His defense was OK but it was mostly what he did on the other end. Obviously. When all 3 guys (particularly Cam) are effective when they come in, the Rockets become a very deep team with an extremely versatile lineup. I know my eyes deceive me, but Amen just keeps looking bigger and bigger to me on the court every time he plays. Tari's impact is also huge, but his inconsistency is problematic, maybe because his leg isn't all the way there yet. Cam just had his first high-impact performance of the season. It took 28 games, but that doesn't matter. Hopefully he can build on this and become a dynamic force on the offensive end the rest of the season.
How are they doing that with a starting guard tandem shooting .305 from 3 and .390 from the floor. That's crazy .... How exactly does that stat measure ..... per 100 possessions?? or does it take into account the fact that they get 10-12 more possessions per game because of their defense & rebounding? I'm not arguing, just wondering ....
The answer is that we're having to maintain a historically elite level of offensive rebounding (grabbing our own misses) and rebounding in general so that we get more possessions than the opponent. That's why we're the 3rd worst TS%, 3rd worst 3PT% and 2nd worst FG% although we are nominally 15th or so in offensive rating. It's pretty clear to me we have better offensive talent than 3rd worst. I'm sure we can be 10th worst, that's realistic. With this literally historically elite level of rebounding we should be top 10 in offensive rating imo.
Offensive rating is per possession - an offensive rebound generates another possession. The Rockets are 14th in points per possession. It isn't due to extra offensive rebounds ... they simply are not as bad as everyone thinks (they are also very good at minimizing turnovers - they don't give away a lot of possessions).
Yes but that's not scoring efficiency. We're talking about TS%. We should be better than 3rd worst. Those extra possessions are obviously ultra high FG% - it's obvious from the formula how it would be impacted. You're simply wrong. Every opponent commentator knows it. Media knows it. Fans of other teams know it. The team that is ranked 14th on offensive rating while grabbing a historic amount of boards should be able to have a TS% higher than 27th. If you told anyone we're 14th in offensive rating and 27th in TS% their first reaction would be that it's an obvious opportunity for easy massive improvement. You're not going to convince me we can't improve our TS% just because our offensive rating is slightly above average. Not even a logical argument to me.
Offensive rebounds are high % shots in general. Much higher than any other type of possession. Stats can say anything you want them to. We suck at shooting and that is a problem. Fix it and we are contenders.
What a hyper-aggressive response for no reason. I never said we couldn't improve our TS% or that the offense was a strength. I said, very clearly, "they are not as bad as everyone thinks." And offensive rebounding is a skill and partly the result of the scheme of NOT playing 5-out. You cannot take the good, fix the bad, and assuming nothing else changes. Regardless, I am not "simply wrong" - you are simply asserting things I never said or implied.
It's just a really strange take and I'm ridiculing it dude. Offensive rating is not some secret stat, it's widely known by most people who are suggesting improvements to the offense. Everyone knows we're mid-table in offensive rating and it's practically universal that this thing is designed uglier than it needs to be. Just listen to any away commentator in any game. Just think about it logically, if the players are not bailing everyone out by averaging a historic rebounding advantage, we would be totally f*cked. You can't make it a duty of the players to out-hustle every single team every single night like their life depends on it - it's just not going to hold up neither mentally nor physically nor in any playoff series nor in contentious end of season games even. To some extent, we control the inputs. Rebounding is not a major input typically, we're warping the stats with this offensive rebounding explosion. TS% measures one of the most important inputs (scoring). It's between reasonable and obvious AF that our roster should have a better TS% than 27th in the NBA. I think from your post you agree too. Maybe I don't have the answer for how that can be done, but that doesn't mean the offense shouldn't be so damn inefficient. Sorry if my tone came off hyper-aggressive. I thought you were being dismissive of how much more talented we are. I didn't realize you're thinking people don't know about offensive rating.
Guys, I hate to say "I told you so", but Cam's 3-point shot completely transforms him. I appreciate when he plays decent defense, but offense is his ticket to a productive career and 3-pointers are a mandatory weapon for him to succeed.
Whatever Cam did during his benching, Reed need to do the same thing so he can get his mojo back too.
Playing with a lot more confidence and fitting his style into the gameplan. There were a few bad shot choices still but overall much better than before.
We got lots of putbacks and 2nd chances. If you shoot 30% but you get double the attempts you still have a good offense at the end of the day. FVV and Jalen suck pretty bad on offense but they hard carry on defense and Jalen likes to crash the boards.
This is an incredibly interesting team to behold. They're absolute dawgs on defense, a terror on the boards, but absolutely cannot shoot straight. What changes the equation completely is the introduction of an offensive assassin. Could Cam be that man? I don't see superstardom in the cards for Cam at this point, because his passing is dead. But, for this team, I'm not sure that's a death sentence. Jamaal Crawford was a damned valuable weapon and Cam could be, too. The potential ability to insert instant, unstoppable offense changes the trajectory of this team so much because it could limit the lulls. It has only been a few games, so the sample size is incredibly small, but IF this Cam is the real Cam going forward and IF Ime can figure when best to deploy him, this team suddenly becomes scary. Scary enough that no one will want a piece of this squad come playoff time.
