Listen, the ideology is great. The execution is ****, we're shooting contested 3's. Morey's logic is 30% or higher is all that's needed, that's 45% from 2 in equivalent terms. The higher, the merrier. Truth is, we could be a very good shooting team if we did the following: 1) Derived offensive schemes to GET open 3s. 2) Stop taking contested 3s 3) Focus players to shoot from specific spots on the floor. That means Ariza needs to stop being a freelance offensive player, Harden needs to stop holding the ball so much, Lawson should not shoot from some areas at the 3pt line, Bev should limit his attempts to just a few areas. Our off-ball player movement needs something, too.
Its incredibly moronic to have the most 3 pt centered offense in the history of the NBA...literally to the point of 1 trick pony...and not even have competent 3 pt shooters. I've been beating a dead horse over it for the last 4 yrs now.
if you want to shoot a lot of 3s, that's fine, but you have to get GOOD LOOKS! the rockets just shoot contested 3s all game. why? because its all they do so the opponent defends the 3pt line. if you want to get GOOD LOOKS from 3, then you have to be good at doing something else on offense that will DRAW DEFENDERS ELSEWHERE. 1)draw a double team: hakeem/barkley/yao/tmac would get doubled and kick it out to the open shooter. 2)play a team game: adelman, pop, and kerr's teams get open looks because defenses have to keep up with all of the off ball motion, and ball movement, that they end up losing their man. stars capable of drawing double teams or not, you can still get open looks by attempting to score in other ways. i don't believe this is morey's fault because he believes in layups and ft's as well. but i dont see anyone driving to the paint trying to get layups or fts. its not les' fault because he fired JVG in order to adopt a more aesthetically pleasing style of play... and this aint pretty so you know he's not happy! this 1 on 1, no ball movement, no off ball movement, shooting contested 3s nonsense is awful, and i think it falls directly on the coach. morey hired him asa recruitment tool. for better or worse it worked to get dwight, then technically almost worked to get a 3rd star (bosh). now that we are have one of the most talented teams in the league, we need a real coach, not a recruiter. and definitely don't tell me scott brooks is coming here to help recruit KD. WE DONT NEED ANOTHER RECRUITER! we have enough talent to compete, if the players are motivated and believe in the coach. just for the people who say there are no better options available: first, forget the retreads... les isn't rehiring anyone who he let go: JVG thibs adelman elston turner from the nba boylan - worked for rudy and pop battier - learned jvg's defense and adelman's offense, and the 'position-less' offense and defense in miami kenny smith - he's seriously overlooked as one of the better basketball minds not coaching. mcmillan - did a great job in portland before roy's injury. call up from college: kevin stallings (vanderbuilt) - one of the best at in game adjustments and drawing up plays in college bball mike brey (notre dame) - one of the best at putting guys in position to play to their strengths in college bball dave rose (byu) - one of the best transition offenses in college bball mark few (gonzaga) - know for the motion 4 out 1 in offense which focuses on attacking the rim and from 3. tony bennet (virginia)...(not the singer) - hands down best defensive mind in college bball.
First, these complaints started last year (hence the date stamps for most of this thread) and the team went to the Western Conference Finals. Second, this season is very young and we have a small sample size to look at so far. Here are the 3pt shooters on the team and their season averages compared to career averages (noted if less than 20 attempts so far this season). Lawson .281/.366 Harden .240/.365 Jones .364/.315 - 11 attempts Ariza .302/.347 Beverley .333/.360 Brewer .125/.288 - 16 attempts Thornton .333/.361 McDaniels .000/.283 - 2 attempts Terry .360/.380 I don't think every player on the team (besides Jones) is going to shoot well under their career three point percentage for the whole season. Terry has managed to come the closest at only 20 points off his career average, again besides TJones. I think it would be great to pick up a lazer accurate 3pt shooter, but I also think the ones we have can be reasonably expected to pick it up a bit over the course of the season. The game plan can't have changed that much from last years Western Conference Finalist team.
The 94 Rockets proved that 3 point shooting works when there is REAL post play. The Rockets have one above average post player in DMo, one average post player in Dwight...and thats it. Till the Rockets can get post play that forces teams to double down in the post, we will continue to see poor shooting. Ofcourse, if they found a new coach that minimize deficiencies and maximize Harden and Lawson at the same time...
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">The Rockets rank 1st in 3PAs and last in 3PT%</p>— BBALLBREAKDOWN (@bballbreakdown) <a href="https://twitter.com/bballbreakdown/status/666290946535915520">November 16, 2015</a></blockquote> <script async src="//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
We shoot mainly uncontested threes, just like last year. According to NBA.com advanced stats, here's our breakdown Close defender by feet, and the frequency of our 3FA attempted in percentage of total FGA 0-2' (very tight) = .5% (about average for the league, roughly equal to SAS) 2-4' (tight) = 9.4% (second most) 4-6' (open) = 15.3% (tops in the league) 6' (wide open) = 12.5% (9th in league) So, versus the league we shoot a lot with a defender 2-4' away. But we are best in the league at at 27.5% of total FGA are "open" to "wide open" 3s. I'm not advocating shooting that many, if you don't have the shooters to make them. But we do lead the league in open 3s.
That's both surprising and disheartening. Many of the threes have felt like bad ones, but I guess when you're shooting that badly they all feel like that. If they're wide open looks, I guess they have to be taken (by certain players) l It just makes it worse when we don't get back on D sufficiently once those shots don't fall.
I agree. First we need the shooters, and then we could clean-up that stat shooting the second most when guarded from 2-4'. By comparison, Budenholzer at Atlanta has the team not shooting anything but open to wide-open 3, second in the league in that stat, Rockets first. But look at that 2-4' coverage versus ours. 6+' = 17.2% (best in the league by a good margin) 4-6' = 9.7% (bottom half of league) 2-4' = 2.5% (second fewest in the league, very good, whereas Rockets are second most) 0-2' = .6% (about average. This is probably all Korver ) So, Budenholzer basically insists on only open to wide-open, whereas although we get the most of them, we are second in the league at 2-4' (tight) coverage, also. That's probably due to we have more busted plays, as much as anything.
Just putting it out there, but I feel the result of our wide open threes is as much about defenses not respecting our shooters as it is ball movement. I don't think Corey Brewer and Lawson are really striking fear in defenses when they're camped out on the three point line, not moving. I think they'll also live with Harden shooting threes right now, instead of attacking the rim and getting FT's. We're almost playing into the defense's hands. So yeah, we definitely need those shooters.
...well we have 3 guards who shoot above 33% and none of them are starting and as a team we shoot a ghastly 28% so clearly there is nothing efficient about the style we play with this personnel. ...I still see lots of ill advised 3pt attempts on our team - the shooting percentage plummets when your taking rushed or contested 3s and that's one of our problems this year. Teams like the Spurs and Warriors work to get good looks and that means you have to be patient and move the ball around in the half court set. Too often we wait too long to initiate the offense and it leads to less opportunity to find an open shooter and shot clock expiring contested tries. Combine that with the fact our team is cold from long distance and you have one of the most embarrassing teams in recent memory
Probably some of that for sure. Good point. They'd rather double Harden and get the ball out of his hands, and they get a lot of TOs that way. Plus, we get a lot of open looks in transition, but a lot of turnovers, too. I wouldn't say it's our ball movement in comparison to Atlanta.
