I also think that Bill was way off his rocker and was definitely rubbing the Rocket's nose in the mud. The Denver game was nothing to write home about and did nothing to disuade anyone form believing what he said was true. We know better of course!!! Will Bonzi be back intime for the Dallas Game next week? Hope so!!
Could he explain why Rockets are also the best in the league at holding opponents' average FG percentage as low as 41.62%?
Actually, the FG% says it all. Even if teams had less possesions, they may score less points... but they would sitll hit at a decent clip against a sub-par (or "fake") defensive team. We force teams to take bad shots, or tons of 3's... most of the time, that's not what the opposing team wants to do.
Even the other commentators couldn't believe him when he said that four other teams (spurs, mavs, pistons, and suns) have better defense than the rockets. His excuse was that the stats were misleading because we play a slow-paced game....How do you explain holding the bobcats to 62 among other things? GET REAL WALTON
Because (as Walton correctly assesses) you naturally will have higher points allowed if there are more possessions in a game as well as lower points allowed if you have fewer possessions in a game. Comparing points scored / allowed between teams without taking this into account is comparing apples and oranges.
FG% alone doesn't tell the whole story. Because hypothetically if the opps were allowed to grab insane number of offensive rebounds, they could still get higher points (per game).
i don't think walton has anything against the rockets as a team, but he definetily has a problem with our JVG playing style. the guy has a hard-on for phoenix style basketball and uses every oppurtunity he gets to mention how great he thinks they are. somebody should keep track of how many times he mentions the suns during a non-suns broadcast. i bet you it's something like 4 a game.
All the commentators hate the Rockets, i was watching it on tnt and their constant praise of the nuggets and continuously saying the nuggets are right in it every five seconds makes me sick. Everyone says that we have an ugly style of basketball just cuz we dont play run and gun. This pisses me off completely because we work our asses off to play the best defense in the NBA, even if we slow down the game that still doesnt explain why teams shoot statistically lower when they play against us. That's defense morons!!!! If you wanna see no defense and you score i score mentality go throw a video camera at a YMCA pick up game or something, this is the NBA that has the advantage of advanced defensive schemes. Their hatred of our style makes me want the rockets to win the championship more to shut all these people up.
WOW, Bill just made a fool of himself on national T.V. I think in the begining he just wanted to say that the Rockets defense is not all that good (not as good as the spurs), but phoenix and dallas sort of slipped out of his mouth and he didn't want to correct himself and so he went on to say something as r****ded as this "I will take phoenix's defense over rockets defense any day"
I think Walton says ridiculous things off the top of his head, and is then too proud to own up to it. Once he got called on it by Jon Barry, he knew darn well it was ridiculous to say that Phoenix is a better defensive team than Houston. He was just too proud to admit it...Or maybe I am giving him too much credit.
He even said that we have about a .500 record against the west which means our record is not good as it looks ! The moron didn't mention that we have all these injuries and the fact that we played most of our games on the road !!
Like Tango says, if you want to boil down defensive effectiveness to a single stat, just look at points allowed per defensive possession. Jon Barry referred to defensive FG% and PPG allowed. Technically, you could be the best team in both categories and STILL not be a good defensive team. Let's walk through an example: you play at an unbelievably slow pace with the ball, thereby limiting the number of possessions for your opponent. That in itself affords you no advantage in terms of point differential (since your possessions would be similarly limited) and therefore can not be considered "good defense." Alright, so let's say this very slow paced team limits the opponent to 38% shooting. But suppose also that they never force turnovers, and they're defensive rebounding% is league worst. They could end up allowing a relatively high number of points per possession as a result ... even with the low defensive FG% and overall points allowed per game. Well, by allowing that high number of points per possession, they must now surpass that on the offensive end to win the game. In other words, they have to play at a high efficiency on the offensive end to make up for the high number of points they're allowing per possession on defense. Give that fact, how could such a team possibly be considered a good defensive team? Hence, simply looking at defensive FG% and points allowed per game is inadequate as an indicator of good defense.
Simply put: Phoenix plays a newfangle version of defense: they force you to take jumpers to catch up Houston plays traditional shutdown D shutdown D >>>>>>>>> offense dictated Defense
Walton is a moron. HOWEVER, Phoenix is a pretty good defensive team, greatly underrated. They are the only team that has been able to consistently shut Yao down. And they allow more points per game than us. But that is largely because they give their opponent an extra 20 possesions a game, with their fast paced style.
Well, don't opp's PPG in conjuction with their FG% implicitly take into consideration possessions per game? Defensive rebounding for sure (it's not coincidental the Rockets are also No.1 in that category), but I don't think turnovers are to related to defensive efficiency, unless you are talking about opp turnovers forced by the Rockets.
Please take a look at my post above if you haven't already. Maybe that will clarify why I (and I think Tango also) feel that PPG is an inadequate measure of defensive performance, even if you additionally consider FG%. Yes, that's what I meant. Forcing turnovers.
