers show a similar decline. And indeed per NBA, there are currently 10 teams playing at a faster PACE than the number 1 team last year. I think they've gone past the point of diminishing returns on PACE. With the defenses adjusting as well, they are clearly dribble, dribble, dribbling their way into less efficient shots and turnovers, which is the exact opposite of the improvements we saw year, where slightly slowing down the PACE from the previous season lowered turnovers and doubled-down on efficiency by ensuring everyone was in the right spot and ready to fire. In a league with limited practice time, on a team that doesn't have an infusion of talent coming anytime soon, I wonder if it can be as simple as MDA, staff and team just making a concerted effort to increase the PACE.
Increase the pace = Rockets will be last in defensive efficiency. Chris Paul can't play defense any more! He slows the pace.
Rockets are the oldest team in the league, and we already got Harden playing 36 mpg (3rd in the league), Tucker at 35, Clint at 34, CP3 at 34, and Gordon at 33 with pretty much nothing off the bench because of our glaring lack of depth How fast can these dudes play, and how long would they be able to keep it up?
the depth is already as thin as can be. Isn't one of the excuses guys are tired as is already. I'm all for picking up the pace but that also comes with getting better established rotational players that can contribute more nights than not in the process. Guys that are not just bodies on the floor and whether or not you know if they are going to be nightly contributors to winning.
I just don't see "pace" as a big issue. Sure a faster pace could help in some areas. But it is lower on my issue scale. And to be frank, as the playoffs come around pace tends to lessen anyway. The bigger issue to me is better defense and better rebounding.
They're obviously thin. That said, despite the minutes played, the distance and speed traveled their not leading the league. They play a lot of minutes but don't actually "run" a lot, relative to that. Just food for thought.
Last season, we were proud to bring the ISO game back to the NBA. Turns out that it wasn't really a trend setter. Teams just didn't have time to adjust to us.
fwiw: Near around when they began starting PJ Tucker, (run the stats results from that Portland win on), the Rockets were near last in Pace; wrt Pace, we were two different teams last year, after a big change. The slower Pace included our 28-1 run, and 33-2, and included all the playoff games. Check it out
Without dealing at least 2 future Firsts for defenders, this team could miss the playoffs with 3rd highest payroll in the west. Tank tomorrow for today!
Well a point to consider. They aren't going to magically get better at defense and rebounding.... imo. Obviously roster moves can change that. So my point is more of... they AREN'T GOOD THIS YEAR. Theoretically, I'd say when you suck at rebounding and defense and are still efficient offensively, slow down the pace and see if that helps. But they are already very slow on pace... with this squad, to me, past the point of positive returns. So when EG says this isn't fun, it's because the league has adjusted to them, their pace and this roster, while they've gotten even slower and worse role player wise, and EG isn't as good. Ennis just doesn't excel in 3&D super slow pace. You can just see it. So a question is, for THIS squad, this year, is it worth trying to pick up the pace?
I’m just wondering how much they’d be able to increase the pace, and how long they’d be able to keep it up...like I can’t see them going from 29th or 30th in pace to out of the bottom 10...I personally don’t have pace near the top of my biggest concerns
to me the chemistry of the team is way off, CP3 is noticeably worse than he was last year, Harden isn’t quite as good as he was last year, the team is not nearly as deep, the defense (defensive efficiency has gone from 7th to 26th) and rebounding (defensive rebounding percentage has gone from 4th to 29th) have fallen off tremendously like @Deuce has been pointing out, and the league has had a year to scout what we do...all that has resulted in the record that we have now
Our offense was flourishing the first year under MDA and it turned to garbage on the playoffs last year tbh. Our defense saved us from GSW Now we can't play defense, we should go back to 7 seconds or less. What do we have to lose, what's the difference between harden chucking a step back 3 with nothing left on the clock and him chucking it with 20 seconds on the clock. Too bad we so stretched so thin that we don't have the stamina to do it
We do need to increase pace. The winning with the pace last year was a statistical anomaly. Good teams should want to play as fast as possible. More possessions=lower variance. However, this just isn't a good team and the rest of the league is incorporating most of what gave us an advantage. The rest of the league keeps shooting more 3s each year and play faster each year. We can't slow walk and iso our way to wins shooting mediocre or worse from 3 anymore just because we take a bunch of them. But it's not just pace even though I've been on this since last year. We are falling apart everywhere.
