DMo has been solid on defense since last season. It's his offense that was wildly inconsistent. And because of that, his minutes were also wildly inconsistent because whenever he struggled, he got pulled. In the past two weeks, he couldn't get pulled even when his shots weren't falling because we only had 3 healthy bigs left on the roster. If you sat DMo, the only options were Black and Dorsey, which would be far worse options on offense.
his inconsistent offense was never the problem it was that he was allergic to rebounding and Jones is and has been a better defender than him.
My gut tells me that Jones is not a good defender. Do the numbers say otherwise? Legitimate question. Flame away.
I doubt many would agree with you that Jones is a better defender than D-Mo. And certainly no advanced stat will.
D-Mo, believe it or not, right now is perhaps one of the premier defensive bigs in the league. SportsVu generated stats, the right hand column is the opposing players field goal % against D-Mo minus their overall field goal %. Negatives are very good. Here is Hibbert
actually all of them will, Jones has a better defensive rating, a better steal percentage, a better block percentage and he has double the Defensive win shares as D-Mo... in fact the advanced stats suggest that the only thing D-mo is better than Jones at is getting to the free throw line http://www.basketball-reference.com...1&y1=2014&p2=motiedo01&y2=2014#per_poss::none
And yet you nevertheless are wrong. What could possibly have gotten in the way of a correct analysis?
Well this is disappointing, we won't beat any of the elite teams in the west without dwight and that scares me. I mean a two to three game losing streak could put us out of the playoff picture. I know it's early but every game is important in the western conference especially if we want home court advantage.
His defensive rebounding per 36 minutes last season was almost identical with Jones's. Jones grabs more offensive boards, I think mostly because he's more athletic. Jones is very poor at boxing out on defense.
McHale and Morey are assessing the risk/reward balance of keeping the players out until they are fully healed. With the Rockets at 13-4, the Memphis game probably unwinnable without a PG, the logical decision is to keep Dwight out of the game. On the brighter side, Houston did beat a very good Dallas team with a seriously depleted roster.
That is my point... they are very similar but Jones does everything a little better. If you look across the board Terrence has proven to be more effective than Donuts.
I am afraid that absolutely nobody could make heads or tails out of old school defensive stats. Even the experts. The closest anyone came is end of season lineup adjusted +/-. There are just too many confounding factors. But now we have synergy and SportsVU analysis of actual game footage. They track each and every play, including the offensive player and who is defending them. And present a portion of that data to the public. That is the only reliable fan accessible data on the defensive side.
Part of D-Mo's recent success is based on continued success from the 3-point line by others and the fact that he is not Howard. Both combined means the 3-point shooters have to be closed on and no one thinks he should be doubled like Howard. (I, too, have noticed, as others have, that he has really worked on Hakeem's post moves .) There's also a bit of truth to the fact that when your superstar center is not on the floor, ball movement is just better. (Remember that being implied last year when Howard and/or Harden were out? D-Mo doesn't need to make his position score points in the same way Howard does. One seems more necessary to justify the contract. So ball movement is possibly a bit quicker out of the post. When you are down 3 starters and your backup PG, team play suddenly becomes a priority for the rest of the players left in the rotation. As far as McHale goes, I think people need to accept that he's much more of a Rudy type coach. (And players from his era would respond to his coaching differently than current players do -- it's a less physical game now.) When the players play bad, well, it's his fault. When the players play good, well, it's because he has talented players. He hasn't had the luxury of developing a rotation yet this season due to injuries. And turnovers have killed the Rockets the last 2 seasons (this one is still relatively early, but also quite bad some games). Is that on him? I don't know? How do you sit guys for making mistakes when you don't have a full roster? This current staff is doing something right given the injuries they've faced... or maybe they just have better talent this year. (Defensively, they seem to, for sure.) I also think Jason Terry's influence was overlooked when he signed. Many thought it was for an eventual trade. When projected as a bench player, he was mainly seen as 37 years old. Now that he has to contribute more, he's a veteran adding a calming and confident influence on the floor. AND, it still boggles my mind that there isn't a special, designated coach (or doesn't seem to be) to help all the Rockets free-throw challenged players improve. (I keep having Calvin Murphy in mind... but ANYONE who has mastered the skill. I know that they don't have practice time between some games, but this is not something that was just discovered. These players have had this deficiency for a long time.) There are bound to be hand exercises to reinforce proper ball rotation with the hands when shooting. Maybe practicing ball rotation with the hands when shooting?? Just imagine... if Howard and Black were 80% FT shooters...sorry I was drifting off.
Absolutely lovely post! The credit for this seasons elite defense should be distributed throughout the entire organization. But it was McHale who devised the system and organized its implementation. And it took complete player buy in. The defense is not much worse without four very important players. It says a lot about the players and coaching staff.
Are we really going to only use this season and not last season. I know that D-Mo is your boy but come on lets be real jtr. Jones is better than D-Mo, both offensively and defensively.
Unfortunately for the fans, the data is pulled after the season ends. If I could I would. And Jones is not a better defensive player than D-Mo. I thought I had shown that. The only area Jones is superior is in blocks. And D-Mo plays that Asik style defense to near perfection.
