re: battle boards Agree totally its far more impressive to see a out-of-position player win the battle with an opponent for the board than it is to see a guy in perfect position have an uncontested ball fall into his hands. and as such should be noted. its a shame that using common sense to decide what is a good play is so revolutionary around here these days.
The Rockets generally do a good job of getting back on defense. There were only 4 transition attempts by Phoenix. It's hard to accurately gauge how great the transition D is, because it ultimately lays on the responsibility of the offense whether or not to make it a transition possession. If the defense is great, then a smart offense will not push forward. So considering that Phoenix has a running reputation, 22 half court possessions (a couple of offensive rebounds in there) and 4 transition possessions aren't bad at all. I've already stated the results of the transition D. 1 unforced TO (Rockets D shouldn't get credit for that), 1 forced TO (Play by Play wrongly attributes a bad pass to Nash, when it was a great pass that Amare had a decent handle on, but totally got flambuxoled by Battier setting up for the charge), and 2/2 shooting. The Barbosa catch and shoot 3pter was because it was a 3 on 3, and all defenders went to the paint while on offense the PG (Diaw) brought it up, and the other 2 offensive players ran to the corners to spot up. The other successful transition was a layup by Barbosa because Battier once again ran inside and when Barbosa caught it in the corner, Battier was in a disadvantage of having to run out at him (maybe my memory is incorrect but I believed Battier was not in good enough position...but it might not matter, in the half court Barbosa burned Battier 1 on 1 once, and the 2nd time Battier shut him down). As for half court stuff, the HQ make ratio was similar to the Rockets, but the total HQ was a little high for Phoenix...I blame this mainly on Yao being really tired early on (maybe because of the Back to Back), and also on the fact that Yao and Deke are slow. I haven't watched enough Rockets basketball lately, but I know in the past, the Rockets used to show hard on PnR, then rotate other defenders to the Roller. Now for the 1st quarter at least, they were keeping the Picker's defender (Yao or Hayes) back to help on penetration. Problem is Phoenix guards (Nash and Barbosa) tore that up too. Perhaps zone D or just having Rafer and Luther (i hate that backcourt) or Mac or Battier go under the screens every once in a while to see whether Nash and Barbosa have their PullupJumpers going. I'm just saying, mixing up how the D plays might be better than doing it 1 way all the time. Houston is smart, but Phoenix is just as smart and more athletic, and that's a huge problem in my book. Houston D can shut down dumb teams because it exploits their dumb tendencies. Phoenix is smart enough to stop before charging on Hayes and Battier and putting up little runners or sideways layups. Honestly, I think the Rockets need more athleticism in there and a fresh Yao. And if TMac's jumper isn't going, he needs to focus on being a playmaker. TMac is great, but the bigger role he takes in shooting, the more responsibility he has for the success of the team. TMac and Yao both sucked hard in the 1st quarter on offense AND defense. Sure it would have helped if Rafer made a shot or if Luther made his open 3, but Yao missed 2 deep shots and got abused on defense, and TMac kept throwing up MQ jumpers that weren't falling, and then not paying attention to his man on defense at times when Nash was already double or triple teamed. Basically, I'm laying 95% of the blame on TMac and Yao, that and the fact that the Suns were a smoking 4/5 on their MQ shots, which is even better than their 6/9 on their HQ shots, while the Rockets were a good 5/7 on HQ shots, but a terrible 2/11 on their MQ shots (TMac 0/5, Rafer 0/3, Yao 0/1). The 6 HQ makes by Phoenix were all against Yao (2), Deke (1), TMac (2), and Battier (1). Yao didn't or couldn't rotate twice, Deke gave Amare 5 feet of space for his jumper, TMac didn't pay attention to his man twice, and Battier got beat 1 on 1, leading to 13 pts off HQ shots. Houston had 5 HQ makes, 1 was a Hayes putback because Yao tipped him the ball, the other 4 HQ makes were all b/c of TMac. TMac beat Marion 1 on 1 for a dunk, TMac then rose up for an open J b/c Amare didn't show, then set up Juwon for 2 open jumpers b/c Mac was doubled on the PnR. Phoenix just exploits 2 things: slow defenders, and not paying attention. TMac (and Rafer but shot didn't fall) didn't pay attention, while Yao and Deke were too slow to react to guards on PnR and too slow to play Amare close on the midrange. And Battier was too slow vs Barbosa, though he did shut him down once, but then spent so much effort on keeping Barbosa in front of him, Battier forgot to box out.
Kim, I like your analysis. What I boil all of it down to is a lack of quickness and proper positioning in our defense when we play Phoenix. Just from viewing the game, I thought we got back in transition about as well as any team can against Phoenix. But we didn't have the quicks on the defensive end. That is why I say that we should never play Juwan together with Yao against teams like Phoenix. It simply makes us too slow. Against Phoenix, we can only afford to have 1 big slow player on the court at a time. The PF position should be manned to Hayes, Battier, and even McGrady at times. Phoenix goes with Stoudamire, Diaw, and Marion. We've got to match with Yao vs. Amare, McGrady vs. Diaw, and Battier vs. Marion. That leaves their backcourt of Nash and their other guard (Bell/Barbosa) to deal with. You've got to have another athletic defender in the backcourt to match up with those guys. The only fit that makes sense against Bell/Barbosa is Kirk Snyder. And we are stuck like chuck with Rafer on Nash. Then the rotation has to have Bonzi ,Chuck Hayes, and Luther Head in the backcourt. The only time Juwan and Deke should see the floor against Phoenix is to spell Yao for a few minutes. They are just not fast enough to be playing in tandem or beside Yao. You have to minimize the quickness disadvantage. I know Juwan shot well against Phoenix but Battier can hit all the shots that he hit. And Juwan gives it back on defense. You gotta have Yao against Amare and Mcgrady should take Diaw, and Battier should take Marion.
So it's a tough thing for JVG, how do you beat a team whose players are as smart as yours, but more athletic? I'd say play Snyder more, but he's not the smartest (he's no Stro), but then he does bring athleticism that Rafer and Head doesn't have. We say we need Rafer and Head for their shooting, but Rafer was 0/3 on MQ catch and shoots, and Head was 1/2, missing a wide open HQ CnS 3pter. TMac needs to play smarter. Yao needs to be more fresh. And JVG needs to mix up the D. Keep Phoenix off balance, but I do know that the more mixes on D, the more chance there is for D breakdowns due to miscommunication. But then again, the Rockets weren't mis communicating at all and they were still getting crushed. It's just a tough situation. The Suns are really hard to beat.
they dont have many games where their "other" guys cant hit a damn shot...which was our main problem other than Yao dn Tmac being ineffective. as in this game as we were till mid-4th, if we could have shot normally, it would have been ALOT closer.
I think Duncan is more athletic than our bigs, and so would be harder to exploit. I do know that the game tonight is going to be very interesting to analyze. The Mavs and Suns are clearly the class of the League (Spus too). I'm going to do the 2nd quarter of the Suns Rockets game sometime soon. jopatmc That's interesting stuff...you're probably right, but can Battier keep Marion off the boards...maybe. So you're thinking Yao, Battier, Mac, Snyder, and Rafer/Head...hmm...that does make sense. It's a lineup that has been discussed before, but specifically for the Suns, it might be very important.
Actually I think if we could have shot normally we would have won.. convincingly. It would have opened up the inside more so that Yao could have gotten a few more points. Defensively there were some breakdowns (as Kim pointed out) but overall the Suns want to get a lot more than 4 fast break possessions in a quarter. We slowed them down enough that, had we shot at say a 45% clip, we could have taken the game.
Actually, I left out John Lucas who was the most effective defender we had out there on Nash. My basic point is you've got to get Snyder in there, and you've got to limit Head and Rafer's minutes if they aren't hitting the long ball. If they are being overplayed, which Phoenix was overplaying everything on the perimeter and almost daring us to go to the rim, then they aren't much good in penetration. If Luther can't catch and shoot from the 3 line, he needs to be out of there. My .... shrivels up everytime he puts the ball on the floor. And if Rafer isn't hitting, he doesn't need to be in there, period. And I don't know if Batter could keep Marion off the glass, but I think he could be effective and the combination of Snyder and Battier defending against Marion and their shooting guard could be effective. If I was coach I would put Snyder out there and then switch off him and Battier on those 2 guys. The way to defend Marion is to let him catch the ball on the perimeter and then close down on him, because he cannot shoot that jumper with the defender playing up on him. His release is way too low. And the weakest part of Marion's game is when he puts the ball on the floor. The thing to do is to force him to have to dribble the ball by making him catch on the perimeter and then put the ball on the floor. He will typically have to give the ball up. Marion wants to shoot the wide open 3 ball or he wants to fly to the rack and receive the pass at the rim. You could use a slightly smaller very athletic defender like Snyder to guard him on the perimeter and take away the 3 ball and force him to put the ball on the floor or pass it. Then Snyder can also track him on the slashes. That would allow you to push Battier out on Barbosa/Bell if they heated up. Battier is not as quick as Barbosa but I have no doubts about Battier's defensive ability to make the game very difficult for whomever he is defending. The keys are: 1. You have to involve Snyder's athleticism defensively against Phoenix. 2. You have to see that Rafer/Luther are totally ineffective in a game where the perimeter is being overplayed and they are being forced to penetrate. So, you've got to adjust for a player that typically is looking to create his shot and is one of the two quickest players on this team, and can get his shot off in traffic on the interior quite effectively, Lucas. 3. You have to understand that any combination of players that involve more than 1 of Yao/Deke/Juwan on the floor together at any given time against Phoenix is a loser combination because it makes us too slow.
Seriously, if we can universalize the terminology as a bbs, we'd be better than many scouting operations out there, including teams (i have no proof of this claim, but some teams are just so dumb that I think there are possibly millions of dollars being wasted). I've given some of my work to the Wizards, but it either never got to the right hands, or they think my work is crap. It's so hard trying to find the right people to talk to, b/c I honestly believe that I study this stuff harder and know this stuff better or at least just as good as people in the basketball operations/scouting/analysis business. I seriously want to finish the Rockets Suns game, print up this thread, fly down to Houston and march into Morey's office and say "hire me damn it!" I don't want to do anything else for a living. Sorry for the rant, but yeah, the possibilities are great. As a bbs, we could open our eyes better to the plays (PnR, off ball action, PnFade, isos), defensive rotations, type of defense (help, straight, rotating, recovering), battle boards, type of shots, and shots created. Hell, like Omer said, maybe we could turn this into a business. I don't want to do anything else, but I can't track every game alone. Seriously, even as I get the hang of things, it'd take at least 8 hours, or maybe even 2 working days to totally redocument 1 game and include the summary breakdowns.
If you can partition the work into something manageable for us more casual "analysts", maybe some of us could help.
The only reason that Yao Ming and Tracy McGrady were unable to be effective is because everone else was unable to put their shot in the basket and therefore deserved no respect from the Phoenix defence.
Chuck and Juwan did their jobs. Our guards sucked. Rafer and Luther are the weak link on this roster. JVG needs to recognize that and mix in another player. Snyder or Bonzi, I don't care which.
Kim - VERY impressive work, as has been stated by others. And I agree entirely with your analysis and conclusions. I wasn't as aware of TMAC's defensive lapses as it appeared that 3-4 Rockets were out of position on at least half the Sun's possessions. In my extreme frustration with watching that game were three things you mentioned, the most obvious of which was NOT PLAYING SNYDER, the best strength/speed combo on our team to matchup with Sun's slashers. 2nd was the number of times ROX would run at Suns on 3pt line, only to have that player dribble right by the Rox to make an open layup or dish for easy basket. 3rd, was the limited use of John Lucas III AFTER his very decent job on Steve Nash during his limited minutes. Why the hell does Rafer/Luther continue to get minutes in a game where they aren't hitting anything, and yet JL 3 and other who could make a difference can't get off the bench. After all, it was our bench that made the last game against the Suns close when it could have been a blowout. Anyway, thanks for the incredible stats and analysis. I look forward to seeing more of this. One more area to consider might be measuring "physicality" in terms of individual defensive pressure. I still contend that Rafer's softness is a big reason that fast/strong PG's in this league make life VERY difficult for the ROX. Thanks again!!!
