[CBS] Rockets have a crazy plan to beat the Warriors (and it just might work)

As opposed to the WCF between the Rockets and Pacers you were just talking about?

 

Golden State Warriors beat writer. They see us.

 

Before we even get to defense, what is missing is the team CURRENTLY needing to shoot the 3pt% listed in your stats. Just by doing that, by getting back to that, things will be a lot better.

 

This one gave me a little southern tingle lol

 

Im looking forward to a rockets pacers WCF

 

Yeah, we're all set to match up against the Golden State Warriors. But we needn't count our chickens just yet; it's the first round that could kill us. Memphis, OKC, and the Jazz have impressive bigs. We have streaky 3 point shooters on wobbly legs, begging for D'Antoni to give some more of their too-many minutes to Dekker and Harrell.

 

well...no. Just make (15) 3's in 4 of 7 games against the Warriors- if we even get there. Either way, the author is correct. Hoping we get hot in 4 of 7 games against the Warriors is probably more likely than (any team outside Cleveland) trying to out-muscle and out-defend them.

 

Disagree, Anderson is the weak link and doesn't play D and/or rebound at a high level. Trevor is always guarding the #1 option from PGs, to SGs to SFs to PFs. Anderson can only guard PFs and he's average at best.

 

Many Golden State fans share the same sentiment as Morey. They are so dominant but most of them believe Rockets are the only team that can threaten their title chances in the west.

 

I was mainly talking about offense. There's a reason why Anderson plays the least amount of minutes out of the starters besides the center position.

I think defensively this team isn't bad I just think the rebounding is the issue. We give up way to may second chance points and it's really killing us.

In a vacuum I agree Ariza is a pretty good fit in the starting lineup but he's been really bad from three for months now and it's starting to outweigh this defensive value Imo.

We need a guy who can shoot threes like the rest of the guys do at fairly high enough rate. If your going all in on threes we'll your small foward needs to make threes and he hasn't been for almost 2 months now.

 

Where do you get the 26th in shooting?

Are you talking about FG%? We are 11th.
Are you talking about 3p%? We are 14th.
Are you talking about TS% We are 2nd.
Are you talking about eFG%? We are 2nd.

 

We are the only ones who might beat the Warriors, not only because we're a monster offensive team but also because we're going to have the best player in the series.

I'm disappointed with the defensive effort since the All Star break, there is no reason they shouldn't at least be mediocre on defense right now. Fully healthy squad, rested, practiced. These guys have to remember why they have won this many games. It's not because they're an amazing roster. It's only because they fought harder, ran faster, passed better, executed sharper than everyone else. They need to get back to that.

We have the greatest room for improvement our of us, Warriors, Spurs. We can play better defense than we're playing. The Spurs and Warriors cannot get much better defensively or offensively.

 

Since 1/1/2017, the Rockets are 26th in 3P%, so it's been a while since they were lighting it up.

 

Well, look at it this way. They've been in a slump for a while and they are STILL ranked 14th.

 

Oh, yeah, November and December were tremendous. January and February have been atrocious. Hopefully they even out here soon, and hopefully they end up in the Top 10.

 

Love this article and puts a nice perspective on everyone around the league who is skeptical about the Lou addition and what we are trying to do. Great to know the Warriors are losing games when teams hit their threes, which no team can like us. Excited about the opportunity to meet them in the post-season, preferably before the WCF.

 

Grab more rebounds can win

 

I think you're misunderstanding the math that the team is trying to apply. They will shoot until they are middle of the pack, hence aiming for 50+ attempts right now.

So if the Rockets were top 5 or 10, they would immediately ramp up their attempts, thus bringing down the %. From the looks of it, Morey is constantly trying to increase the attempts until we hit league average %.

The percentage you're thinking about is not a metric they care about directly. We're never going to be good at it, and that's an understood part of the plan.

It's kind of like James Harden's FG%. At first glance you would think he is underperforming and the team must be unhappy with his % and he is an inefficient scorer. But really they are looking at other metrics, probably the biggest one being overall points per shot.

Harden is 4th in the league in points per shot (while taking the most FGA out of the top 20 players in PPS, and the lowest FG%). Harden is an EXTREMELY efficient player, and while it doesn't show in the simple metrics, it certainly shows in the outcome. James Harden scores 28.8 on 18.6 shots, which is seriously INCREDIBLE. The only 3 players producing more points per shot than James Harden are Rudy Gobert, Dwight Howard and DeAndre Jordan. None of them take more than 8.1 attempts, and the highest scorer among them drops a mediocre 13.4ppg. They are not in his league. Only Isaiah Thomas and Kevin Durant are anywhere near him.

Similarly, as a team, we may be 14th in 3p% and 11th in FG%, but are 2nd in points per shot as a team. It's not a coincidence. It is 100% designed that way. We are taking a smarter MIX of shots, and the historical standards/averages that we are accustomed to on FG% and 3PT% are being redefined as we speak. We are a hair below the Warriors, and a hair above the Cavs in points per shot. Basically, this team mirrors the ridiculously succesful experiment of turning Harden into an offensive juggernaut. We're not just slinging shots up there and hoping it goes well. We are like scientists out there, beating teams with math and execution.

San Antonio, Golden State and Cleveland shoot a great % because their roster includes players that are great at scoring inside. That's why we take WAY more 3's than them, because our roster is built that way. They are choosing the right mix for their players. We don't have as good a roster as the Cavs and Warriors so we have to basically pioneer something that might work, and it's working. The Spurs don't have a superstar roster and they take WAY less 3's than us but that's because they have LMA and Gasol inside, and Kawhi is a pretty good interior player too. Their mix works for them.

Hope that helps. I feel like you've been really concerned about that % when in reality it's not stopping us at all from being the 2nd best offense in the league.

 

^^

Well said, and I do agree. That isn't lost on me. You'd just like to see better shooting than what we've seen recently. Bottom 5 in the league shouldn't be happening, but as you said, the large number we shoot, we'll never be Top 5 or so or so in percentage. If we can sustain the shooting at a decent clip, we'll be blitzing teams like December. Either way, our efficiency is still very high.

I'm no Moreyball hater, that is for sure.

 

Ton of if's but:

If we're gonna beat the Warriors, Ariza needs to play much better. He barely cracks double figures anymore.

If we're gonna beat the Warriors, we beat them on the bench, when Gordon has an off night, Lou will needs to light it up (and show at least average defense) & vice versa.

If we're gonna beat the Warriors, Capela has to be rebound. I also think Harrell is perfect for this series, out hustling the Warriors bigs (their only weakness) would be huge.

Bonus points: Warriors start losing games with Durant out, fall in the standings. (not likely at all)