Synergy Stats Part.2 - Team Synergy vs. Blazers (Regular Season vs. Playoffs)

Part 1 of individual offensive plays can be found here

Now let's take a look at what the Rockets have been doing differently in the regular season (3-1) compared to the last two games vs. the Blazers (0-2) and also as a team. It's interesting because it paints a picture different to some conclusions in part 1. Stats are definitely limited to a small sample size, so take analysis with caution.

Offense play distribution, Regular Season


Offense play distribution, Playoffs

[Color coordinated for ease of reading]

- In general, the stats prove the eye test that the Rockets have elected to ISO and Post more often in exchange for things that involve ball and player movement (spot-ups, hand-offs, off-screen, cuts). As Part 1 suggests, this is probably a bad tradeoff. The Rockets are not moving players and not moving the ball. Possibly a confidence issue, as media releases have been stating.

- Post plays have increased in volume but at only a 0.85ppp clip, which is not a efficient shot. Historically vs. the Blazers, it's also not efficient (0.77ppp). More post plays are a bad trade-off. In the regular season, post plays were distributed more evenly amongst the team (TJones has better post efficiency) but thus far in the playoffs, Howard has taken 97% of the post shots (see below).



- Surprisingly, isolation has been decently efficient at 1.06ppp. Even more surprising, it's because of Harden. When a set ISO play for Harden is called, he's doing well (1.40ppp, see below). Apparently, it's the other situations he's messing up.



- Transition shots remains about the same which means the Rockets are doing a decent job of pushing the tempo.

- Overall the Blazers are performing more equal to their regular season performance. Stats confirm what we see on TV; the real killers have been increased post play from super saiyan Lamarcus Aldridge and putbacks.

- This is the real shocker. The Rockets PnR has taken an absolute nose dive from 0.92 vs. the Blazers to an absolutely defunct 0.47ppp.



As you can see, it's really Harden to blame (0.23ppp). Parsons (0.67ppp) and Beverley (0.50ppp) aren't that hot either but Harden is really proving he is the greatest one-man show in more ways the one. This has been the greatest downfall of the Rockets offense.

Rebounds

Rebounds, Playoffs


- There's actually not much to say here. The rebounding story has improved for the Rockets and they have grabbed more of the available rebounds than the Blazers. In the regular season, the two teams had almost exactly the same rebounding rate, grabbing within 1% on both the offensive and defensive boards.

Defending the Blazers

Defensive Containment, Playoffs


- There's not much to say here either. The Rockets have done ok defending the Blazers (similar to the regular season) and especially good job defending the PnR. The single largest difference is LA and his high volume post game in the playoffs. If the Rockets can contain LA's post game, then the rest of the series should be completely different moving forward.

Defense ppp vs. Post Play Regular Season:
1. ???, 0.53ppp
2. Omer Asik, 0.72ppp
3. Dwight Howard, 0.75ppp
4. DMo, 0.79ppp

Can you guess who is #1?

It's James Harden at a statistically significant 121 plays (comparatively, Omer has less defenses against posts). It would not be so crazy to experiment with Harden guarding LA as he seems to be performing poorly in most aspects anyways.


Main Takeaways
1. The PnR has fallen apart and been the main issue with the Rocket's offense. Harden is the main culprit.
2. Harden performance in ISO sets has not been the issue (*cringe*)
3. Defense is doing decently well. If they can figure out how to contain LA's post game, the series will be very different.
4. Post play still doesn't look like a viable go-to option.

[Added note: the Rockets have stopped shooting 3's. They are shooting half the rate of the regular season vs. the Blazers]

*reference: http://www.mysynergysports.com/

 

I put Harden's post defense stats in there for fun. Clutchfans have mentioned several times that he defends the post decently and sure enough, he excels at it. Most of his post defense comes against small guys so it's not a good measure of how he'd do against LA. McHale really should try something different however and who knows maybe a small defender would pull it off.