Introducing a new Rockets blog: film studies on the defense

Well written analysis and good use of stats and facts to break things down. Also a great eye for detail and understanding the roles of each player during defensive assignments. Enjoyed the Lakers game writeup. Great job.

 

Well done Nathan.

The Rockets defense I believe becomes less effective the longer a team goes against it and becomes more familiar. The reasoning being that there are areas to exploit. Robert Covington will make a big difference with his length and IQ. The Rockets will now have two top end defenders on the floor most of the night....... a lot of it is going to come down to effort.

 

This blog is excellent! Everyone should take a look.

 

I'm not worried about defense as much as I'm worried about defensive rebounding. We better be able to get some rebounds and limit opposing teams attempts.

 

Nice.....but consider the name, “Rockets and Bongo Juice.”

 

The whole thing with rebounding.. we're going to get murdered and I think that's simply unavoidable, but they still have to put in the effort to minimize the gap.

 

Loved "Tea and Rockets" as a play on tea and crumpets.

And Nathan is right, the post entry pass is a dying artform in this era. So teams may want to post up the Rockets but not many have the post players and/or skilled entry passers to pull it off.

Excellent write up and looking forward to analysis on Jazz/Gobert vs. Rockets D.

 

Nicely done sir. Will definitely do a deep dive later, but a kudos the effort.

 

Awesome Job man!

 

And I agree that House struggles defending bigs on PnR/slip screens.

Just not long enough to recover or strong enough to push the screener to the other defender.

 

I’ve said it for years. You can read my posts from years back..

And I know the title is from tea and crumpets. Just razzing Nathan. London sells in London.....not so well here.
But to each their own. Rockets and Bongo Juice sells better here, but not so much in London.

 

Our defense will get smoked by good interior passing from the opponents bigs. Mike D is betting that bigs don’t have enough experience in that territory with nearly all of them being pnr or pnp exclusively these days.

 

This is true since the post up and isolation plays are two of the least effective plays in offense as regards to efficiency.

It takes the threat of good outside shooting at a couple of spots on the 3-pt line and good penetration drive scorers
in order to improve the efficiency of these play types. Rockets seem to prefer having their scoring penetrators with
their face to the basket with momentum. Back to the basket post ups are not really their thing. Many coaches believe
in setting screens which allow their player access going to the rim rather than headed away from the rim.

Going by offensive play types from NBA.com: (in ranking of some key players having a high NBA percentile
https://stats.nba.com/players/playtype-post-up/

Post Ups (play types)
Player......................poss.......freq..........ppp..........FGM......FGA.......FG%..............NBA percentile
Embiid.........................8.2........35.7%........1.12..........2.5.........5.2.........52.4%....................91.0
Dwight Howard..........0.6........9.3%...........1.11....................................77.8%....................89.7
Doncic..........................0.9.......3.2%..........1.10......................................48.6%....................89.0
Brook Lopez.................1.8.......15.8%........1.08......................................57.3%....................86.2
Jokic...............................4.8........24.1%........1.06......................................57.3%....................83.4
Middleton......................1.7.......................................................................58.7%.....................82.1
Gallinari.........................2.4........................................................................45.6%.....................80.7
LeBron..........................2.6.........................................................................55.2%....................78.3
Kanter............................1.8.........................................................................52.9%...................78.3
Montrezl.........................3.2........................................................................48.4%...................73.1
Kawhi.............................2.8.........................................................................47.7%...................71.7


Anthony Davis................5.7.......................................................................45.5%...................48.3
Antetokounmpo..............3.2.......................................................................57.4%...................60.7


Note the low number of possessions of each player.......then note Harden/Westbrook possessions in isolation
which offsets the post up plays of the “mostly” top dog of the most proficient players of post ups.

Isolation
Player...............................poss........freq.........ppp........FGM........FGA.........FG%........NBA percentile
Harden..............................14.5.........45.8%.....................7.0...........11.8.........40.3%...............89.7
Westbrook.........................7.4...........25.0%.....................3.5...........6.2...........42.7%...............55.1

Rockets philosophy is tempting the opposition to try post up plays much like the GS Warriors would do since 14/15
season......using the length of Klay/Iggy/Dray/Harrison Barnes/Durant/Livingston over the years in a wolf pack
type defense. Being disruptive while sandwiching the post up player by fronting and backing the player strategically.

Lakers said their eyes got huge seeing the short Rockets team and force feed AD too much in the Covington
first game. They should have abandoned it much sooner since the results were not nearly as good as they had
hoped. It’s a Venus flytrap going against the Rockets length and cunningness of Tucker/House/Covington/Jeff Green/
DeMarre/ [Harden (interior defender)]........and Westbrook/Rivers/Eric Gordon/Ben Mc freelancing between inside
and perimeter ranges.

Rockets will win the championship this year barring injuries.

 

Some terrific analysis and just a pleasure to read. Those two items frequently don't go hand in hand, so kudos are in order. More, please!

 

jeff green can hold ad and minimize his production.

 

awesome!
looking forward to more analysis on postseason games in the bubble.

p.s. dunt know why content of the website which is built by WIX loading very very slow....even though WIX is the best in the market. i dunt know other ppl got the same problem or not.

 

Review rockets versus Celtics February 29.

I call like I see it, so it's no agenda with me, only facts!