Much has been made of the Rockets defense lately. I decided to delve a bit deeper into the numbers and see the data that comes up. I found a few interesting tidbits that merit some discussions. What the Rockets do well/what helps the Rockets do those things: 1) Rim Protection Fun fact. Dwight Howard and Donatas Motiejunas are only behind Roy Hibbert as far as opp fg% in the post is concerned when filtering PF/C who play at least 20 mins/game and have played at least 8 games. That is amazing. They both allow ~39% fg% at the rim. For comparison's sake, Hibbert allows ~38%. Duncan/Asik/Ibaka allow 42% http://stats.nba.com/tracking/#!/pl..._DEFEND_RIM&dir=-1&CF=MIN*GE*20|GP*GE*8|GP*E* edit: after playing against the best center on the offense side in the league (Cousins) last night, D-Mo's numbers have dipped a bit. But they are still very good and right up there along with the best in the league. 2) Contesting Jumpers Opponents shoot 64% of their shots as jump shots versus the Rockets. But yet they only hit around .371 efg% of them. And only 62% of thse shots are assisted. This is impressive in two ways. First off that efg% is very low. I did not check every team's stats in comparison, but from the few I did, I would suspect that the Rocket's are among the top in the league. Second, it is impressive that the jumpers that opponents are making against the Rockets are not necessarily in the flow of their offense. 62% is not a good percentage of jump shots assisted. In order to understand the scope of this: the Rockets shoot 66% of their shots as jumpers, but they convert .471 efg% of them (the number of 3's we make helps this a lot) and we assist on 71% of those shots. That disparity is staggering. http://www.82games.com/1415/1415HOU3.HTM 3) Dwight Howard/Trevor Ariza When Ariza is on the floor opponents score 97.3 points per 100 possessions. When he sits, opponents score 106.0 points per 100 possessions . When Dwight Howard is on the floor opponents score 94.5 points per 100 possessions. When he sits, opponents score 106.0 points per 100 possessions. I think that pretty much sums that situation up. (keep in mind 82 games makes a note those numbers might be adjusted per 48 mins) http://www.82games.com/1415/14HOU8.HTM http://www.82games.com/1415/14HOU15.HTM 4) James Harden's defensive improvement I think we can all attest to this without stats necessary. This man has won us a few of the last few games with his new found defensive prowess. Lots of credit goes to James for realizing his weakness and committing to improving it. 5) Shots opponents assist on Earlier I mentioned the whole jump shots that opponents assist on thing being low. Well, the Rockets as a whole are the 7th best team in the league at "shots scored against that were assisted on". While on the surface this might not seem like a big deal, once again it is better that when the Rockets do get scored on, it is in iso situations than in the flow of the opponents offense (which are easier shots). <br> <br> With those things being said, it's a nice time to segue into the next topic. Let's look a bit at how the Rockets have improved from last year to this year: http://www.basketball-reference.com/teams/HOU/2015.html The things that stick out to me is that there's an increase in all our defensive stats from last year, aside from those related to opponent FT's. Also, apparently we do not draw as many fouls as last year. It's staggering how many more turnovers we cause this year. This is probably due in no small part to Ariza. But, there's another point to be made here as well. Throughout the games lately I have seen amazing double teams with a big man duo of Motiejunas/Papa and guards either Ariza/Bev/Harden. Swap those names out as you wish, but our double teams have resulted in a number of turnovers for the opponent. I almost never saw anything of that sort last year. This brings about my final point: 6) Team chemistry, the "intangibles", and a new identity The Rockets of last year hardly ever made the scrappy plays that every basketball pundit always cites winning teams making. How often did we see Parsons/Lin making the little plays that help teams win? Almost never. This year Motiejunas, Papa, Ariza, and to a lesser extent even Jason Terry/Isaiah Canaan make those plays consistently. I've seen all of them on the floor and in the stand after loose balls. Hell, even James Harden this year has been going after every single loose ball with a vigor and relentlessness that I have never seen from him. The new defensive identity of the team has surely caught on. Listen to any of the interviews from players or McHale lately. Even during good offensive outputs, the only thing that the players talk about is the team and the defense. I think we are seeing a good case of addition by subtraction between last year and this year. This team has always been gifted on offense. Now they are gifted on defense as well. And it seems that everyone has bought in. The team chemistry seems to be a lot better than last year. I hardly see players yelling at each other like in the couple of years past. Harden has matured about this as well. Great to see. As long as everyone remains dedicated to our identity and cohesive as a unit, this Rockets team has a lot of potential. They need to keep doing all the little things and playing hard consistently on every play, something they did not do last year. Hopefully this can be the case, because if so, the new direction of the team looks to be the right one.
Good post. Great info To be expected. Lin and Parsons attacked the basket a lot, and Dwight has been out 4 games.
Btw, here's a cool thing to look at. When you check out the NBA stats page, you can look at games and see various cool things about the game. It's been really good to see this year that the number of uncontested fg's the Rockets shoot is usually quite a bit higher than the amount they let their opponents shoot. For reference, here is the link to last night's game versus the kings. http://stats.nba.com/game/#!/0021400217/playertracking/ The Rockets got to shoot 45 uncontested fg's while they only allowed the kings to shoot 29. This has been happening more often than not this season and is a great sign.
Nice thread Is Dwight healthier? Even still.. 1) Ariza in - Parsons out 2) Harden's increased effort. His blocks vs SAC were awesome btw 3) everything else
Factor in the addition of the veterans Ariza and Terry to calm the team down when the game gets a little hairy. Terry preached mental toughness in one of the early games when our shots don't go in. Garcia from the start always had the ear of Harden. Ariza has this penchant for making the defensive play that turns the game around. Even Papa plays like a vet most of the time. So young guys DMo, Canaan, even Harden, learning from seeing how the vets work and act. We're seeing it in the way we are now able to plug in the holes even with key starters out.
Excellent excellent post OP. However a history of the Rockets coaching staff system adjustments would have been in order. 2012-2013 - Coaches set their hair on fire 2 days before the season starts because Morey just added Harden and got rid of Lamb and Martin. Tear the playbook up and fall back into a classic R&R implementation. The only possibility given the short time frame. Defense gets ignored because there was no offensive system in place. 2013-2014 - Add Howard. Keep R&R. Scrap a lot of the offensive play book because the post offense is now a necessity. Practice entry passes into Howard for untold hours. Defense again is put on the back burner. 2014-2015 - Previous season analysis shows biggest bang for the buck is focusing on team and player defense. But finally some strategic offensive carry over. The offense is now in place. Lin, Parsons and Asik now gone. Not good but certainly not a disaster. With the offensive system in place the decision to focus on defense was made. The entire preseason dedicated to defense. Player buy in!!! Result - an NBA elite defense. Kudos to everyone!
There's also been a lot less transition and in general hacking Dwight like it was for much of early last season. The offense has really turned into Harden and 3s. Not gonna get fouls that way.
DudeWah, best post in this web site from a thread contributor this year. Most relevent to the reality of this team as constructed. Daryl Morey has done it again. He made a decision in some way, it appears, to trade/draft to Kevin McHale's strengths as a coach also, which is a great side benefit. I take note ESPECIALLY of your observation on the role that double and even triple teams at the right time cause great disruption to the other team. I suspect that's because it is so outside the perceived type of team defense the Rockets play. Forced turnovers are the fast break trigger that lead to runs.
this post makes me want dwight, jones, and bev back even more to see what the full team can do. great research. great thread. i'm surprised that dmo is so good at guarding the post. you can't tell just by watching lol. even still, we need another competent big man to replace dorsey and black in the rotation.
I was talking to my dad about this last night... Statistically we are the best D in the NBA... However, most wouldn't say that we are actually the best D in the NBA. How far off are we from that top spot? I think it's close right now. Maybe we won't keep this up... But I have league pass, and I see very few defenses that could say they're better than us. Especially with a healthy Dwight!
Memphis is plain nasty. They just keep bringing guys. They've got a quartet of big bigs to go along with Conley, Allen, Lee, etc. outside. Chicago is nasty too of course. Multiple great defensive bigs to go along with blood and guts perimeter defenders. We need a couple more guys, I think, to get to their level.
Yes you're definitely right about that point on forced turnovers. It just really amazes how this year when we do a "trap" or come strong with a double team, the rest of the team actually rotates very quickly and to the right spot (more often than not). Then, as an additional point, the player bringing the double team is also quick to get back to his man if the trap fails. If after all of this there still ends up being a shot, the team almost always closes out strong against the shooter. Much, much improved from last year.
Would really like to know the definitive answer to who is behind the Defense. is it JB, Mchale, Dunn? WHO IS IT!?
Coaches put some strong emphasis on defense in the off season and bam bam bam everybody is playing solid defense. Love it, OP great work as usual.
McHale just cited in his post game interview that it is Bickerstaff. It was reported in the chron a while back that Bickerstaff has been given full reigns over the defense this season. He deserves lots of credit. D-Mo led front court just held Gasol/Randolph to less than 20 points combined. With big contributions from Dorsey and Black. Give credit to Morey too for finding underrated players who are contributing majorly now, all the while shaping the entire identity of the team (towards the better)in one offseason.
This is very interesting! Did JB develop this defensive strategy during the off-season after research or did he always have a defensive strategy but didnt want to set on any toes last season.
