I thought these quotes from today are more interesting than the Harden ones, and don't want them buried in another Harden love/hate fest thread or lost in the Rockets Twitter thread First quote: Interesting way to describe playing against D'Antoni offenses, presumably implying that it always helps to make teams go out of character. My take is McHale says MDA offensive pressure takes you out of a good defensive mindset and makes you try to match his offensive efficiency/OffRtg vs sticking to your defense to slow it down/DefRtg Works like the reverse of how guarding WB/Irving took Curry out of his offensive mindset by making him uncharacteristically feel pressure on defense Here, once again he talks glowingly if Brewer.
Greg Anthony who's been pretty critical of harden and the rockets as of late was surprisingly high on us on the NBA tv team preview, thinks we can win 50+ games if we're healthy. I say this because he said something that mchale said about MDA and his offense, in that you score at such a fast pace and in bunches that it actually makes your defense better because it forces the other team to play out of character and try and keep up by taking rushed shots and a lot more threes than they normally would. He said it was pretty much what the Warriors have done the past 2 years in that there defense actually gets a major boost because of there offense and the rockets could see a similar result. In the rockets case great offense might result in avg to maybe even good defense.
I'm starting to get a little excited about this coming season. It's very clear now that Dwight was a poor fit with the offense that Morey wanted to run. Not to mention that Morey failed to acquire any elite three point shooters. This season we at least have some players known for their scoring ability.
I tend to agree with McHale & Greg -- and I think the Warriors are indeed a perfect example. Every time they go on one of those mini-runs, you can set your watch by the opponent trying to match it by jacking up ill-advised 3s and taking hurried shots. It seems like an obvious trap, but so many teams (including us) fell into it and none had the firepower to back it up.
Best form of defense is offense. Score before they are set and you will have a game with more possessions and you will keep them on the back foot
Mchale is an idiot. Thoroughly impressed with D'Antoni's offense though. Honestly, this is where we should have been last year had Mchale and Bickerstaff not screwed us up!
Nice find. My opinion of McHale grew a lot during his tenure as a Rockets coach, but he did like Brewer too much (not that Morey gave him much to work with, though). MDA has talked about playing a short rotation. Not sure if Brewer makes it into MDA's rotation. Hoping one of the internal options steps forward as a good backup wing.
And that's actually McHale's point What he is saying is if running at high pace is not the opponent's game then they are taking the bait, and putting "offensive pressure" on themselves to uncharacteristically play 7-seconds or less, which they don't run and practice as much -- nor likely have the 3pt shooters and transition AND-1 players like Harden to maximize points in transition. In a nutshell, he's talking about controlling tempo. For instance, it is really stupid to try to run with the Warriors.
The way we are built, running is the only way we are going to play. I dont think trying to slow things down when we play the Warriors would help us win one bit. We would in fact be guilty of everything thats been said concerning baiting teams into playing a different style. Our pre-Harden teams often ran fast and scored fast also. We won more than our share of games that way. But when forced to play another way, we faltered.
I was using GSW as an example of McHale's point. The majority of NBA teams should not try to run with them. Let's not get on a tangent about whether the Rockets can or should try. The point is, you said "Unless your offense also allows your opponent to score before your set.", and GSW and Rockets are teams that what you to try that strategy ... because they will score more per transition possession than you.
One of the keys to a 7 second offense working without the drawback of giving the opponent easy offensive opportunities is to make your shots. Its pretty hard to get a fast break going after a made basket.
So, sounds like you are back to agreeing with McHale. More importantly, McHale is also probably applying Advanced Analytics. Since, you can make more than 2 points per shot, GSW and Rockets are designed to have a higher Ortg on transition than the opponent. Don't run with them. fwiw: you can run out of FGMs vs a high pace opponent (like us)....see the Dallas v Kings playoff in 2002 (I think). Both teams were running back and forth at such a high pace the court got strung out and FGMs didn't even do much to allow defenses to set.
What will interesting is whether we run guys back to defend after taken shots or keep them around for offensive rebounding. The later will allow opponents more free rides to our basket, but will also lead us to fewer made shots per possession and/or a lower shooting percentage.
Not impressed yet. A good coach will bounce back when it does not go his way, when things look bleak and not when everything is clicking.
