I agree with that but only because there was just McHale to compare. We didn't get Adelman in his coaching prime though. We got him towards his retirement.
I literally just woke up from a dream where I was playing on the Rockets. The court was incredibly vast without the usual boundaries. An errant pass was thrown out of bounds by the opposing team, and as James was slowly walking to get the ball, I sprinted for it so he didn’t have to expend extra energy. The ball would have rolled like, a mile if I hadn’t run for it. I pass the ball into James, and he proceeds to walk the ball up. As he walks it up, I say, “why can’t we score?”. He looks at me and says, point blank, “we can’t shoot”. The dream ends that possession with James launching a shot from a comically far distance, the ball bricking off the back of the rim, flying up into the air, and then coming down and bricking off the rim again before it’s rebounded by the other team. So there you have it, directly from the MVP himself. We can’t shoot.
I loved our offense during the Adelman years, especially the 08-09 season when Tmac hardly played. Tmac was resistant to Adelmans offense. Even the years of mediocrity, with Hayes our center and Martin as our primary scorer, the offense was fun to watch.
fwiw: We were two teams last year, with two distinct Pace numbers. Mid January (roughly pre-PJ starting) and after (when we went 28-1 / 32-2 or so). The first half we were near the top, and the second half we were last. So, you are comparing our numbers this year to our average....not the championship team we ended up being. Take at look at Pace adjustment we made mid-season last something. Compare those two numbers to this year. The drastic, signature change happened from around the time Anderson got injured or just prior. Mid to Late Jan -- when we settled into our rotation and the 28-1 / 32-2 streaks happened. That Portland comeback was a landmark game as I recall. I'd guess you could measure from that Portland game. anyhoot: I've run those numbers before, there is a significant drop off ... such that we really did have two Paces last year. Good point. Essentially, if the opposition actually plays faster against us than they did last year, then the only way our game pace can be the same as last year is that we drag the opposition down, which means our part of the game play is slower than last year. two points though: We have increased pace from last year, if you measure against the Rockets Pace number in 2nd half of the season. keep in mind, we changed last year. First half we were fast. Second half we were slow. So our average for the year was higher that the team we ended up being. From mid to late Jan? on, we went ultra slow, and we something like the 3rd slowest pace for the last 30-some games going something like 28-1/32-2 at one point. So, it stands to reason this year we would match the pace of the second half of the season and the playoffs, so play at the 28-1 Pace. Your point also assumes the game pace isn't the same simply because we are good at controlling the tempo of the whole game (via our defense). I think the affect you describe, means we are running out our slower (championship) pace last year...that is, #1. So, even with your point that the opponents would pull up the Game Pace, they are pulling it up to our season *average* last year. Of course, the rules changes does have an independent and artificial effect on increasing pace, so that might be the cause of the game pace increasing against us, despite our ability to control it.
I am saying that since the rest of the opponents are playing faster, the Rockets should have higher pace than last season simply by virtue of their opponent's speed. But they don't. That means they are actually playing slower than last season so that the pace is pulled down to last year's average. Unless I am mistaken about how pace is calculated. The pace of each game is the average speed of the two teams (roughly, # total possessions / 2). So if the opponent is playing faster, the Rockets have to be playing slower to lower the number of possessions. If the pace of the Rockets is the same as last season while the the opponents are playing faster, that means the Rockets are playing slower than last season. Does that make sense? edit: I just read heypartner's post. He made the point much better than I did.
The pace of the game affects both teams. You cant have one team play a fast pace and the opponent play a slow pace in the same game. One of the teams is going to force their preferred pace or the resulting pace will be somewhere in the middle. If we are playing at the same pace as last year (full season avg), then our pace is the same. We are forcing teams to play at our pace, even though they'd prefer to play faster. We aren't playing slower than last year, it's pretty much the same. We are playing slower compared to the other teams in the league. As for HPs point about the pace changing during last season, that may be true (I haven't checked). If his point is true, then it means that we are actually playing faster than we did at the end of last season. I realize that my explanation isnt very good. The key point that I think that you are missing is that teams arent playing faster against us this year. They may want to and they are doing it in their other games. Against us, we are making them slow down.
I think I understand your point and I don't know the answer without actually knowing exactly how each or the Rockets games went. My assumption is that in a game, both teams do not have to play at the same speed. The offense mostly controls the pace. For example, if Team A averages only 12 seconds per possession, while Team B averages 20 seconds. The statistical "pace" will look like both teams play at 16 seconds per possession even though one team is playing much slower than that. Let say Team A is the opponent and Team B is the Rockets. Last season Team A's average speed was 14 sec per possession while Team B's average was 18 s/p so Team B got 16 s/p in the stat sheet. This season, Team A's speed goes up to 12 s/p and Team B's pace is still the same, then Team B's speed this season has to be 20 s/p which is slower than last season even though the pace number is the same. I acknowledge you point that playing speed is not totally independent of the opponent. If the opponent plays faster, you tend to play faster too, and vice versa. That's what it means by "controlling the pace." My contention is that controlling the pace is also not absolute. It is possible that one team plays at its own pace regardless of how the opponent plays. The reality is probably somewhere in between.
Stephens has struggled to get a good offense out his Kyrie led teams so far. Injury to Kyrie and Hayward last season, yes, but 18th on Ortg last season and 26th so far this season. That has been interesting. D’Antoni had more dynamics to his offense in Phoenix. Harden is a great iso player, and he is big and can force his way to the basket, so I get it, and he’s also great in the pick and roll, but I don’t think Paul should be used in iso as much. Is he good in iso? Yes, but to me he just expends too much energy in isolation, and he’s so excellent in the pick and roll through his career without always trying to force switches on bigs (but doing it when it is a good matchup), that he should be used more like Nash was in the pick and roll. Even Harden sometimes spends so much energy isolating, and basically how they get rest is by standing around when the other guy is isolating. I don’t know, I think you can still play to their strengths but also give them some sets that will make their life easier. The high horns with the Clippers was a great set for Paul, both the 4 and 5 screen and then he can choose which way to attack, and it was a great way to get him separation from his defender. Simple play, nothing complicated about it, to me it is something you use for a guy like him. That was actually the Spurs killer, they would put Kawhi or Green on him, and he would easily shed them with that set. Paul doesn’t have the burst of speed of his youth or the size of other guys to just shoot over people or play bully ball. I don’t think you should over-exert on offense and then tire yourself out more than needed for the other end. Even Harden could benefit from the play, especially come post season when you have an annoying individual defender you want to shed:
Pace is based on the number of possessions and possessions alternate. Your possession can take 10 seconds and your opponents possession can take 24 seconds, but it's still 1 possession each. You also cant assume that just because a team has a faster overall pace then that means that their possession times are the same for every team. Sounds like your focusing on Time of possession rather than pace. Those are different things.
Pace and time of possession will obviously intersect. The longer each team takes per possession, the fewer possessions there will be. If you play at a slow pace, but your opponents play fast, you will end up having a couple extra possessions even if it is not your ideal method. Most teams are playing faster than the Rockets, and the Rockets current pace is probably even being boosted slightly by the pace of their opponents as the Rockets have been slowing down since last season. The Rockets season pace last season didn’t even really reflect how they played most of the 2nd part of the season.
I actually dont understand why they dont run Horns more? Maybe they ran the numbers and it wasnt an efficient play? I remember reading an article about Paul trying to fit in the Rockets and how he wouldnt call certain sets.
Yes. And since we are talking about the Rockets' style of offense, isn't time of possession more relevant than pace? Pace involves both sides while time of possession focuses on a team's offense.
Easy's point is you can't really say "we are making them (opponent offense) slow down." Because, if you say that, then why can't we also say that the opponents are making us speed up? but even that is missing the point. Point is: each offense can run through their shot clock at different rates. For simplicity's sake, let's say I always end my possession with 5 seconds left, and the opponent always run their possession in 7 Seconds or Less -- ie. Polar Opposite offensive speed. And then we face each other in a game. Who's to say who is affecting the other team's game the most. Are we slowing them down, or are they controlling the tempo and speeding us up? The Final stat is a combined effort, so no one is necessarily controlling the tempo. We would have to find stats of how fast each offense actually went through their possessions....to see if one slowed down or sped up. bottomline: we are most definitely sped up from our actual team last year....the season average is a wrong indicator of who we are. So, we have either sped up because (@Easy's point) neither team is affecting the others tempo at all, but our opponents all operate faster in their shot clock (vs last year's opponents), while we stay the same. And/Or the artificial contribution to Pace caused by the Rules changes (more fouls and less seconds on second chance points) is pushing us up.
I’m not sure, I think it would be a great addition for the Rockets, Tucker/Capela in horns with Paul just playing his game and forgetting about the 3PT/paint mandate for his own shot selection. You have one guy rolling, one guy popping out to three, it’s a difficult play to guard with a dynamic ball handler. He’s efficient enough from mid-range and overall that he really didn’t need to change his shot selection. I don’t think the bench has good enough screeners at the moment to make it as good a play with that group, with Nene, sure, but Melo/Hartenstein, meh...
Bro, I think we need to start a campaign to bring horns to the starting lineup haha. You are exactly right. I think its time. I think it would really open up Chris Paul in the offense. And he'd become a little more dominant like we need him to.
as long as we have Harden, its always gonna be iso, it the same system with Mcfail i don't see major change at all.
not the same system. For starters, Howard never ran PnRs. D'Antoni's offense is predicated on PnR. We are soooo good at PnR (in a plethora of versions -- 2 man PnR, 3 man PnR from Horns, 3 Man from Spain PnR, Double Drags, side-line PnR, out of Pistol, etc), that nearly all opponents have been forced to switch it, thus Harden is in ISO against a big. Main difference in ISO of McHale era vs MDA is this: McHale ISO'd Harden without first doing anything else, thus it was Harden against his primary defender. MDA's primary offense is PnR, so Harden first cycles through PnR options before settling on ISO. And those ISO's are versus a switch (primarily), thus we/Harden dictate the defender, not the defense (as with McHale's limited PnR offense -- thx to Dwight).
