I thought some of the evidence the article brings was a little weak. They argue that our free throws might be down because our offense might not be as efficient as it was last season. The evidence? Points per possession is down. You know, maybe the points per possession is down because the refs aren't giving us the free throws they were giving us last year. Also on Lowry's turnovers, he should be comparing them to usage, not minutes.
Our opponents are committing around 5 fewer fouls per game than they did last year. Reasons? 1. We are not a high post passing offense where cutters cut to the basket and pick up fouls from defenders being late. We simply aren't running Adelman's pass and move offense. There's way more perimeter dribbling, less ball movement and less player movement. 2. We have went from top 10 in PACE to bottom 10 in PACE. All that dribbling around is resulting in longer possessions where one guy (typically Lowry) is trying to create for everybody else. As a result, we are getting somewhere around 4 fewer possessions per game than last year. 3. With those fewer possessions, we are still turning the ball over 10% more than last season. If the possessions were the same, and pace were the same as last season, we would be turning the ball over closer to 20% more than last season. 4. No Chuck Hayes in the high post throwing passes to a cutting Martin or to Scola posting up in the low block when he has mismatches. It all boils down to this, our offense has went from a pass-centric offense to a point guard creating centric offense. Martin's free throws are down because the ball isn't moving as much, he's not getting the ball backdoor from the high post anymore, which means he's taking more outside jumpers where there is less opportunity for contact. Scola is the same way. Scola's percentage of top of the key jumpers is skyrocketing in comparison to his low post ice cream scoop shots. I can't remember the last time we saw Scola in the low post getting off those scoop shots. The reason is...instead of Hayes up top feeding Martin and Scola the ball, you've got Dally down low playing garbage man and Scola up high and Martin on the perimeter. Dally is playing garbage so he is bringing his big man defender into the paint area, which hampers perimeter back door cuts because they have to deal with a big man contending the shots and Scola is being forced to take the jumpers because Dally is posting up on the interior. Dally is taking away Scola's post ups because Dally can't stand at the top and pass the ball. Scola, with all his low post ball fakes drew a lot of shooting fouls. He is shooting about half the free throws he was last year because he is having to operate the high post area. And he can't really pass to a cutting Martin because Dally is down there slogging around. Slower pace, going from a passing offense to a dribbling offense, no Chuck Hayes, those are the reasons.
Overall, would you say our offense this year (given the personnel) changes is much worse than last years?
Good post. When I made the same basic point, i.e. there's something to do with the offensive system, (albeit a lot less eloquently) in the Lowry thread, I was flamed for being pro-Adelman.
It is. It's not as efficient because we don't have the guy that can pass in the high post that can get us a lot of easy buckets. We're having to work a lot harder offensively to score. However, I don't necessarily feel like that is McHale's fault. I feel like if we still had Hayes around that we would still be running the high post passing game and we'd probably be just as good as last year if not more efficient. It all still goes back to not having enough 2-way players. Martin and Scola are 1-way players. This year, Scola has taken a downturn defensively and he was already bad. He's not moving, not contesting anything, not getting any offensive foul calls anymore. McHale has done his best, inserting Dally to give us some sort of defensive paint presence but offensively Dally clogs up everything and he takes Scola out of a more efficient scoring position on the low block. We just have to face facts. We ain't got a the high post passing game without a high post passer. That' why the trade for Gasol was going to be so important to us. Gasol in the high post along with Nene in the low block was going to be a very serious 2-way presence and would have continued to facilitate our passing game quite well, especially with the addition of Parsons and the re-signing of Hayes as our 3rd big, first big off the bench.
I agree with this 100% But, with the exception of great bigs like Gasol it's difficult to get that high post passing game AND have a shot blocking defensive presence on the other end. You can trade for a guy like Diaw and get that back but you'd lose a lot defensively having him on the floor. And, being 10th in offensive efficiency would be a big problem if we were a good defensive team. I get the feeling Morey and Mchale would prefer to get better on that end as it's much easier to find underrated players (and keep on value contracts) who contribute defensively like Lowry or Parsons than their offense oriented counterparts
The Rockets just arent scoring points in the paint. They are settling for outside jumpers. You arent going to get fouled shooting three pointers in the NBA very often. McHale has gotten away with virtually no offensive system so far, but as you saw last night against the Hornets, half way decent defensive teams will be able to stop the Rockets more and more as the season continues and defenses become more intact.
