Rockets playing great wide open 3 pointer defense

Perhaps it's just because I suck at basketball and it's easy to alter my shot, but I personally find just about all shots in the NBA to be not wide open. To me, it seems like there are only varying degrees of openness. This isn't like the whole "FT defense" thing, where literally there can't be any correlation between a team and the opposing player's ability to drain a FT.

So even if we're talking about from 6 feet out or whatever. Perhaps for a NBA shooter that is basically as open as it gets. But that's still a distance where an athletic player can close on you and at least somewhat alter the shot. Perhaps someone better at playing basketball can help out with this.

 

im not saying its luck but it also depends on where the shooter is taking the 3 from and who the shooter is. you cant call it luck if curry and thompson are covered and u let barnes or draymond green shoot a 3 from the wing. not saying they wont knock it down but the chances are less likely compared to others on the floor

 

We make teams take rushed shots.

I've seen cases where players are open but only have 6 sec left on the shot clock because our defense make them pass the ball one too many times.

 

Our guys are playing percentages. Making guys shoot from their cold spots of the floor. I also noticed the ball pressure this year. By the time the offense gets Into their offense there's only less than 15 seconds on the shot clock. Which leads to more rushed shots. The defensive numbers are great and seeing the improvements makes me proud as a rockets fan. There will be games when we rely on our defense in order to win. A perfect example would be that Oklahoma city game. I'm not sure we pull that one out last year even without their two big guns.

 

We're around the mean in 3 point percentage for made shots (.354), and as I said earlier, lead the league by a fairly wide margin defending the 3 (.277). That compares to last season's .358 made and .353 allowed (last regular season's end of year totals, so it isn't apples to apples). The difference this season is still very impressive. In my opinion, it isn't simply due to an improvement in coaching defense. Ariza and Papanikolaou (how is KP?) have made a big impact in this area, in my opinion. Replacing Parsons and Casspi with those two was a brilliant move by Morey. Add the very quick and legitimate seven footer in Donatas Motiejunas playing far more minutes and running out on shooters like a gazelle didn't hurt, either. And we have a smart, crafty veteran (Terry) replacing Jeremy Lin, which also didn't hurt, in my opinion.

Now if we could stay healthy! :-(-

 

It's obviously not sustainable guys. This part of our defense *will* regress. There's no real doubt about that. However, our interior defense will improve dramatically once Howard returns. We're still a good defensive team, but so far we have benefited a little from luck.

 

Our primary loss has been the interior, and we've suffered for it, Canaan is pretty long, not Beverdactyl, but still pretty long.

 

I would submit that the three point defense is sustainable at an elite level. What Houston is doing is not rocket science. The current defensive philosophy is the mirror image of the offenses strategy. No open looks from beyond the arc, swarming defense in the paint and few fouls. It is all pretty simple if you look at it that way.

 

Bev has missed a lot of games too. Missing 2 all-nba defensive players for the amount of time we have, it's amazing our d has performed as well as it has, even with luck. Even with league average shooting. we're only taking a point or 2 a game.

While the shooting will come back to the mean, our overall D will be better with those 2, and will more than make up for it.

 

It can definitely still be elite, but our 3PT defense thus far has been historically good. Teams are missing wide open looks against us. That can be expected to fall to average. It doesn't mean our defense won't still be good, we just won't be able to hold teams to 27% from 3.

 

Didn't tally it up until just now, but DAMN: Bev has missed 12 games. He's missed more games than he's played, yet we've still done so good on 3pt defense.

Games without Beverley

Boston 1-25 4% (reg 34%)
76ers 11-22 50% (reg 30%)
Spurs 2-20 10% (reg 37%)
Warriors 9-28 32% (reg 38%)
T-Wolves 6-12 50% (reg 34%)
76ers 7-21 33% (reg 30%)
Knicks 6-22 27% (reg 37%)
Kings 5-16 31% (reg 32%)
Clippers 9-26 36% (reg 39%)
Bucks 6-19 32% (reg 34%)
Grizzlies 2-13 15% (reg 37%)
T-Wolves 3-10 30% (reg 34%)

 

At one time, the Rockets were very good at free throw defense. I used to think that it was the pajama uniform. The pj uni was so ugly that it distracted the opponent's free throw shooting.