One of the concerns heading into the season with Rockets playing small was how we'd perform on the boards. It turns out, 11 games in, that the Rockets have overall outrebounded the opponent. When I say "outrebounded", I'm referring to the offensive rebounding% differential. By this measure, I've ordered the Rockets best to worst games this season. You can see that 4 times we've did much better (> 10%), while only 2 times we did much worse. This year, we're outrebounding opponents 28.2% to 26.3%. Last year, it was 26.4% to 24.7%. Roughly the same advantage, interestingly enough. This year we're excelling on the offensive boards, while last year we excelled on the defensive boards (limiting opponent offensive rebounding). Rockets Opponents HOU OPP Opp W/L ORB TRB ORB TRB ORB% ORB% diff @LAL W 13 60 6 38 28.9% 11.3% +17.6% PHO L 13 44 5 40 27.1% 13.9% +13.2% @MIN W 18 46 12 36 42.9% 30.0% +12.9% @UTA W 15 46 8 38 33.3% 20.5% +12.8% MEM W 11 46 9 43 24.4% 20.5% +4.0% LAL L 17 54 17 48 35.4% 31.5% +3.9% @GSW W 13 41 13 41 31.7% 31.7% 0.0% @DAL L 11 37 9 46 22.9% 25.7% -2.8% OKC W 8 40 11 40 21.6% 25.6% -4.0% POR W 12 32 12 37 32.4% 37.5% -5.1% @POR L 10 33 12 51 20.4% 34.3% -13.9% @SAC L 9 35 16 54 19.1% 38.1% -18.9% 150 514 130 512 28.2% 26.3% +1.9%
Would seem to make sense. Our approach this year, in striking contrast to prior years, is 'agression.' Crash the boards, play the passing lanes, and push the break. In the past, we were modeled on strict conservatism. Surrender the offensive boards in favor of retreating back on transition defense; don't gamble defensively. We can afford to crash the boards because our players are quick enough to recover. We also might not have any other choice but to gamble. Our best chance to win is to create enough chaos to give us an advantage to offset our physical limitations.
Agreed, we are short up front but long on the wing...... So, everyone has to hit the glass. But against teams with a couple of quality bigs, we are in trouble. DD
