After tonight the Rockets have an average point differential of [EDIT:] -0.75, putting them right around 16th in the league. This does not take strength of schedule into account. Not making excuses. Just looking at the facts. I understand a loss is a loss, no matter by 1 or 30. However, for forecasting value, point differentials may be more helpful than pure wins/losses. So looking at the differentials, we are not quite "the worst team in the league" as our record would suggest. If nothing is fixed, it looks like we may still be around average, if that is any consolation. I know none of us would be happy with that. Our defense is an atrocity. And to have any chance of becoming a top 5 team in the west, that will have to be shored up. The point? The first 5 teams have been tough to beat. We stayed close but things never broke our way. The one team we are supposed to beat for sure, we blew out by 26. With a point differential of [EDIT:]-0.75, we are not quite as bad as some may think. With that said, "not quite as bad as some may think" was not what we had in mind coming into the season. So let's play some damn defense.
Sagarin NBA ratings actually had us at 16th before tonight's win. It takes into account point differential and strength of schedule (we had the hardest schedule before tonight): http://www.kiva.net/~jsagarin/sports/nbasend.htm But our first win comes against the team that was rated 30th according to Sagarin. So, let's not get our hopes up too much.
Thanks, this puts it into even better perspective. Point still stands: We are not quite as bad as we think we are now. We are obviously not as good as we hoped we'd be. Play some damn defense.
Good post. This thread has kinda gone unnoticed (I think it points out a fairly interesting idea), but as the season plays out we'll see how accurate those stats and stat sights are. But that website's analysis seems to make sense.
Few thought we were the worst team in the league. But we definitely have the worst defense. It didn't even pick up until the San Antonio game. I'm still unsatisfied with how they played against a truly horrible Minnesota team.
You're unsatisfied with a 30 point beatdown? Were you expecting some sort of Yates High School 170-20 score? It's the NBA, man. 30 points is domination.
The problem is the West has gotten a lot better than last year. If we had this team last year we would be gauranteed an 8th seed. But every team has gotten better, except the Jazz are worse but will still make the playoffs.
Our average points differential after tonight is -0.75, not +1. We lost the first 5 games by a combined -30, which or an average diff of -6. Tonight we won by +26, so our overall differential is -4 currently over 6 games, hence -0.75. Better news is that we improved our points allowed so that we are no longer the worst defensive team in the league. The timberwolves take over that spot now.
I think defensively we did fine in the first half. The rotations were quick and we shut down the paint. But our overall performance was unclear. One of our main issues is transition D and Minny had so few transition opportunities. We only had six turnovers and went to the FT line 47 times. That is extremely abnormal. Is that a testament to our execution or just poor Minny defense? Also, we were owned on the glass. We held them to 37% shooting yet allowed 94 points. That's because they had 19 offensive boards and after each one our bigs were out of position to prevent an easy putback. I know Kevin Love is a difficult guy to box out, but Koufos and Pekovic? This reminds me of the Warriors game where no one could box out David Lee. I was extremely unsatisfied with Martin's and Budinger's defense. They're both so bad it's starting to piss me off. They're allowing their man to get to the hoop, forcing Yao and Hill to rotate and foul. That forced help is also the main reason why no one was boxing out Minny's bigs. Bud and Kmat look like long term options on the wing, so they must get better. They are the problem right now.
I understand that, as stated in the original post. But as far as forecasting value, what good does that do us? In that case we are on pace for 14 wins according to our 1-5 record. As bad as we have played, I doubt that will be the case. A better judge of where we stand, or rather, where we will stand, is point differential. Or better yet, the Sagarin's rating posted by durvasa which takes into account strength of schedule. Regardless of our record. With that said, I know what you mean. To get to the playoffs, to ever be close to a contender, we need to win. Not almost not lose. But that is not the point of this thread. Just providing some perspective.
I like this thread a lot, and was cognizent of it during the game as well. The Rockets got off to a rough start, because they had a lot of turnover in personel and played some really good teams. DD
We actually are 12th in opposing effective offensive shooting percentage. That's not bad. Our defense is getting hurt for 3 reasons: 1. We are not disrupting the passing lanes (we rank at the bottom of opposing assist to turnover ratio and steals) 2. We give up way too many offensive rebounds 3. We are at the bottom in opposing 3 point shooting percentage (meaning a lot of wide open shots). All of this points towards a lack of focus, hustle, intensity or whatever combined with guys being out of position. If we can fix that, and it's very fixable - we can be better. Against San Antonio, we limited them to 13 offensive rebounds and had 14 ourselves which showed we hustled. But they shot the 3 ball well and we only had 5 steals. That shows we are not playing smart defense. It may truly be that RA is either making mistakes with his defense or that the players are. But I don't think it's on the ball defense that's killing us as we actually defend the 2 point shots pretty well. Team defense is a fixable matter. And that's encouraging. The real issue is - does Adelman know how to fix it?
Well it was the Lakers, Spurs, and Nuggets for 3 of those first 5. Thats pretty hefty lifting for the situation with Yao. I think we are a middle of the pack team maybe 8th seed at best now. These rankings sound about right.
hey fwiw i broke down the scoring by quarter for us and our opponents in our losses. 1st 30.6 - 29.2 +1.4 2nd 25.8 - 24.0 +1.8 3rd 24.0 - 30.2 -6.2 4th 28.4 - 30.8 -1.4 also, can anyone show me how to do a table to make that look cleaner?
http://waynewinston.com/wordpress/?p=931 Wayne Winston's power ranking (offense/defense efficiency adjusted by strength of schedule, I think), posted yesterday before the Rockets-Wolves game. The then-winless Houston team was ranked 9th overall, and had the highest-ranked offense in the league. Winston was Mark Cuban's stats professsor once and once worked for the Mavs.
Point differential is one of the most accurate predictions for win-loss results. The Rockets are right around the middle, which is much better than what the 1-5 record shows, but lower than most people's expectation before the season began. One thing point differential cannot predict is a team's improvement. I think the Rockets have a very good chance of improving down the road of this season.
