NOPE! More Hack a Howard tbh Especially on the road and especially during the playoffs (where the stakes are higher)
The beginning of the end, hopefully. He still has to keep shooting good % moving forward, 60% minimum, 70%-ish will be ideal. Seems like the rule of thumbs used by coaches is a team gets slightly over 1 point per shot attempt on average (losing teams tend to be closer to 1, and winning teams can be upward of 1.2 or higher pts per shot attempt, including plays that result in FT). In any case, 60% FT% basically gives you 1.2 pts per possession, which is not exactly the same as per attempt due to possible offensive rebounds and turnovers, but close, hence the rule of thumb. In short, once Howard shoots 60%-70% or beyond consistently, the hacking will stop. A great example is Tim Duncan, who shoots between 60-70% FT most of his career (until his breakout the last couple of years). Folks had tried Hack-a-Tim before, but it generally didn't work, and hence it was so rare we don't even hear about it.
Well one bright side of the Dallas game is that they tried to Hack a Howard once and then gave up when he made his free throws. I'm sticking with my call, this could be the beginning of the end of Hack a Howard!
Which won't be necessary... As long as Dwight keeps shooting his freethrows at just over a 50% clip, and it's not to their satisfaction, then they're free to give us all the free points they'd like.
Who really cares about Hack a Howard at this point? If our defense doesn't drastically improve, we don't have any shot at winning anything anyway. Defense is the number one priority. If we played better defense teams will stop using the hack-a-Dwight.
Had to find one of the Howard FT threads to bump. While this certainly won't be the end, hopefully it will plant a seed of confidence going forward. Quick to criticize when he struggles and we lose, knocks down 4 of 6 and we win, nobody wants to mention it.
There were a few articles before the season about how Hack a Howard isn't exactly a sound strategy. IIRC the points per possession prove that if he's shooting 50% or above, statistically, we're doing better than the other team. It doesn't totally account for momentum stopping and things of that nature but tonight it seemed like Pop killed his own team's momentum by not trusting his defense and slowing down the game.
As I said in chat, the understated thing wrong with this strategy is the opps can't run. We can play set defense after the fouls. Pops had to bet on half court offense and gave up all tempo and fastbreaks Plus Howard had an amazing rebound to pass out for a three
what do you mean, he's the one who started the Hack a Shaq Bullshet back when Shaq played for PHX I hated him for that shet, it made the game completely unwatchable
Just curious. Can they foul Howard if he doesn't even bother to step onto the court and just stay out of bounds?
I'm pretty sure there's a new rule that states a player can't just stand out of bounds, if they go out of bounds they have to be trying to get back in bounds.
But is there a rule for the inbounds passer? If Howard inbounds the ball after an opponents made basket, does he have to immediately enter the court? That's what I'd try. If the opponents miss, then they can hack him, fine. If they make a basket, then have Howard inbounds the ball and not enter the court until the defenders leave the backcourt. And we run with it in the meantime.
Ha! I was actually LoLing at home when they hack-a-howard. DH12 gonna makes those. I was shouting (am alone in the living room), make them pay. DH12 did make them pay. Next games, bring in Hack-a-Ho for the win! sidenote: I was not expecting PoP to do that. Well, he miscalculated that one. Buhu.
Hm I don't know. I think I've seen him inbound the ball and they foul him right away. I'm sure if there was some way for him to stay out of bounds and not get fouled then someone in the Rockets organization would know about it and tell him to do that.
