But is game pace dictated more by a team's defense than a team's offense? I dont' think that's necessarily the case.
our offense will never be consistent ala Phoenix but our team needs to be a good example of well played D every night, thats what JVG is for
Turnovers are a major problem partly because the Rockets don't have T-Mac to help handle the ball and draw opposing defenses. In the high turnover games we've had let's say for example we have 5 extra turnovers. At a relatively low conversion rate of 40% it means 2 less made baskets for the Rockets and 2 more for opponents leading to at least an 8 point differential. 8 points can decide a lot of games.
But our defense hasn't been decent this whole time. It's been much worse than normal. Our 4 out of the 5 games our defensive efficiency was significantly worse, while 3 out of 5 games our offensive efficiency was about as good or much better than our yearly average. So we had 1 defensive game that wasn't terribly bad, versus three offensive games that were as good or better than what we've done all year. And there's one important factor that you aren't taking into account. Our current defensive efficiency rating is 99.8. But it wasn't like that at the beginning of this five game streak. With a 108 efficiency average over five games it has definitely dragged our def. eff. down. And five games is a big deal, that's about 20% of our season so far. I mean, I remember looking up our def. eff. earlier and it was in the 94 range, which was among some of the best defenses of the modern era. If our defense had been playing like that we would have gone 4-1 during the stretch instead of 2-3.
But you seem to be ignoring the strength of the opponents, offensively. As Van Gundy said, we've been facing some very good offensive teams in this stretch. I haven't checked this yet, but I'd bet that if you took the average offensive efficiency of all the teams we faced before this stretch, it wouldn't be nearly as good. It should be expected that we'd give up more points per possession in this stretch. That's why I say our defense was "decent" in the losses. Lakers twice and the Warriors -- on the season they have an average offensive rating of 109.7. We allowed roughly 104.7 over those three games (105.6, 106.8, 101.8). If you think we should defend better than that, I won't disagree. But I wouldn't call it a terrible defensive effort either. Compare that to our offense in the losses, which was downright pathetic. 97.8 in the three games, against teams that on average allowed 107.6. I understand we're not a great offensive team, particularly without T-Mac, but that's inexcusable. Looking at it game by game, I would accept that odefense was more the problem against Golden State. But in the two games against the Lakers, our offense was absolutely pathetic. I don't recall it ever being that low. It might have been in the 97 range, as I remember it. But I think we had a good stretch of games earlier where we were playing some very mediocre offensive teams. Our current rating of 99.8 is very good, and if we can sustain that over the whole season we should be in pretty good shape. I think 99.8 is probably more reflective of our true defensive capabilities than whatever it was earlier.
if this game is any indication, looks like durvasa was right. its like van gundy made the team practice defense only, because they sure look lost on offense.
Blazers play at the slowest pace in the league, so it's more obvious against them that offense has been our big problem.
durvasa, I am not going to continue to debate with you on the merit of current average Off/DefEff vs their "just in time" counterparts. And suppose I agree with you defense is the lesser problem for the Rockets, I maintain that the lack of mid-range jump shooting options hurts the Rockets quite significantly. Clearly it showed tonight. Other than Juwan and Yao, on this T-Mac-less team, nobody can do **** with his 2-pt J. If one can't see this is within the grand scheme of JVG's below-average offensive coaching capability, his basketball insight probably needs another look.
You could very well be right that lack of mid-range jump shooting is a significant problem for this team. Personally, I think a much bigger problem is turnovers and the inability of our perimeter players to finish strong at the basket. My only comment on mid-range shooting is that, if you look league wide, the vast majority of players don't shoot them very well. Some of the best offensive players (Nash, Dirk, Kobe, Wade) excel at it, so it can be a very important part of a player's arsenal if they are to be great at creating offense. But because the reality is most player don't shoot it particularly well, a sound defensive strategy would be to prefer to give up the 2-point J, contested, rather than to allow 3-point shots or shots in the paint. One way to test this would be to see how defensive efficiency correlates to percentage of FGAs allowed that are 2-point Js. This is doable using the numbers at 82games.com and elsewhere. It would make for an interesting study.
I added numbers from last night's game in Portland: Code: [B]Opponent What we did against them[/B] Date | Tm OffEff DefEff | Poss/2 OppPts TmPts DefEff OffEff ---------------------------------------------------------------------- -- | LgAvg 106.2 106.2 | 89.5 -- -- 99.8 105.1 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- 12/9 | @WAS 111.3 111.9 | 95.9 109 114 113.6 118.8 12/12 | LAL 109.6 106.6 | 96.2 102 94 105.6 97.7 12/14 | @GSW 109.9 109.5 | 102.0 109 107 106.8 104.9 12/15 | @LAL 109.6 106.6 | 110.1 112 101 101.8 91.8 12/17 | @LAC 105.4 108.2 | 90.7 103 108 113.5 119.0 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Total | 109.2 108.6 | 99.0 107.0 104.8 108.0 105.8 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Wins | 108.4 110.1 | 93.3 106.0 111.0 113.6 119.0 Losses | 109.7 107.6 | 102.9 107.7 100.7 104.7 97.8 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- [B]12/21 | @POR 106.7 111.9 | 84.2 89 87 105.8 103.4[/B] Portland has been playing much better recently, while the numbers I show above (106.7, 111.9) reflect their season averages. They are an average offensive team, and a poor defensive team by these measurements. They also play at a very slow pace, which is why the game only had about 84 possessions for each team. The efficiency we allowed is a little less than their season average (105.8 compared to 106.7). I would call that a poor defensive effort, but again they might be on a roll offensively of late (certainly the addition of Brandon Roy helped a bit). But we were only able to score at an efficiency of 103.4, which is far below what they have been allowing on the season (111.9). That's another poor offensive game in a loss.
That players hit 3-pointers at higher percentage than 2-point jumpers is always puzzling to me. I think it's more of a myth than reality that most players don't shoot mid-range jumpers well. Perhaps it's only the truth with JVG's Rockets. Take, for instance, the Rockets-vs-Suns game. We shot and made more 3 pointers than Phoenix, yet we still lost the game due to our inability to score more on the lowly 2-pointers. Creating more open looks for mid-range shooting opportunities either by taking advantage of opponents' double teams on our 7'6" center or by pick and roll is not high, if at all, on JVG's offensive agenda for this team. The ability to shooting 2-pt J at high efficiency is not and should not be exclusive to elite players. That's a fundamental basketball skill for any player, let alone professional/NBA player, as far as I am concerned. Whether it's spot-up or pull-up jumper, if it's not highly contested, you are expected to make it more often than not. If our team can live with Yao Ming shooting many difficult turnaround/fadeaway short- to mid-range jumpers, we should also afford to incorporate sufficient, if not abundant, mid-range shootings into the game plan. There is no question JVG has overlooked this aspect of the game. I think more and more observers on this board have realized it.
Just a guess, but I think players have a better chance of getting a wide-open 3. Conversly, I doubt there are many 2-point jumpers that aren't contested. That may skew the results.
Its offense some nights (@ Port) and defense on other nights (@ LAL & GS). Last night....it was selfish play from Rafer that messed up the offense. He had a clear pass Yao a few times and chose to do some other crap. I dont think its a coincidence that the team that won last night had a PG that had a better assist to turnover ratio and higher field goal %. Bottom line...Rafer needs to get the Ball Yao every time instead of calling his own number
I don't know if I should start a new thread on this or just continue the discussion here. I'll post some data pertaining to this season here for now. First, I'll focus on "2-point Jumper%", which is simply the ratio of 2-point jumpers made to total field goal attempts. If I'm understanding you correctly, a good offense is dependent on taking (and making) a good number of 2-point jumpers. Here's a chart showing this metric for every team so far this year, ordered from best to worst in offensive efficiency: As you can see, the Rockets are near the bottom in this metric (only New York and Golden State rely on it 2-point jumpers less), and they have a middling offensive efficiency. But, at least so far this season, there's no indication that good offensive teams take more advantage of the 2-point jumpers than bad offensive teams. In fact, if anything, there appears to be a little more evidence to the contrary (thanks to the Clippers and T-Wolves, two bad offensive teams that rely heavily on 2-point jumpers). More precisely, there's a -0.205 correlation between this metric and offensive efficiency. Next, here's a chart illustrating the relationship between "2-point Jumper FG%" and offensive efficiency. Do good offensive teams shoot the midrange jumper much better than bad offensive teams? Well, in general we could say yes, but the relationship again isn't very clear. The correlation between 2-point Jumper FG% and offensive efficiency is only 0.183. Next, we can look at defense and how good (or bad) defensive teams defend against 2-point jumpers. The following chart shows % of field goals attempts allowed that are 2-point jumpers for each team this year, ordered from best to worst defenses: Note that the two best defensive teams, Houston and San Antonio, give up a lot of mid-range jumper attempts. And you can see a clear relationship here. Good defense teams generally force the opposition to take 2-point jumpers, and bad defensive teams generally don't do so as much. The correlation between 2-point Jumper Attempt% and defensive efficiency is 0.665 which is fairly strong. Finally, here's 2-point Jumper FG% allowed, again ranked from best to worst defensive teams: As expected, the good defensive teams generally yield a worse FG% of midrange shots. But it's a somewhat weak relationship. The correlation between 2-point J FG% allowed and defensive efficiency is -0.252. Becaues mid-range shots are poor percentage to begin with, if the FG% you yield on them is league average for mid-range jumpers but you force the team to take a lot of them, that will help your defense. That's precisely what teams like the Rockets and Spurs have done. JVG's defensive scheme is to prefer to give up contested 2-point jumpers rather than 3-point jumpers and inside shots. Based on team data early this season, that strategy makes sense. BTW, in case you're wondering, league wide the percentage on 2-point midrange jumpers is only 38.3%. Minnesota shoots it the best at 42.4%. The Rockets shoot 37.6%. New York is the worst -- 32.8%.
Thanks for all the insightful analysis, durvasa. I wonder, however, what our 2 point j offense statistics would look like if we took Yao out from the equation. That stat couldn't be compared with other teams of course, but I bet the % takes a big dive.
Sure. Excluding Yao, I find that the ratio of 2-point Jumpers made to field goal attempts is only 11.3%. Still not quite as bad as the Knicks, but we'd dip below Golden State. And our FG% on 2-point jumpers, excluding Yao, is only 35.4%.
Very interesting stats and analysis, thanks durvasa. My mind and hands are currently tied up with a couple of projects in which I need to have some input. Will take a deeper look at your stuff later when I have more free time. I am pretty sure there will be counter-spin to offset your spin. For now, it's safe to say a moderate increase of 2-pt J in the offense doesn't really jeopadize the chance of winning by the Rockets.
Alright. But I'm not spinning, at least not consciously so. If you think some other measurements would be more informing on this issue, I'll be glad to check it out at some point. I have no strong opinion one way or the other regarding adding more mid-range shooting to our offense. As I said, you might be right on that. There's no clear statistical indication that midrange shooting is an important part of good offenses any more than it is an important part of a bad offense from what I've seen, but maybe I'm not looking in the right place. What the information I've seen does show is JVG's defensive strategy of looking to give up contested midrange jumpers is sound. It's what San Antonio, a perennial leader in defensive efficiency, also does.
