What is holding this team back from being a truly defense team? Lets take a look: A lot of people seem to agree that Basketball Reference has the best breakdown of team stats. So let's look at how the Rocket's fare in their criteria. http://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_2014.html#all_misc_stats Opponent Points Per 100 Possession: (I'm not sure what the differences between both Hollinger and BR formula are) Basketball Reference: 14th Hollinger: 9th Now let's look at some basic stats: Opponent FG%: .437 (5th in the league) Opponent 3PT%: .346 (7th in the league) Opponent 2PT%: .468 (7th in the league) Basketball Reference recognizes 4 Factors of Basketball Success: 1. Shooting (40%). They use eFG% to measure this 2. Turnovers (25%). They use TOV% 3. Rebounding (20%). *For defense they use DRB% 4. Free Throws (15%). Basically FT/FGA Let's look at how the Rocket's defense measures up under the Four Factors: eFG%: .481 (5th in the league) TOV%: 12.9 (26th in the league) DRB%: 73.1 (24th in the league) FT/FGA: .189 (6th in the league) The opponent's TOV% effect's on a team's overall defense seems to be all over the place. 4 of the top 6 defensive teams: Bobcats, Spurs, Thunder, Pacers are all in the bottom half of the league. Every team in the top 10 of defensive ratings except for the Clippers are in the top half of the league in % terms of grabbing all available defensive rebounds. Good Article on DRB% vs Defensive Rating: http://www.slcdunk.com/research-statistics-analytics/2014/1/20/5329830/utah-jazz-40-at-40-does-defensive-rebounding-make-your-defense-good Getting the Defensive Rebound seems to be the one thing holding the Rockets back from being a truly elite defensive team. Is our DR woes due to the lack of some true rebounding backup bigs? (We had DMO, Casspi, and Jones all playing backup minutes with no Dwight on the floor majority of the season.) Clippers who have phenomenal rebounders in Griffin and Jordan have no great bigs coming off the bench, and are just as poor of a defensive rebounding team. With Omer back (assuming he's still here,or we get a different big who can rebound well after the deadline), how much do you guys expect to improve in the defensive rebounding category? Morey in his latest interview seems to think it will push the team into top 10 Defensive Ratings.
Our defensive rebounding is bad because of Terrence Jones. Our defensive rebounding is terrible when he is on the court. He needs to cover for Dwight when Dwight goes for the shot block, and block out.
I like this. Challenges our presumption that our wing defenders not being great on man-on-man defense for the most part will sink us. Seems to be we just need to get better at DRBs, i.e., plenty on our bigs not named Dwight Howard (or if his ORB% is high, we need more boxouts or something). Hopefully Asik will help a lot here.
I'm speaking from what I've seen on the court, particularly when I'm at the games, as opposed to stats - which can be misleading. But I agree completely. Terrance Jones gets shoved out of position and just doesn't have a mature basketball IQ yet. Not knocking the guy, not saying he wont learn, but right now he's a liability out there on the boards.
Wing defense will help. Dwight will be able to help on glass more with less easy penetration. Jones is part of the problem, but so are Parsons and Harden. The best defensive rebounding team gets less rebounds from their starting center and starting PF than the Rockets do.
Lately DMO has looked slightly better next to Dwight than TJones. This is a good thing. Competition is good for both guys.
Is it also possible that our SF and Guards are so eager to run that they tend to run first before helping out on the boards?
After a little more analysis, we are league average with Dwight and Jones on the court, just a tiny bit below with Dwight and no Jones, and way, way worse than the worst team in the league with Jones and no Dwight. Asik could help us, but we'll still be average if our starting unit doesn't do better.
As well as T-Jones has played, I do think there are many occasions where D-Mo has demonstrated superior defense. T-Jones just gets lost way too often on defense, but he could definitely improve.
There may be a defensive system out there that the players are just not executing, but from a fan's standpoint it just looks "hully gully" out there when it comes to defense. For one thing, when the offensive team is moving, the Rockets are often standing still. Where are the shifts, the adjustments?
T-Jones hardly ever boxes out when Dwight goes for the contest/block. There was a sequence where him and Dwight both went for the block at the same exact time and Seraphin got an easy putback on the other side.
I guess it is analogous to the guards' ball-watching. Jones paid too much attention to the guy with the ball and forgot about his other responsibilities. It is probably a common defensive mistake for young players.
TJones puts up some big blocks right now but on defensive standpoint, as a whole, he is a liability right now.
This. The same is true for Harden, too, though it hasn't hurt the Rockets quite as much because Harden's man hasn't crashed the glass as often as Jones'.
