Hoopshabit compares Rockets to the 2000's Oakland A's

Analytics has its problems, but it is simply part of all sports now. It's The Rockets rely most heavily on it because we have a talent gap compared to GS. We are better than them in analytics. What else are we going to bet on?

Can we improve? Of course. A weakness of analytics is its reliance on prior data. That means it has trouble when confronted with new strategies and unorthodox styles of play, both of which have plagued our playoff experiences. We can be better there but figuring out how is the big question, which itself will almost certainly need analytics as well.

 

I wanna address one point made in the article

"The answer is probably yes; if Houston’s shortcomings truly lied in their offensive rigidity, then they would’ve lost in the first round to the Utah Jazz, a team that moves the ball around just as much as the Warriors do."

I don't agree with this at all , and think that saying it is a bit disingenuous .

Warriors talent does not equal the jazz talent
Our talent doesn't equal the jazz talent .

We could have schematic flaws that the jazz can't exploit because their talent isn't good enough .

Furthermore , it took mutliple games for the jazz players to lock in and execute their scheme effectively . Once they did , harden production went way down and other teammates struggled to pick up the slack

The reason we won the jazz series in 5 was defense.

Also he cited Utah's basketball movement when talking about our "offensive rigidities" what does utah's offense have to do with stopping our offense ?

Our defense against the warriors was pretty damn good 99% of the series . They did kill us at the end of game 6 . But the fact that our offense kept going cold is what let GS stick around to kill us in the end

 

You may have a point about the Jazz series but the Jazz defense would do that to almost all teams, not just ours. And looking at the stats for our series agaisnt GS it was definitely our defense that did us in. Specifically rebounding.

 

Yeah . Finishing the defensive possession with a board was our biggest weakness all year