In terms of average speed as a team, Rockets has always been the slowest in the NBA this season: http://stats.nba.com/teams/speed-distance/?sort=AVG_SPEED&dir=-1&Season=2017-18&SeasonType=Regular Season But we were top in pace(possessions per game) this season, until February. Our pace in Feb is 97.09, which is the last in NBA:http://stats.nba.com/teams/advanced/?sort=PACE&dir=1&Season=2017-18&SeasonType=Regular Season&Month=5 Dantoni's team always has the fame of playing fast, having more possessions, 7 seconds offense, etc. Now, both Harden and Paul have a hard time crossing the midcourt lane within 8 seconds: But we still win every game in February, amazing.
Harden and CP3 like to give the defense time to get set, figure out its weakness, and punch the D in the mouth.
I think it has more to do with players camping at the three line waiting for their shot while Harden and CP3 do their thing. They're not having to run around.
No surprise there Harden is always bringing the ball up the court at the 16-17 second mark I am literally surprised to never see him do a 8 second violation, he has down to fine art.. Most of our possessions we end up taking a shot in the last six seconds.. I honestly am shocked that we are the most efficient offense of all time... one of the things that doesn't make much sense to me... I guess 3 point shots are that powerful
This is where Harden's athleticism issue comes in. He can't play at a super fast pace; Harden is just not physically capable of that. The good news is, he doesn't have to because Harden has developed a very nice skill set that doesn't depend on his athleticism to dominate the game. The same goes for CP3 (although he used to be a lot quicker when he was younger)
No one in Phoenix could command double teams and draw the defense towards them like a magnet. We have 2 of those guys, and neither has ever play fast.
The Rockets don't do the 8 seconds or less offense Dan Tony had in PHX. What the Rockets do is the plethora of PNR to setup mismatches and to attack the switch or pass to an open shooter. This team is setup to win in the playoffs with our half court offense.
this. Both CP3 and Harden are notorious throughout their careers playing at a deliberate pace. It's called ISO. Harden's ISO is scoring 1.27 pts per possession. That right there is well above the NBA record for team efficiency. Paul is Top 5 in the league, too, right? That said, the overall system (and improvement by Clint, addition of Paul) is created around Harden for the purpose of giving him added space for drives....so, yeah directly (via math) and indirectly (via spacing). 3pt shots are that powerful when combined with the premier ISO player in the league.
Another thing about February: We played some of the slowest teams in the league. Not surprised they attempted to go extra slow pace against us. For those who might not fully understand the stat (@James.B.H ?) Pace is controlled equally by the opponents. Both teams have the same Pace number at the end of each game. If opponents want to play really slow on offense, we can't make them play quicker. Their speed effects the overall Pace of the game as much as us. That fact is why Nash's teams look slow by comparison to the league today, even though he truly was pushing it at 7SOL. They had slower Pace numbers than half the league now, because opponents embraced at different, slower game back then. Pace Rankings of our February Opponents UTA = 25th DEN = 17th MIN = 23rd SAC = 27th MIN = 23rd DAL = 26th DEN = 17th MIA = 28th BKN = 7th CLE = 14th SAS = 29th As you can see, our opponents in Feb love to play slowly.
Which is what the casual fan doesn't understand. This isn't the same PHX offense they saw in the 2000's. This one is more efficient and built for the long run.
The slowest thread on Clutchfans. http://bbs.clutchfans.com/index.php?threads/the-slowest-team-in-the-nba.288691/ But if we are going to score lots of points per possession, it doesn't matter if we play fast or slow to get the buckets. I remember one of those Brandon Roy/Lamarcus Aldridge Blazers coached by Nate McMillan used to have super slow pace combined with high points scored per possession, too.
I don't think it's athleticism. Harden is capable of doing it, but constantly running at high speed burns a lot of energy. It's better to stay fresh the whole game and play some defense then to waste a lot of energy running.
Remember at beginning of the year people were deathly afraid that CP3 won't fit in because we like to play fast and he likes to play slow, methodical style? Funny how that worked out. We slowed down from 3rd in pace to 11th in pace while also improving our offense. What do you know, seems like D'Antoni can coach more than one style.
I dont think that's it. I think they've all seen ClutchFans and noticed how we all feel like their wins are boring. They're just trying to give their opponents a chance and trying to make it less boring for the fans. Clearly, it's not working.
Quickness and just being fast (like Usain Bolt) are two different things. Harden can be very quick in an instant, but as a sprint runner, no Harden's not that athletic. It's like Hakeem vs David Robinson's athleticism. Hakeem was super quick, but not the fastest runner. Robinson was not as quick as Hakeem, but was just faster on a full open-court.
Of course, I would not claim that I fully understand every basketball stat(and I really don't), but I happened to know the point you mentioned in this post prior to creating this thread, and it is really not the rocket science but a common sense about basketball stats. I don't have a hard time with the stats, I had a hard time trying to make a joke, and it seems that everyone here, especially you can only get the literal meaning of what I am posting(of course this is my problem, not your or anyone else's). That's the hardest part for me being a non-native English speaker, whenever I posted anything on a Chinese forum, everybody gets what I implied immediately, but here even after I tried to explain myself really hard, the disconnection only seems to become worse, not better.
