Didn't Daryl Morey say high turnovers is a side effect of the run and gun style the Rockets play?

I know Morey has said the style of play is the cause of turnovers, but did he limit it to "run and gun"? Rockets make a ton of turnovers in transition, attacking the basket (charges, stripped in traffic), and high risk/high reward passes(i.e. passes that if they get to man lead to very high percentage shots). These are based on their style. Dwight also creates a lot of turnovers. I would not consider this a style of offense, but Dwight is worth it.

 

A quick check at mysynergysports.com, the majority of their turnovers for Harden and Howard do not occur in transition. As these guys most likely account for 1/2 of the Rockets turnovers, it is likely most of the turnovers occur in the half court. For Harden, the biggest sources of turnover are transition and PnR. Howard, it is post ups.

 

Well, EVERY team will have way more half court possessions on offense than they will have fast breaks unless the opponent transition D is laughably incompetent. So of course most of every team's TOs come in the half court offense.

And what causes HOU's turnovers isn't running, it's the fact that they are always hunting for shots at the rim, and the area around the rim is almost always crowded. If you are going to hunt for high efficiency shots the trade off tends to be you get into situations where the opponent has multiple guys surround your guy trying to deny such shots.

 

I note this thread didn't get much response, but I think turnovers will become more important in the post-season. Or will they?

Given that the Rockets could make their lives (and fans, too) less stressful by cutting back on turnovers, because of point off turnovers scored, it is worth considering. They gave Miami 23 points off turnovers. Cut those in half and the game isn't so close at the end.

A quick look at team turnover stats shows the interesting fact that Miami is middle of the pack and Houston is almost dead last... EXCEPT in the differential stat between OWN turnovers vs. OPP turnovers.

Surprisingly, the Rockets boast a +2.5 differential, while Miami has a -1.9 differential. Yet Miami has a better record.

Does this translate to defensive skill and consistency?

Individual turnover stats are worth comparing, too.

The top 6 Rockets players in TPG James Harden, Dwight Howard, Jeremy Lin, Chandler Parsons, Aaron Brooks, and Patrick Beverley, in descending order. I chose top 6 since Aaron Brooks was in 5th place, but is no longer with the team. Out of this top 5, 4 are starters.

Dividing minutes per game by turnovers suggest how long on average a player plays without committing a turnover. That calculation gives this table:

Player-------------------------MPG-------Min/TPG
Francisco Garcia, SG------------20---------33.33
Jordan Hamilton, SF†------------23.6-------29.5
Terrence Jones, PF--------------27.9-------27.9
Patrick Beverley, PG-------------31.9-------26.58
Donatas Motiejunas, PF----------14.3-------20.43
Chandler Parsons, SF------------37.6-------18.8
Greg Smith, PF-------------------9.1-------18.2
Omri Casspi, SF-----------------18.5-------16.82
Omer Asik, C--------------------16.9-------15.36
Jeremy Lin, PG-------------------29.4------10.89
James Harden, SG ---------------38.5------10.41
Dwight Howard, C ---------------34.2------10.36

(Sorry, no matter how I try to format the list, the columns don't line up well.)

Our 2 best players (as most people would agree) are the most likely to commit a turnover while on the floor in the normal rotation.

I'm curious as to others take on such an analytical look at how turnovers will affect the Rockets in the playoffs, and whether or not it represents a habit that is hard to defy over a 7-game series, or can it be corrected substantially come playoff time?

Obviously, we can't predict specific turnovers, but it might suggest which player will have a momentary lapse (like James Harden's wild toss down court last night) and make a turnover in a crucial situation that could make the difference in W/L in the playoffs.

 

Sorry. My previous post had a duplicate link for individual player turnover stats.

The team turnover comparison stats are here.

 

Reeeaaalllyyy?

 

Carls response is very fair. There is alot of situations where the Rockets opt to risk a turnover for a super high percentage shot rather than settle for a low percentage shot that has no risk of turnover.

Also even though yes... Morey has said that their style of play will lead to a higher rate of turnovers, However right now I would be willing to bet that Morey and McHale would tell you that alot of the turnovers lately have been poor decision making plays.

-Lastly- often the team opts to throw the ball down to Dwight on the low block when a play is broken, or they want to test out Dwight against his opponent early in the game. This is in fact a low percentage play because of Dwight high turnover rate on the low block... However they still opt to go to this play for reasons I just stated which has led to a higher turnover rate this year.

So the short answer is yes... they are going to be a high turnover team for a few understandable reasons, but no they should not be as bad as they have been lately.

(Note: the Heat played this style, led the league in turnovers, and still won the title. Turnovers suck, but your going to get them either way playing this style, but they need to get better at the dumb ones IE driving to the paint against 3 defenders with nowhere to go and throwing the ball at the last minute to the other side of the court)

 

I heard some crazy stat on the radio today that we are 11-2 when we have more than 20 TOs. Weird.

 

Harden and Howard are playing a high risk and high reward game.

Harden takes the ball into the teeth of the defense perhaps 14 times a game, including transition. He attacks the basket amid the trees with a guard trying to poke the ball out from behind. Rounding off, Harden scores on 6 of those 14 drives, is fouled on 5 of them and turns the ball over on 3 of them. Well worth the turnovers IMHO.

With Howard it is not so obvious. Most of Howard's turnovers occur in the post. Obviously the coaching staff agrees with the strategy, otherwise Howard would never get an entry pass. So what is going on? The long answer (there is no short answer) is that an on the court chess match is being played. If Howard can establish a post game, or even become dominant off of cuts and alley oops the defense is crippled. This is because the center cannot rotate off of Howard. Great NBA defenses rotate flawlessly. If the center cannot rotate within the defensive scheme, the scheme goes to hell quickly. Dribble penetrations become strolls to the basket. Swinging the ball means that once it reaches Howard's side the center cannot rotate off of Howard to guard the perimeter player. Howard's presence messes with the mind of the defense. Anyway the Rockets organization views Howard post ups worth the inherent inefficiencies. I cannot argue with Morey's and McHale's decision.

 

Easier. Set plays help players at the reception, open passing lines, and ease the creation of advantages.

Rockets just don't use set plays.

 

Set plays are the domain of bad teams these days. Teams with great players stopped using them a decade ago. There is no huddle or signs from the first and third base coaches in basketball.

 

I understand turnovers will happen, but some times those turnovers are just plain stupid. Like last night when TJ tried to pass it to Dwight when two people was on him. Or when Lin jumps up and try passing across the court. It's just we have to be careful with that ball.

 

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.... No. You are wrong, of course.

 

LOL. Trust me. Except out of timeouts and inbound plays.

 

What do you mean by "set plays"? If you are going to be one of those people that try and say the Rockets dont run plays than just stop now before you hurt yourself.

The Rockets run "sets" all the time which are essentially the same thing as if McHale was to call a time out, and tell one player to zig here, and another player to zag there.

However they dont rely on the coach telling them exactly what sets to run every single time down the floor just as EVERY OTHER team in the NBA doesn't do that and leaves that up to the players or tells them in pre-game what sets they want to focus on.

You want to know what the Rockets run, look up Horns, 4 out 1 In zone offense, "Delay"(often known as "Pistol"), and an assortment of different pick and roll plays with different counters. Those are very much "set plays" with counters, and yes the Rockets run them all the damn time.

 

dobro. I am pretty sure what you are referring to are initial offensive sets. Those differ markedly from a set play. They are just formations to focus the point of attack. I know of no NBA pundit who refers to offensive sets as set plays. The granularity is completely different.

 

It is obvious that we will have more TO's due to our style of offense. That said, there is also a clear difference between inflated TO due to increase possessions and dumb TO's due to poor decision making.

 

HMMMMMMMMMMMMMM is rolling around in his grave right now.