With all the ups and downs the offense has seen this year and the bashing Rudy has taken from the bad games we should all bow are heads and praise Rudy for the new defensive strategy that has worked and worked WELL!! Last year defense was the downfall to the entire season and the Rocket's ranked next to last in all defensive catagories... what an amazing turn around! I waiting until long enough into the season to make sure what I was seeing I could believe... check these statistics out: Rocket's Defensive Comparision to the League Point Allowed: 86.8 - 2nd in the league Opp FG % - 3rd in the league Opp 3P % - 3rd Opp Rebounds - 5th Opp Assists - 10th Opp Turnovers - 1st If this doesn't excite you, I don't know what will! Amazing!!
we are discussing a lot of this in Jeff's thread. http://bbs.clutchcity.net/php3/showthread.php?s=&threadid=47191 but I agree, Rudy has the defense working as a team. Whether Yao or Cato is on the floor, man or zone, and despite Griffin's disappointing start as a PF defender, we are putting up some nice numbers, and definitely winning games based on defense. I think I saw in the Chronicle that in the last 3 4th quarters, we have held our opponents to 25% shooting. Now that's how you win in the playoffs....you must have aggressive, team-oriented 4th Q defense.
Veeg, I agree wholeheatedly. In a thread I started last week I used the same numbers to alert doubters that this is a top 4 in the west team. We need to recognize and appreciate the turnaround. I would like us to run more and I expect us to; the question is whether we will be able to maintain the same defensive standard when we do start running.
Rudy wasn't the problem defensively. It was the team, not really putting in the effort to play defense. Defense is 75% effort, 25% scheme/strategy.
Actually, zone doesn't really hinder your ability to create turnovers, since it allows you to play the passing lanes with more liberty.
Yea, they are worst in making the opposition turn the ball over but I thought we needed to see all the stat lines. Either way, it's hard to imagine them playing much better defensively but they actually can once Yao and Griffin improve. On the post about it not being Rudy making the difference, I have to disagree. Rudy has gone to a zone oriented defense without leaving the man-to-man completely. This switching between defensive styles has confused many opponents and, even in their losses, has been shown to be very effective. I will agree, however, that the players seem to be executing better on the defensive end and that's the only reason our record is as good as it is. Offensive... now thats another story.
Rudy's defensive philosophy is to play a solid grounded attack ie stopping penetrations, getting hands in shooters faces, getting opponents out of their sweet spots, closing up the lane with shotblocking etc. Rudy T discussed this one time on the radio and explained that having a more solid overall defense is better than taking risks on trying for turnovers. Basically, teams that press and trap a lot (remember Rick Pitino's Celtics?) are able to force a lot of turnovers, but the flipside is that they can give up a lot of easy baskets as well. I would tend to agree with Rudy's strategy on this one as the results speak for themselves. The Rockets are top 5 in the league in the most important overall defensive category, Field Goal % against.
Thats funny, I always thought pressure on the ball and doubling caused most turnovers. Passing lane turnovers I always attributed to bad spacing.
