Do any of the Houston Rockets staff/coaches/assistants read this board?

As if Lin is the only player to bounce around the league. Bev was playing in Russia! All these international players . . . talk about adjustments! Lots of players switch teams and even leagues. Quit being so Jeremy-centric.

 

Hi, can you make a thread in the NBA forum about your analytical and build models as it pertains to sports betting? Many other degenerate gamblers on the site like myself. You would be a welcome addition and your knowledge could help us all prosper. :grin:

 

I'm an assistant coach. You're all idiots. I only lurk here for the photoshop threads and boob & ass threads in the Hangout section.

 

I'd be very surprised if Rockets' employees haven't sometimes posted, whether they are supposed to or not.

 

To foul or not to foul at the end of games isn't as obvious as you make it out to be. Many coaches don't foul late in games with a 3 point lead other coaches absolutely believe in it.

Here's a good article from the NYTimes on the debate about whether to foul or not. Woodson, Nate McMillen, SVG, Jerry Sloan and Larry Brown don't like to foul. Doc Rivers and Rick Carslile prefer to take the foul.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/22/sports/basketball/22fouls.html?_r=1&

Every time the situation comes up Matt Bullard mentions that Rudy T. always chose to foul and Rick Adelman never fouled.

Popovich also chooses not to foul which led to this humorous quote from last year's finals:


Instead of answering why he didn't foul on Miami's final possession in regulation when two foul shots — instead of Allen's corner 3 — wouldn't have been enough, Popovich deflected that question, too.

"That's a European question, right?" he said. "They usually do in Italy. We don't."


http://www.startribune.com/nation/212108571.html

 

Not sure about this. If its a halfway decent shot, Harden almost always takes a 2 for 1, but very few other Rockets players are skilled enough to get a shot like that off when the defense is prepared for it. Lowry when with the Rockets ALWAYS shot the 2 for 1 even when contested. Two for ones have been pretty consistent since Morey took over years ago. Lowry really was our 2 for 1 All-star. It seems to me like you need certain players to really go for forced 2 for 1's.

If you have young players that need to score within your normal offensive sets, its probably a good idea to just run your sets normally to ensure you get one good shot as opposed to 2 bad ones. If the game is indicative of just getting the maximum amount of shots up, the Raptors would have killed the Rockets last night hands down. Quality of shot, and players taking shots outside of your offensive system IMO matters more than then number or shots you get up.

Bullard said last night that Morey had explained to him that in that situation there is about a 90% chance the player misses that shot at the buzzer, and about a 90% chance you win the game after fouling up three with under 10 seconds left. Not sure if Morey would back that up, or if Bullard was mis-interpreting something Morey told him.

McHale said post game that they went with the chance he misses a contested 3 with 6 seconds left because the Raptors were shooting such a low percentage during the game.

Also, he didn't mention this, but you'd have to think that they wanted to have Dwight in the game to secure a rebound off a missed 2nd free throw, and there was a good chance he would get fouled as soon as he grabbed the defensive rebound on the 2nd missed free throw. Dwight misses 2 free throw shots, and the Raptors have the ball back down 2 points with 3 - 4 seconds left on the clock.

Maybe computer models show that in that situation you should foul, but if you put a little traditional thinking into the equation, and see that the difference in analytical vs. traditional margin in this situation is very slim, its easy to see why they would just "go for the win" on defense by electing to guard the low percentage 3.


Anyways... I think these are pretty debatable topics, and shouldn't really be any indication that the Rockets are somehow lacking in the analytical thinking with their game strategies. You'd have to show me more definitive examples to make me think otherwise.

 

No offense necessary... I'm trying to understand as much as I can about the game outside of traditional thinking as possible. I'm very open to hearing new information that can help me understand the game better. I've played my entire life, and have done a little coaching here and there, but always want to learn if there is something that I'm missing.

However, I'm not sure why personnel doesn't matter in this particular case and many others. If not, why would the same coaching staff and FO instruct Lowry to jack up 2 for 1 threes, but not any of the current Rockets other than Harden? Personnel might not matter in Vegas, but obviously it shows that it does up in the Rockets front office.

How does it help a team winning NBA games to get 2 bad shots rather than 1 really good shot within a structured offense that in theory is getting subpar offensive players the best possible higher percentage shots? I understand the idea of maximizing possessions, but if you are getting nothing but bad possessions, is that really the best game-plan?

As for the Harden end of game conundrum.... (I think this is a completely separate topic, and hope it doesn't derail the thread)

Let me preface this by saying I'm not defending McHales end of game offense by any stretch. Just simply trying to give an explanation of what the thinking probably is when the coaches instruct the team to put Harden in late game ISO's (McHale has said that he is putting Harden in these situations in late game situations).

I believe the purpose here is to have confidence in Harden to read the offense first and make a judgement call on the best possible shot they can get. Gauge how the defense is playing against Hardens drive or shot, see how they are planning on rotating, and then either taking a 3 himself, passing the shot off to a corner for a catch and shoot opportunity, or if the situation looks ideal, drive to the lane to draw contact or make a lay-up. He's basically being given two options... taking a 3 or getting to the line/easy layup while always having at least 3 players out far enough to run back defensively in case of a miss.

I would say that the thinking here might actually be more focused on defense in the case of when they tend to get turnovers that lead to easy points for the other team. In a late game situation, I think they are literally trying to eat clock, NOT turn the ball over, and be able to get in their defense quickly if the shot doesn't fall. The Rockets are by nature a high turnover team within their normal offense. The absolute worst thing that can happen in a late game situation would be to turn the ball over, and give the opposing team an easy fast break bucket to win the game.

Again not defending this, just stating why I think the Harden late game Iso's happen, and as ugly as they might look, they might be the lesser of two evils. Ideally you'd like them to have some sort of go-to play that has proven to be efficient enough to run late in games. I think its all about preventing late game turnovers for easy buckets.

 

God I hope not.

 

For their to be no debate you have to provide some facts. Saying they should foul when up 3, is a valid, but not universally accepted strategy among other great coaches. It's not an arguement you are backing with any analytics at this point, it's just an opinion you are claiming is backed by analytics without sharing any of them. If there was truly "no debate" you should be able to easily prove why. I'm certainly not an expert on the field, but here is what I have found from people who have done research on the topic:

http://espn.go.com/blog/truehoop/post/_/id/6992/up-three-without-the-ball-to-foul-or-not-new-insight
Included in the article is this quote:

There are so many variables to consider, including the exact time left, does the other team have a time out, does the other team have one or more exceptional 3 point shooters? Do you trust all of your players to execute the foul before they get in the act of shooting? Is there enough time left where you intentionally foul, they make one, miss, and foul Dwight if they don't get the board, then get another chance? What is the odds of an offensive rebound when the whole team is crashing the boards rather than keeping someone back for defensive purposes?

So even after you figure out the odds overall for every NBA game under 10 seconds, considering the different players involved in every situation, the overall odds may not match the odds vs that team. The odds certainly are not 20% of hitting a game winning 3 as one of the articles by DePauw University Bill Fenlon coach suggests.


There is another study here that supports the idea that either strategy can result in disaster in any given situation as discussed here: http://kenpom.com/blog/index.php/weblog/entry/yet_another_study_about_fouling_when_up_3
He gives lots of examples of losses after fouling when up by 3 at the end of the article.
Excerpt from the article:

There is further support for the idea that neither strategy is significantly more successful in this Harvard Harvard Sports Analysis Collective article:

http://harvardsportsanalysis.wordpr...-points-the-first-comprehensive-cbb-analysis/

And finally I don't see any way that if it were "not up for debate" that Morey wouldn't know this already and have the Rocket's do it. No up for debate means it is easily proveable.

 

I am Ho Chen.

 

Two additional things that might be happening

1) they're trying to let Harden experience end of game situations to let him practice dealing with the tighter defensive pressure that exists at that moment. Say what you will of practice (PRACTICE? Lol, mr iverson), but you don't get the same sort of game intensity.

2) I'm not sure that ALL of the end of game isos are called by the coaches, McHale has complained too many times of stickiness that correlated to harden end of game isos for me to fully buy in to the fact that the isos are what the coaches want. Maybe one to test the defense, but not iso after iso when they're clearly prepared for it.

 

lol yeah

 

I wouldn't expect coaches to read this, at least not on their own. They probably only look at whatever is brought to their attention by someone else. Their job is strictly X's and O's, not fan reaction.

However, Morey reads it and I'm sure others do too.


As for your other question, there's no way the rockets are behind in analytics. they use to ALWAYS go 2 for one, so they definitely know the in game situations...however, our coaches haven't been analytics guys, so they probably go with their gut instinct a lot of the time or leave it up to their players.

 

Hopefully not.

 

Easy: Despite his defense being one of the main problems in some of the losses and close games, Harden still gives us our best chance at fighting back in the 4th quarter.

I agree! There should have been a ceremony when Lin was assigned his new role!

Seriously, are you saying that if McHale had made the announcement at the beginning of training camp (before he had experimented with various combinations), everything would be okay now and no fans would be upset about Lin being the 6th man?

 

That's funny considering the problems this team has deal with Harden and Howard. Lin has improved (although marginally) he has improved and taken whatever the coaching staff told him to do and done a pretty good job at it.

Howard still hasnt implemented anything hakeem taught him, bricks free throws and Harden looks like a primadonna chucker as of late.

 

Yes, yes they do.