The Rockets are 7th in the NBA in offense. Not bad for not running Rick's offense. It's not as pretty but it's apparently getting it done.
The other side of the coin is that the defense hasn't improved quite as much as some might have hoped, with Parsons and Dalembert in the starting lineup (and Lowry, most of the time). These things take time though. I'm perfectly satisfied with the job McHale's done.
Makes sense Any time Detroit scores more than a hundred points and holds the other team below a hundred points, they almost always win. -- Doug Collins
I think part of the problem was the lack of a good C backup. Dally only plays around 20-30 mins a game, the rest of the time we had Scola or PP manning the C spot. I can see that D rank getting better with Camby on board.
" you will now witness the full power of the dark side"......darth siddeous on kevin mchale's offense
Offense is very free-flow, which is good. At times with Yao, the team just sat around and had no idea what to do if they took him out of the game. I remember those games where we'd have like a guy fronting Yao, then a guy behind him. The team ran around like a chicken without its' head. It's a testament to how good Yao was, and how inflexible the Rockets could be. Glad the flexibility has changed, at least.
Very strange comparison to last year's team. "Ranking" wise, the Rockets dropped in offense from #4 to #7. Their defense rose from #19 to #17. But point differential went down a ton from +2.2 to +0.6. So the Rockets, who are 4 games over .500 both right now and last year, are winning a ton of more close games. Overall, despite Morey's insistence during interviews that there's no such thing as clutch, McHale seems to be "clutchier" than Adelman was. The Rockets are actually winning lots of games that go down the wire rather than losing them. For comparison, Adelman's Wolves are basically dead even at point differential of +0.1. And the team is 2 games below .500.
We've also had five losses of 15+ points this year, as opposed to just two all of last year. That probably plays a role.
Obviously they will win more close games, but there are more opportunities to do so when your differential shrinks that much, right? Seems to me that information is quite gloomy actually. It means we're overachieving IMO and I think you could say the reason for our surprise # of wins is at least as attributable to luck as it is to allegedly getting better at closing out games.
IIRC, weren't most of them at the beginning of the year? I don't remember us getting killed consistently in recent games.
with kmart out of the lineup I was expecting a 90 point differential! So it's not all about one player giving up 100 points a game on the defensive end? well, i'm shocked. what bothers me is the inability to hold on to a freaking rebound. Even when the ball finds its way to the hands of one our players. The thing just bounces away. It's annoying.
McHale is actually showing great promise as a coach. Better than I expected. A new offense with little practice time yielded a predictably bad start. But with the addition of Parsons, comparisons to last years team are difficult. The offense almost never stagnates, good ball movement throughout the shot clock, intelligent sets ... And did Shane ever in his career have a 21/11 game like Parsons did against GSW?
We are 7-4 in close games (<4pts), including OT games, and 12-11 in blowouts (>10pts). Last season, we were 8-11 in close games, and 21-11 in blowouts. With Adelman, we were better at blowing out teams, but worse at winning close games. Which is better? Morey did say that good teams don't win close games, they avoid them. Also, it has generally been established that point differential is one of the most accurate indicators of team strength.
The offense has been fun 2 watch without Lowry and Martin for some reason maybe bcuz the ball movement we have been doin lately the offense is real fun 2 watch
