How Often will Hack-a-Dwight be Employed This Season?

I guarantee we see it against the Lakers in LA

 

Well, we have Harden and Lin to draw out fouls early in the game before they employ that strategy so that if they intent to use "Hack a Howard"... we'll have some guys on the other team hesitate because they already have certain amount of fouls (hence hesitation, miscommunication, and suddenly a easy bucket for us).

 

Fouling out of spite is not Hack a Howard.

 

Only playoff calibre teams will do it.

So approximately 50%.

 

I've always wanted a rule change to make all "intentional fouls" into "flagrant fouls". Fouls should never be a strategy.

Get rid of intentional fouls in the last 2 minutes to chance free throws. No hacking at players who are getting a lay up. Make a play for the ball or get a flagrant.

 

53.5% since CH made me apply the Rockets PPP instead of just the league average.

 

Its not a winning strategy. Dallas got into foul trouble and couldn't play aggressive defense. All it did was get us in the penalty with several players that are adept at drawing fouls.

 

With the offensive weapons we have on this team, I suspect no less then 50% of the time.

 

I generally agree with you, but would like to elaborate.

Hack a [Player] can actually benefit a team as that Players FT% falls further behind the league average of 1.04 PPP. Most teams have a bevy of players who can soak up six fouls. However a coach needs to balance that strategy against putting the team into the penalty early in a quarter.

Hack a [Player] is a desperation strategy. Coaches can pray that someone on the team steps up and hits 4 or 5 straight three pointers like Chowder (?) did last night. But it is not going to happen often.

The Rockets could actually lose a game or two this season when facing a Hack a [Asik/Howard] strategy. But for the most part the strategy will fail much more often than it succeeds.

 

Much as I dislike it being used against us, it's a legitimate tactic with a very long history in the NBA. It punishes players who never develop a reasonable free throw.

And let's be honest, is it really SO much to ask Howard to hit 60% of his FT's? Get him to 60% and hack-a-dwight disappears.

 

Well first you have to take into account that we are going to have to have a big lead for teams to even think about doing this, and I doubt we have huge leads in 41 games so 50% seems high. I envision maybe we have a big lead in 20 games so I said 25%, but If he at least hits 1 of 2 they will back off because it's a terrible Idea to give a team points, and the strategy hardly works.


Now if he shows that he can't handle the pressure from the game being put on his big shoulders and he continues to throw up bricks at critical times than I anticipate we are going to have alot of boring second halfs like last night.

 

I cannot agree with you. Howard has been paid an excessive amount of money (but not by NBA standards though) by three different teams. I imagine that a fortune of time and coaching has been spent on attempting to improve Howard's in game FT%. And Howard by all reports hits 70%+ of his practice free throws. Morey signed Howard knowing that FT% was going to be a problem. I have to assume he is worth one third of the Rockets cap space even with that FT% wart in his game.

The fans should just accept this wart in Howard's game. It certainly cannot have been unexpected.

 

Three defensive strategies against the Rockets have emerged in the first two games. CHA basically gave up contesting all defensive rebounds. Dallas has shown that a zone can give the Rockets offense fits. Dallas also showed that Hack a Howard may not be very effective against the Rockets, but that it can be employed to slow the game down.

We shall see.

 

I guess Stern changed his mind about getting rid of Hack A Howard

 

the danger of teams doing that is if the player gets into a rhythm...the better strategy would be to hack on every other possession. we saw how asik got into a rhythm against okc. also, in the case of dwight and asik, rockets would be in the penalty early especially when we start feeding howard at the beginning of games and the guy guarding him will usually pick up an early foul.

 

it's good the rockets saw the zone played against them this early in the season...this gives them time to adjust and devise their own strategy to counter it. i just think lin can attack that zone with his penetration and dish off. i want to see the jazz do the zone against rockets tonite so they can try out their strategy.

 

This year, we'll be able to slow it down too. Slowing down the pace isn't going to be as much of an weakness as it was last year.

 

Hahaha, as soon as he leaves the Lakers it's not an issue anymore.