KD - agreed . Seems like folks are finally starting to catch on regarding some of the better stat measures.
So let's look at points per possession - which is the true metric to measure defense - taking in help D, steals, fouls, rebounding (denying second shots), etc. Where do the Rockets rank?
Number 1, by a wide margin. We give up about 99.1 points per 100 defensive possessions. League average is around 105 or 106. And second place Spurs give up about 101.7 points per 100 possessions. http://www.knickerblogger.net/stats/2007/d_de.htm Why are we so good? Look at the "four factors". We're first in defending field goals (opponent eFG%), and we're first in defensive rebounding%.
Here is the Defensive efficiency as of 12/23 http://www.wagesofwins.com/NBADef33%.html Phoenix is much better defensively then one would think, but the Rockets still rank #2, barely behind SA.
Nice, this shows that Houston has the best D (what games does this include?). But it also shows that Dallas and Phoenix have very strong defenses as well as the best offensives, where as we rank number 17. So while Walton clearly exaggerated (as he often does)....he does have a point in that Dallas/Phoenix defense is of a high quality - and they have a much stronger offense. Of course, I wonder what our offensive efficiency is without Rafer in the line-up
It's up to date. Knickerblogger.net updates it daily after the last day's games. Months ago I posted several threads regarding all this. I'm much more interested in the margin or ORtg - DRtg. Having both gives us a means to actually do a decent job of projecting winning pct and wins/losses using what's called the "pythagorean method". There's even a more sophisticated method to look at that actually factors in opposing team ORtg & DRtg to project outcomes of games but alas I have enough going on in my life to try and tackle that. Also, as KD was saying, Walton started out correctly in terms of mentioning the idea of having to factor in pace get a true measure of defensive efficiency. He just got way way off after that .
People says "defense wins championships" and they explain it as: Defense is an effort thing. You need to bring your effort every night to give yourself a chance to win. There are nights that your offense isnt going well and your shoots arent falling. But if you play defense, you may hold down the fort and give yourself a chance to win the game. But the non-written part of "defense wins championships" is that your team must score enough points to win the game. Also, in playoffs, most teams gear up their efforts. Since defense is an effort thing, that's why the regular season defense rating will not matter that much in the playoff. Also, these defense stats are highly affected by the style of play. Mike Fratello is famous for playing low pace & low possessions games. That's how Fratello got his No. 2 defense efficiency last season. I watched the Grizzllies games last season and never think they were good defenseive team.
From this Knickerblogger spreadsheet it would appear we do not have a huge problem with to's for & against - we are in the middle on both. And I would say we have probably gotten about everything we can in a major way out of improving our D. But where we are at the bottom in Offense is free throw per field goals. 28th!! We are not getting that many freebies. This aligns with several observations: we shoot a lot of 3's, Yao and Tmac do not get a lot of "superstar" calls, our other players also do not get a lot of favorable calls - we do not seem to create as much contact with opposition defenders when we do drive the lane (note: imitate Jazz/Mavs/Spurs). Comparing us vs the Suns offense - they are just a lot more efficient shooting, have fewer to's and are probably low on rebounding as they have fewer rb's to pickup - am I reading that right? So Rafer needs to hit his shots, make contact when driving the lane, and as a team we need to make fewer to's on offense. Then our O/D diff which is behind the Spurs, Suns, Mavs & should improve. Our to's are going down due to Yao/post play not being in effect, AND the team overall improving and getting to know one another over the past 3 months. If we can work these things between now and April we should be fine. JVG - you reading this? Doit!
Our turnovers have greatly improved since Yao got injured. And while our ranking for free throws is worse, keep in mind that the free throw category isn't quite as important as the others (eFG% being the most important).
He is just an old idiot with a speech impediment. He said there are two teams that are dagerous when their PGs play well...Houston and Rafer ...and ...the Lakers and Smush Parker. I thought Jon Barry was gonna start slapping some sense into the old fella in the middle of play-by-play. BTW that pesky foward Edward Najera is pronounced Nah-heh-rah, not Nah-hah-rah.
I watched that and I saw both his fellow announcers (including JB) were laughing at him when he mentioned that idiotic statment that he should've kept to himself to save the embarrassment!
Walton has to be the MOST irritating and ignorant announcer in the history of broadcast basketball. He just rambles on incoherently about absolutely nothing and believes, I suspect, that he is the oracle of basketball knowledge. Why does ESPN keep him on contract? When ESPN has Walton announcing a Rox game, the only solution, is to bring along an AM radio, shut off the television volume and listen to the local announcers. Which brings me to the next topic. When the hell are the Rockets going to re-instate Calvin? Clyde I love you, but you ain't no announcer.
to be fair... walton didn't say anything nice about anyone.. all he does all game is talk sh*t about whoever he feels like talking sh*t about. he's r****ded, yes. he's ugly? yes. his son is no good? yes.. doesn't give him much incentive to be positive now does it? i hope after this you can understand why bill walton is such a bitter, sour man.
Rafer make contact when driving the lane? Good luck with that. He'd rather toss up that teardrop of his, which he makes about 25% of the time, if that. Drives me crazy.
He never once said anything bad about the Suns and made himself look like a fool saying that the Suns have some of the best defense...the one that holds opponent to 105 points per game avg.
Their offesnes are better because they've got much more talented, healthier teams, starting with PG's who are deadly outside shooters.
While defensive effeciency and points/possession type metrics are undoubtedly the best, they do have one flaw.... and that's the fact that they DO try to take into account pace of play and normalize it for everyone. Which in this case is stupid. If all you're talking about is defense, pace of play has to be a factor and shouldn't be normalized. If the Rockets are the best defense because they play a much slower game, that doesn't mean they aren't the best defense. If you want to talk about overall play and team strenghts, per possession type stats are undoubtedly the best, as they let you see how good a team is offensively versus defensively for a certain number of possessions.
Even I a noted JVG hater have to acknowledge the rockets team defense is exceptional. I can't think of another that is better right now. Not even the Spurs. IMO from hearing some other comments of his in the past I think he dislikes JVG more than me. And I must add while I will bash JVG at times I find it completely unacceptable for a non Rocket fan to do it!
defensively, houston's up there with dallas and phoenix, if not better. But overall, houston's still 4th, 5th best team in the west. The 2 upcoming games will show some true test to see how we fare against the heavyweight's of the league.
