Bucks, the second team to embrace Moreyball the most, also choking in the Playoffs

Yup then maybe they wouldn't need 6-7 games to beat a team in a lower tier of talent!

 

Seriously, someone tell them they should stop running plays, screens, etc. they need to jack up fade-away 3s and fish for fouls the whole game. Maybe then they’d realize what they’re doing wrong.

The truth doesn’t rest in the the eyes of every league executive, players and ex champions—the secret lies with Morey and his extensive basketball experience, as well as the professional posters here.

 

The raptors and warriors are also moneyball

 

I admit I didn’t watch the whole game, only the highlights, but it didn’t seem like Giannis was ever assigned to Kawhi defensively. I think that’s strange given how people talk up his defense. Am I right that Giannis stayed away from covering Kawhi?

 

Seriously, this is not a loaded question. I want to know why you think GS doesn't use our shot selection. You make a very compelling argument that our system let's us compete with them even though we have less talent. It would stand to reason that if they used our system they would just demolish everyone.

So why don't they change their system if it really could bring them even greater results? Do they know something Morey doesn't? Are they just failing to maximize their talent out of ignorance? I think they may have some stats that show them why spamming 3's isn't a good idea. I'm honestly curious what your take is though.

 

I think they don't want to hurt durants feelings by having curry and Klay outscore him

 

Bad example. The triangle offense is also predicated on player movement, backdoor cuts, offball screens, splits etc..The Rockets rarely do any this sir, no comparison

 

It'll be interesting to see how the Bucks fare this offseason. I wouldn't be surprised with major shake-ups. Middleton likely declines his player option because he's worth more than $13M. Lopez and Brogdon are coming off the books and they're worth more than their contracts. Mirotic is a FA too. Surprisingly, the Bucks payroll is more than the Rockets so they don't really have cap space. I'm no capologist but it'll be interesting to see how they handle it.

I think Lopez' ability to stretch the floor is huge for them so I bet they hope he comes back for cheap, but idk. George Hill is likely gone to save space. We'll see.

 

But that's what we are.

 

Any team with Kevin Durant on it is going to be low on that rating. Nobody would tell KD to play differently if he came here either, lol.

 

It’s like investing.

A person with less money wants more variance, so they can potential get rich.

A person with more money just wants to keep his fortune safe and live on 4% interest.

If you have more talent, taking fewer risks results in more wins over the long run.

If you have less talent, you can’t win without taking greater risk anyway, so you go for a high variance strategy.

It’s pretty simple. Different teams want to do different things based on their talent level.

 

Harden and Cp3 are allowed to take as many mid rangers as they want. Who should be shooting more? Tucker? Gordon? House? Green? If we're gonna be holding our breaths when those shots go up I'd rather they be worth 3 then 2.

 

What was the Rockets offensive rating against the Warriors?

 

Right they are a huge failure compared to their past 10 years or so.

 

Unless we actually make it all the way to the finals, he's not necessarily wrong. I don't think Bucks lost because of predictable offense. I think Giannis' game is limited and thus defense game plan against him.

 

The simple answer is because they can't.

The Rockets system is all about getting efficient shots. In most cases, that means shots at the rim, free throws and open three point shots. Notice that I said "open" three point shots? That's because contested threes aren't efficient shots.

The Rockets are the best in the league at generating a large number of efficient shots. Harden and CP3 can both drive and get to the rim. Harden also is great at drawing FTs. We are also elite at creating open 3 point shots.

Our ability to create open 3's is an advantage that we have over the Warriors. GS shoots the ball better than the Rockets, I don't think anyone will argue that. The great equalizer though it the fact that we can generate more open 3's. By generating a higher volume of open 3s, it evens out the difference in shooting. That's where the math comes in.

If Golden State could generate more open 3's then they would. They're an analytics based organization and they're smart enough to realize that it would be a huge advantage for them. The problem is that they don't really have the personel to create those open 3s at the same rate that the Rockets can with CP3 and Harden.

This past season, GS got 28.1 open 3s per game and shot 39.4% on those shots. In comparison, Houston got 36.4 open 3s/game and shot 36.6 on those shots.
Those 8 additional open 3s are a big equalizer.

Open 3s are hugely efficient because you're getting 50% more point per make than you get with 2 point shots. Shots at the rim have a very high fg% so the net result is that it's still efficient even though you're only getting 2 points per shot. Luckily, creating shots at the rim isn't the Warriors strong point either.

GS is by far the best shooting midrange team in the league by a wide margin and they take the 2nd most midrange shots in the league (behind SAS). Their problem is that they still only shoot 46.9% from midrange. By generating more open 3's the Rockets are effectively trading a 3point shot at 36.6% (equates to shooting 54.9% on two point shots) for a GSW midrange at 46.7%. That's where the math evens things out. The bigger the difference in the number of open 3 point attempts, the bigger the advantage for the Rockets.

So why doesn't everyone do the same thing? Because they don't have a Harden and CP3 to create all those open 3s along with a large number of drives and free throws. Having both those guys allows us to generate open 3s all game long. Harden's ability to create open shots for himself without the aid of a screen or an assist is unheard of. That ability allows Houston to spot up 4 guys behind the arc. Teams are going to have to double and triple Harden to prevent him from getting to the rim and that leaves 1 or 2 shooter open every possession.

Unfortunately, in game 6 we didn't continue to play physical with Curry and Thompson and we allowed them to get off a bunch of 3s. Not only didn't we have our normal advantage in the number of open 3s generated, the Warriors actually generated more open 3s than we did. In fact, Houston actually shot better than GS on those open 3s but the volume advantage wasn't there.

If Golden State had the ability to simply turn the game into a three point shooting contest then they would shoot a 3 on every possession and they wouldn't often lose. Luckily for the rest of the league, they can't create that many open 3s.

 

This is the best explanation I’ve seen so far.

 

Username with the word "Realist" in it thinks that a 4 seed losing to the all-time great and 1 seeded Warriors in 6 games with every single game being competitive in a historical and unprecedented way is "choking".

Okay then

 

While they are in conference finals, and rockets is the closest one that challenge warriors so far, so that's a pretty good strategy if we purely look at data