Hi, first thread here. I'll admit that I'm don't know much about the advanced statistics that seem to have led to our team's huge emphasis on threes. I'm just making some observations based on the games I've seen. Please, let me know where I'm off base. Here we go... Last night, the Rockets attempted 44 threes and only made 13 for a 3PT% of only 29.5%. No team average over the season is lower than this. The Rockets are number one in 3-pt attempts at 33.6 per game, over 6 attempts more than the next team on the list, Portland. However, the Rockets are tied for 13th in the league in 3PT% at 0.352. (Golden State, incidentally, has the highest percentage in the league, 0.390, and is the tied for 4th in number of attempts. Clearly a winning combination for them.) Last night, I saw quite a few drives to the basket by many of our players that would've either had a good chance of going in or at least drawing the foul. The driver instead winged a pass out behind the arc, and the percentages tell how likely that was to be successful for us. These long passes are also easy prey for even an average defender from what I've seen. We had 11 offensive rebounds yesterday; the Lakers beat us with 13. Now, we rank 4th in the league in offensive rebounds, which is not bad (and surprises me), but in absolute numbers that still means that a huge number of those missed threes were recovered by the other team. A lot of threes tend to bounce back far from the basket, which puts the opposing team in a better position for a fast break. In listening to the broadcast, yesterday, as we were losing our lead, Bill pointed out that when the Rockets start to let up, they just settle for jacking up threes instead of going to the basket. He's right. Teams also know that if they can keep us out of the paint, our only available scoring method is to swing the ball around the arc, and that's easy to defend once you know that's all we have. I've just always seen this as a phenomenally risky strategy that can't possibly take us far into the playoffs. If we're shooting threes well for the night, we'll put up a lot of points, but if we're not (and every night, there's no way to predict this with the Rockets), and we don't adjust to another plan, we're practically guaranteed to get rocked. We may still win, but that's less likely against top tier teams. Obviously, this isn't the only problem that the team faces (if you consider it a problem, which I do). Being 28th in free throw percentage and 29th in turnovers makes you wonder how we're as high we are. (Answer: James Harden) Still, doesn't this obsession with threes seem like an unbalanced, poor-fit philosophy for this team that's going to drag them down when they make the playoffs against more balanced teams? It seems that way to me, but maybe I'm wrong. I hope I'm wrong, because I don't see any real changes or innovations in the Rockets' game plan, and that's worrisome to me. I'd like to know everyone's thoughts. Thank you.
Ugh, I was so concerned about getting my thoughts down, I misspelled "Achilles heel" in the title. I don't if any of the admins/mods could correct that for me, but I'd appreciate it if possible. "Heal" is definitely the wrong spelling for what I'm talking about.
Yeah, I noticed it as soon as I hit submit. Ugh. Better hide my 4th-grade spelling bee trophy, in case they demand I return it now.
the 3 point shot is an essential part of our offensive strategy. it's extremely difficult to deploy McHale's "throw crap on a wall" offensive gameplan without launching a three the minute you cross the half court line.
Using a Laker game as an example of our team's ability to get to the basket is a bad idea. They are terrible on defense. Generally, we shoot so many threes because that is the only thing most of our perimeter players are capable of doing.
We do not have any pure three point shooter on the team, Jason Terry is considered to be one, but he is not a starter because of his age.
Three pointers will not be our Achilles heal, the lack of the ability to make them efficiently will. DD
Yes shooting 40 3's a game will definitely be our downfall come playoff time. Teams will choose to stay with our "shooters" and go one on one in the post with Dwight. Depending on Dwight's ability to score consistently down low will lead to an early exit in the playoffs...similar to what happened with the Blazers series last year.
I have no problem with it. The Three is the more practiced shot by everyone in the world. Repetition is key. Whatever you do, do it to death so that you become good at it. And then you can counter and run plays off that. And that's what we do.
Funny that Dwight in the post in the series against Portland was part of our only steady/consistent offense. James was NOT consistent throughout the series.
I'd rank the turnovers as a much, much higher priority on the problems list. 35.2% is a points per possession of 1.056. This is better than the Rockets general offensive average of 1.036. So the average Rockets three point attempt is better than their average possession that isn't a three point attempt; it's also slightly better than the league average possession. It's true that three point attempts can fuel fast breaks for the other team, but not nearly to the extent that turnovers do; if there was a specific tracker for the portion of the following two stats that came after Rockets three-point misses (Rockets 2nd chance points vs opponent fast break points) the offensive rebounding benefit would likely come out on top over the opponent runout chances. If you look at the Rockets ranking in shooting efficiency (8 in TS%) vs overall offensive efficiency (14), the turnover problem becomes more evident. The Rockets are easily scoring at a top ten rate when they get up attempts (be it 2s, 3s, or FTs), but the offense is completely pedestrian when also accounting for the huge amount of turnovers from sloppy passing and meandering Howard postups. EDIT: Mind you, predictability in relying on one guy + open threes exclusively is a problem, as Golden State demonstrated in their coverage of Harden. You have to be able to score in other ways when the defense deliberately gives you an advantage in the post/midrange/weakside to avoid getting beat by the typical drive and kick game McHale runs - as of yet Houston hasn't flashed that ability very often.
Time to get some real shooters and not just guys who aren't horrible at it, and are expected to make up the difference with practice. We're going overboard with these long slashers who gamble in the passing lanes..
What we need is a dominant post man that can draw double teams. Dwight is killing us with his weak ass post game.
this is because Howard is not in the game offensive rebound number will increased when Howard is playing without Howard inside opponent can stay closer to outside shooter so they can close up to them faster i know Howard post up suck but he still get lot of attention from opponent
IMHO.... Dwight is the Achilles Heel! His inability to make free throws in a regular basis AND the teams stubborn stance on making a low post threat out of him is going to cost us! He simply sucks at both and most teams have figured this out! ....... ....... .......
It's the chicken and egg thing. Morey has been an advocate of the three point shot. So it is not surprising that Morey would target good spot up 3pt shooters. Think about this. If a player is a great 3pt shooter AND can do many other things well, then he must be very expensive. If he is a star, he will be difficult to get. If he is a high end role player, he will pretty much demand a contract that will kill the all-important flexibility. So if Morey highly value 3pt shooting, he would rather sacrifice other aspects in his player acquisition strategies. The OP has pointed out something that is seldom discussed: long kick out passes and long rebounds that result in fastbreak opportunities for the opponent. IF you have good drive and kick playmakers AND IF you have good 3pt shooters, then this will be a good strategy. But if you don't have reliable shooters and don't have enough reliable play makers to feed the shooters, then it's a risky business.
