Well, Patrick Patterson, Spencer Hawes, Rudy Gay can also all shoot mid-range jumpers. Are we a championship team if we added one or two of them? Asik/Patterson/Gay/Harden/Lin lineup a contender?
Bad shots? hmmmm maybe because we have no real consistent shooter on this team. I look at the top players in the league that have the ability to score from anywhere on the court and they have deadly midrange games. Durant, melo, kobe, wade lebron cp3 can all hit them at high rate. they arent bad shots , we just have BAD shooters including harden who neglects that part of the game.
Yes you can win a title this way. Just because it hasn't been done before doesn't mean it's not the best way. Mid range shots are the worst shots in basketball. This does not change in the playoffs. This doesn't mean you don't ever take them. Just means its way down the list in your preference. Our offense works.
You're confusing can with "did". The Heat got into trouble when they settled for jumpers last spring and were saved when LeBron said "**** it" and unleashed hellfire by driving again and again as well as posting up.
That's one of the reason's i wanted Monta Ellis version 2007-2008 to play off the ball with Harden as "majority" ball handler and playmaker. (He actually plays best next to a big primary ballhandler/playmaker like Baron Davis, etc.) Killer mid range game. eFG 54% & TrueShooting% 58%. What you could call "Scoring you can count on", at least during that time. But alas... that 2007-2008 Monta Ellis is nowhere to be found... Some alien took over his body and started and just kept on bombing away from rainbow-land.
You can win in the regular season with no mid-range game, but not the post-season. Reason is that teams are going to give you the mid-range game because they'd rather you take a long two than a 3 or a lay-up. So they defend the paint a lot more. The gaps are in the wings.
This guy gets is. Look, the Rockets are #5 in offensive efficiency, which -- even if you're a huge homer -- you'll have to admit is not proportional to their talent level. The offense may not be perfect, but it is not the problem. If you're having an off-shooting night and your defense isn't great, it's tough to win regardless. Mid range or no mid-range is complete non-factor. You win games by getting into the paint. There are only so many ways to do it. The Rockets out of necessity have to do it primarily by penetration. There just isn't a guy on this roster you can go to in the post on a consistent basis and expect to do work. If the opposing team is clogging the lane and leaving your shooters open, you're gonna have to hit open shots. Shooting mid-range jumpers instead of 3s might help you win one game. And lose 5. It's no coincidence all the teams that heavily rely on mid-range jumpers rank low in offensive efficiency. The only team that's good on offense, while attempting lots of mid-range jumpers are the Warriors. They happen to be the exception to the rule, because they have two of the arguably best 5-10 shooters in the entire league. Open 15-19 footers are like layups to Curry & Thompson. That certainly doesn't mean that it's generally a good idea to use the mid-range game as more than an after-thought. The Rockets will have to make some small adjustments on offense, but the real adjustment has to come on defense. The schemes are fine. Guys just might wanna try to stay in front of guys, fight over and through screens and not get completely lost for no reason.
I agree with most of the posters here, rockets need to change their offense. Actually the Warriors defended the Rockets exactly the way you need to. Pack the paint heavily whenever Lin/Harden start to drive. Run out hard to the three point shooters because they aren't taking mid-range jumpers. D-Mo should not be taking taking more than 2 threes a game ever he should be in the post because of right now he's the Rockets only low-post threat right now. Lin/Harden/Parsons needs to start taking mid-range jumpers off PnR to take the bigs away from the rim and prevent them from packing the paint. If you saw the game Lin was basically wide open on the mid-range jumpers off the PnR because they weren't defending it at all and just packing the paint.
Lots of things would be nice, but would it help? It certainly didn't help the Grizzliles much. It would help of course to have LeBron James or Kevin Durant instead of Harden, no offense to Harden. But I don't think it's the jump shots that separate LeBron and Durant from Harden.
Lebron takes about 1/3 of his shots from mid-range (inside the 3 outside the paint). Is he less effective and efficient? Yes, but he's better now then he ever was. The best teams don't want to take a lot of mid-range shots - and are less efficient for sure from there. But they take them because you have to keep defenses honest. You have to shoot enough of them and make enough. They are lower percentage shots effectively, but when you are wide open, they are easy shots - should be easy shots - for anyone to make.
If we get a player comparable to LeBron, Wade, Dirk, Duncan, or Kobe. But on a more serious note, you are sort of leaving out all of the role players. Those teams had some serious 3 point and clutch shooters.
