[Adv Stats] How the Rockets look on Deep 3s vs Others

What I was really missing last year was a more versatile offence especially for times when the 3 point shots arent falling. I know that Dantoni has that nice elbow moves in his playbook and was hoping to see us utilizing Anderson from there a lot more.
I was surprised by the lack of versatility in the playoffs and I hope we will learn from it.
Now, Paul is a genious of exploiting the elbows so I hope to see a lot more things happening from there. Especially in a spread offence like ours, with a lot of cutting movement, you can do so much damage from there. Its a real shame we didnt use that area more last year.
We still have a lot to learn regarsing off the ball movement but Im hoping that everyone understands it now. Even Harden.

 

It's really hard I think to draw a ton of conclusions from those one or two series.
But absolutely whereas he couldn't hit the barn door against OKC, it worked much better against the Spurs.

But he wasn't effective the first 5 games. He was horrible game 3. Of course, outside Harden/Ariza/Capela, everyone was horrible.

Plus, the reason people don't want to say "hey, this mostly worked" for Ryno against the Spurs, was because the Rockets went 1-4 to finish the season, losing in 6, to a depleted Spurs team, after blowing the out game 1.

But again, small sample size, lots of things happened. Parker went down. Nene went down. Something happened with James the last 5 quarters, etc.

When you say We are seeing volatility in action?, what do you mean? Or what is the implication from that? Is that good?

 

Volatility can be good or bad depending on if we are collectively missing or making shots. Translated to results, it basically means "high risk, high reward". From a shooting percentage standpoint, 3pt shots are harder to make than 2pt shots. This is undeniable, but only meaningful in a vacuum when concerning the general outlook of the game due to the fact that a 3pt shot is worth more than a 2pt shot.

 

Curry is insane. He takes so many deep 3s and makes them.

 

I responded to your quote which was 100% WRONG.

If you're bored about these types of conversations, don't type inaccuracies.

Game 3 was the most important game of the series, and frankly the post-season, imo. Gave home court advantage right back, lost all momentum entirely from the game 1 blowout, etc.

When you say Ryan Anderson was great the first 5 games against the Spurs you're damn right I'm going to point out the fact that Game 3 was the dude's worst game of the playoffs, lol. Well, until Game 6... which according to you was an anomaly.

So never-mind me, Ryan Anderson CLEARLY worked against the Spurs. Lol.

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This thread seems to be about Ryan Anderson's value as a deep three point shooting floor spacer. Based on a chart. Chart or no chart, I think it clear in today's NBA, Ryan has a lot of value as a floor spacer, be it deep three, or regular three.

What is less clear to me, ESPECIALLY AND PARTICULARLY because Ryan Anderson is basically useless if he isn't effectively spacing the floor, is how much insight we can gain from the chart, without looking deeper. Like into volatility. Where I know Ryan was very volatile in the playoffs. And he definitely seems to be pretty volatile in the regular season. His average gamescore on the year was 9.4, but that's with a standard deviation of 6.9.

Is that high volatility compared to the rest of the league?
Does it matter?
Is he still as effective a floor spacer when he's off?

All else being equal, I think it's pretty clear by now DM prefers volatility. I'd assume he has some stats to back that up? Average team ppp being the same, or other offensive metrics being the same, it seems from what he's said that he'd prefer the team with higher standard deviation than less. Is that just because we live in the GSW era, or is that true regardless?

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Oh, and not that they are in any way comparable, lol, but yes, Steph absolutely puts together many streaks of 5+ great games in a row. He didn't really have a single bad playoff game - well, maybe game 4 of the Finals.

 

Ryno is still usually valuable as a floor spacer when he is off, because teams typically are not willing to just leave a shooter of his caliber wide open. Once a sharpshooter hits a couple of freebies and starts getting hot, they become really dangerous. Now, the real question we should be asking is if Anderson is ice cold to the point where it is detrimental of the team, should we leave him out there still? IMO, we should not, especially since we have Tucker now.

 

game 5 was the most important game of the series and by a pretty wide margin imo

 

Dude, you're "i'm clearly and advanced stat analytic expert savant" act is what's really boring here.

For one, stop putting words in my mouth. If anything is clear, it's that you're reading comprehension skills are seriously lacking.

How about this... when you lay out a fact, and I point out how that fact was clearly and obviously wrong, don't get your panties in a wad, lol.

From the second I entered this thread, my question was... WHERE ARE THE ANALYTICS - like the chart you opened this thread with to support Ryan as a great deep 3 floor spacer - to support variance as a strategy??

Variance and volatility of burying anyone with threes was the hope Morey gave MDA last year to beat two great teams. And we did it twice in 4 games vs SAS. Absolutely buried them. I have no idea what this proves?? Or means?? They went 2-2 with variance against the Spurs? Variance is what made them win those two games? They shouldn't have won any games against the Spurs, but because DM smartly built a roster of variably talented players, they were able to steal 2??

That was not a high talent Spurs team. I'm not about the put the 2016/2017 Spurs down as a great team, historically. Like the Rockets, they overachieved. How'd they do it?? With variance?? How come they were actually able to go 4-2 against the Rockets, losing more important players to health during the series??

If anything, didn't the Spurs series prove the opposite? I mean, maybe I'm wrong, but I wouldn't put Coach Pop and variance together in the same boat, generally. I'd call the Spurs the opposite... a model of consistency.

So what, did the Spurs just have more talent then the Rockets?? Doesn't seem like it. Especially when you factor in the injuries that happened.

I'd like to hear guys like JayZ tell Morey and MDA, "high level consistency is better" and "you couldn't do it for 5 games, Ryno was horrible in Game 3" ,,, and MDA and Morey look at each other and say, you're right JayZ, but we were talking about Variance as a strategy for a worse team to have a chance vs the likes of high level consistent teams like Spurs and the vastly superior GSW.

Again, READING COMPREHENSION. I didn't say high level consistency was better, I ASKED FOR THE ADVANCED ANALYTICS TO BACK UP VOLATILITY AS A USEFUL STRATEGY. So far, you've given me they went 2-2 against the Spurs, which is useless. What's more, I didn't just say "you couldn't do it for 5 games", I responded to a comment that said a certain player was highly effective for 5 games in a row. If DM says "hey, JZ, look, Ryan Anderson was great the first 5 games of the series"... I'll rightly say, "No, he absolutely wasn't". If DM then wants to go on and say "yeah, but that's part of our strategy", I'll of course have a good chuckle. What a dumb strategy.

The crux of it is on this part - "variance as a strategy for a worse team to have a chance vs. the likes of high level consistent teams like the SPurs and the vastly superior GSW.". For one, it seems like a decent hypothesis. If you are obviously worse, hope to get hot for a streak. It's not really rocket science. Now, the results didn't quite back that up, despite your protestations that they did. Losing 2-4 to a similarly talented team doesn't scream to me "look, variance won out!".

But again, I'd like to see ACTUAL STATS. And not just when one team should be obviously worse (not the case against the Spurs), but all else being equal.

And of course, the bigger point, which is, let's just get better players overall (I know, obvious, we're trying) to not have to rely on variance.

Which is... AGAIN... why I brought it up in this thread. Cause the one chart to open it up showed something, without showing a bunch of other stuff which might, or might not, negate the positive thing it was trying to imply.

 

Certainly after they lost game 3.

I think the way the series played out, and given the Rockets history with Harden and homecourt, Game 3 was the most important to me, and by a wide margin. Obviously they could have still won game 5 and taken it to 7 or won the series, but, to me, Game 3 needed to be a win. You blow them out in Game 1. You get blown out in game 2, but still have home court. And you go home, and lose it just like that, and there you are, down 2-1, to the Spurs, who have been better for decades now, lost the home court you stole away, etc. And did so with all your role players laying an egg.

 

Personally I had this series going 6 or 7 games.Which makes sense to me bc I thought both teams were fairly evenly matched and of course were playing against the great Pop. Game 3 was never a make or break game in my eyes. Hou succeeded in taking a game in SA from the very start. Thats a win coming back home. With the series tied I dont see how that becomes the most important that early in a series. If hou was down 0-2, that obviously becomes the pivotal game in that situation. Yeah hou dropped game 3 but bounced right back and took game 4. Series tied. It then becomes a best of 3. which brought us to game 5, the most intense and test from both teams. We obviously know what happened and it looks like it sucked whatever life hou had as Game 6 wasn't even a game. Were well aware of what all happened in that game so no need to elaborate on that.

 

I hear you, and in retrospect that's how it turned out.

I just think the series goes differently had they pulled out Game 3. Bearing in mind I'm not sure what happened to James the last 5+ quarters of the series... BUT, he had a great game 3, and the roll players sucked and they lost... and James ultimately checked out of the series... tired, quitting, mini-concussion, I don't know... but I think the team psyche is different if they're up 2-1. Even if they go on to lose game 4 and its tied 2-2.

Condensing it to a best of 3 is fine and all, but the opportunity to win in 6 or less is more important, especially against the Spurs, especially against Pop, especially when you don't have home court advantage.

The other thing that made game 3 pivotal to me was the fact that they had just been blow out. To the extent it was a chess match, and the Rockets won game 1, Pop/Spurs won game 2 and held game 3. From a "let's see what MDA" has perspective... Game 3 didn't leave me enthused.

I got less enthused after the Nene injury. I hated the idea of bringing Gordon into the starter roll.

 

i guess we just see it a little different. bc they responded in game 4 by blowing the spurs out as well. Thought they went into game 5 with plenty of confidence. To me they never recovered from it since it was a game they should of won and had the opportunity to seal

 

It's splitting hairs. Every game is important.

Just think they "got behind schedule" as you'll hear in football, when they could have been ahead of the game.

Up 1, down 2, up 1... is obviously a recipe for playoff series losses... because the next thing that happens is down 2.

But they absolutely could have / should have taken game 5.

 

I'm still waiting for actual conversation around the MANY legit questions I've asked, beginning in my very first post in this thread. You've responded by getting upset when I briefly pointed out a mistake you made, which then led you to proceed to move on to a I'm bored holier than thou position, and then making up a narrative about me having a conversation with DM or something??

I @'ed you in your first post because i know you like advanced stats and digging deeper and I had questions regarding that as it relates to Ryan's role on the team and usefulness... which remain unanswered...

 

Here's a concept for you man, and I say this with all sincerity... it's the same thing I say to my 7 year old. Just respond with what you're trying to say... as you just did above.

So, when I say, But he wasn't effective the first 5 games. He was horrible game 3. Of course, outside Harden/Ariza/Capela, everyone was horrible. which is in no way attacking you or, based on what you were meaning to imply, disparaging you, you don't get super offended. When you respond with "I'm bored" and made up narratives... well, you sound like a dick. If you're going to act like a dick, I'm going to treat you like one.

I've responded, btw, to how it doesn't seem to in any way validate Morey's strategy. That was an important game, at home, they lost. Going 2-4 with volatility against a team with maybe equal talent seems to prove the opposite... consistency beats volatility.

if that's too boring for you... IGNORE ME! Never-mind that I asked a ton of discussion stimulating questions in this thread before and after you began you're "sign... I'm bored" act.