Thats the record when we dont manage to score 90 points. That leaves us as 30 and 10 when we score more than 90. Not many games with more than 90 points but when we did, it was a good sign. When we dont, you can go ahead and write that game off. Clearly the rockets biggest source of losses this season, injuries aside, was the lack of offense. I just wanted to point this out. Our biggest need really is scoring, and we seriously need it.
If they do that, what you will find out is that when they score less than 95 next season, they lose most of the games, next you will argue Rox needs even more offense, then after another season replacing defensive players with offensive players, when they score less than 100, they lose most of the game, and people will be at a loss. The point is you want to replace the players with players with at least the same defensive skills but with more offensive skills. You don't want to replace defensive players with offensive players but with less defensive skills. It won't do any good to the team.
Wesley and Head aren't great defenders... so whoever is replacing them, ain't replacing much defense anyway.
Yeah, I heard Jon Barry say this on the broadcast tonight. He definitely improves the quality of conversation during the broadcasts. Seems like Drex wants him to come back for another year.
nothing particularly wrong with that. If Phoenix scores less than 95, they'll probably lose most of the games as well.
It's amazing what our record is when we can score points 90+, or 100+. It makes me wonder if this team should just concentrate on getting OFFENSIVE minded players (even if their individual defense is a bit lacking) and then hope with JVG's defensive approach and the "collective" defensive effort will be enough to mask individual defensive weaknesses. We score enough points to win the games and play "good enough" defense to stop people. Just a though.
well, u have a point.. offense should be the most important thing to focus on,, then, when u have good offense, u should go and fix ur D (like Phoenix & Dallas did) because D is what takes u to a championship level..
Deuce - IMHO, the VG defensive system is designed to stop all dribble penetration into the paint with a soft trap. Yes, this can be and is done at a "collective" level. Nothing wrong with that at all and it "helps" so-so defenders to be adequte as part of this collective. That said, the way you counteract that is some combination of the following: * You force the VG defense to play 1 on 1 by posting up a player who is normally a perimeter offensive player. That's why we get torched by perimeter players like (to name a few) Ricky Davis, Jason Richardson, Bonzi Wells and Sam Cassell who are good and strong post up players. * If you have a PC and/or C with range (Nowitski, LaFrentz, Blount, Lo Wright to name only a few), move them away from the basket to create driving lanes for those players with a quickness advantage. * Tie up Yao and/or McGrady with strong-side action and reverse the ball quickly to the weakside where (due to footspeed and height limitations) there is usually an open player or minimally a 3 on 2 overload. * Force tempo in transition offense. This tires Yao and places your quicker offensive players in superior postion before the VG defense can set. (Why we look so bad against the Suns when we can't force our offensive "will" upon them). IMHO, we need a SG who is both a signifcant offensive and defensive upgrade over DWes & Luther Head.
Absolutely! Someone said a few weeks ago that balance wins championships, that we need both offence and defence, and I agree. You don't need the greatest defence if your offence is overpowering. The defence has to be reasonably good if you want to win a championship, but it doesn't have to choke all the fun out of the game. The 2003 champions (Lakers) were only 10th in defence, as measured by opponent points per game, but they had the 3rd best offence. That was more than good enough to win it all. One advantage of having a good offence is that it tends to attract the better free agents. A good, entertaining team also sells tickets, and an owner is more likely to be generous with player salaries if the team makes a fat profit.
Where do you learn this philosophy? The proven philosophy is always the other way around. You establish your defensive system first, then you try to fix your offense. I thought the Spurs and the Pistons had already shown this philosophy to the basketball fans. Well, most people believe Phoenix and Dallas won't be able to win a championship.
Or we could dump the defensive system altogether (and the coach too). JVG's defence is overrated: in Rudy's last year with us -- and Yao's first season -- we gave up 1.13 points per shot. Least season, we gave up 1.16 points per shot. So JVG's defence was actually worse than Rudy's. We were more successful last season only because our offence was often so overwhelming, thanks to T-Mac, Sura, and MJ.
Actually, I was just making fun. Obviously you need both offense and defense to win. If you have superior offense, you need at least adequate defense. If you have superior defense, you need at least adequate offense. The cliche "defense wins championship" is just too simplistic. No team can win big without at least adequate offense. And our offense is far from adequate. We need some more offensive players beside TMac and Yao.
well, this topic is very controverisal.. but I believe that every NBA player should play good D.. but unfortunately, u can rarely see an NBA player playing good D..as soon as the player leaves college (they play some crazy D in College to get drafted), they stop putting effort on the defensive end.. the reason I believe in this philosophy is that u can find a lot of great defensive players who cant play worth a crap (the best example is Bowen, and I mean by Bowen our Ryan Bowen, not Bruce).. and they can be very cheap, but u need to have good Offense first then u fit them in to be an Championship team (kinda like Phoenix, they sucked so much on D last year, but this year, they got Raja Bell and a couple of guys who fixed the problem).. and this philosophy doesn't apply for all teams, but it does to us. we are one of the better defensive teams in the NBA (thanks to Gundy), but we are losing because we cant hit an open shot to save our ***...
I love stats. But this is a ridiculous attempt to use a miniscule number to support a bogus theory. First, Van Gundy isn't going anywhere (and I don't care). Get over it. Secondly, why in hell are you comparing this season's stats to anything? Given similar teams, Van Gundy's Yao-Francis- Mobley Rockets were fractionally better at defensive points/FGA than they were under Rudy. And guess what? The masterful offensive efficiency you're trying to ascribe to RT with this points/FGA scenario.... Rudy's offense in his last season = 1.19 points/FGA. Van Gundy's offense in his 1st season...1.19 points/FGA. Last season with a healthy team, Sura and MJ...1.22 points/FGA. This season under absolutely horrible injury conditions...1.18 points/FGA. Small suggestion...try looking at the bigger picture. Perhaps then you'll see what a horrible pick a career rotational player like Redick would be at 7-9.
Note: your combative attitude is not helping your case. Let's keep this civilized, OK? I wanted to use Points/Possession as the metric, but the ESPN website claims that we had zero (0) turnovers in 2004. Clearly ridiculous. So I fell back on Points/Shot, knowing full well that it would probably be nitpicked to death. So I kept looking. I have located another source of stats (basketball-reference), and now I can compute Points/Possession. And you know what? It doesn't change my conclusions. <pre> Houston Rockets<br>--------------------------------------------------------------<br>Year FG FGA 3P 3PA TO PTS P/Poss*<br>2003 2840 6461 439 1267 1276 7688 0.994<br>2004 2738 6195 515 1406 1373 7362 0.973<br>2005 2846 6419 553 1521 1072 7796 1.041<br>2006 2643 6101 460 1379 1089 7214 1.003 Opponents<br>--------------------------------------------------------------<br>Year FG FGA 3P 3PA TO PTS P/Poss*<br>2003 2891 6681 383 1113 1082 7567 0.975<br>2004 2636 6405 457 1227 1103 7220 0.962<br>2005 2720 6423 454 1343 1028 7465 1.002<br>2006 2647 6157 527 1426 1005 7345 1.026</pre> * P/Poss = points per possession = PTS / (FGA + TO) As we can see, the opponent points per possession went from 0.975 in Rudy's last year to 0.962 in JVG's first year. The players were mostly the same, so this is evidence that JVG's defence was better than Rudy's, right? Not so fast. The difference can easily be explained by Yao's rebounding, which went from 8.2 to 9.0 per game. The apparent improvement in defence is mostly due to Yao, not to JVG. Recall that Rudy was fighting cancer during his last season with us, and the team basically crumbled when he was absent for the last 12% of the season. When Rudy was with the team, they were probably better at defence than they were with JVG. It gets worse for Van Gundy. In the same period, Yao's offence had improved immensely: his shooting average went from 0.498 to 0.522, and his points per game grew from 13.5 to 17.5. Despite this advantage for JVG, the overall offence got worse under him: the points per possession dropped from 0.994 under Rudy to 0.973 under JVG. So this is Van Gundy's epitaph: "Comprehensively worse than a cancer-stricken coach". If Baldy's offence and defence are both inferior, why exactly do we want to keep him around?
