3 point shooting is fine. Look at the Warriors. It is all about the OFFENSIVE SYSTEM. The Rockets OFFENSE just gets a lot of crappy looks. Lots of heat check shots too. Just not efficient. And now they are sitting in it.
Rockets aren't getting open looks and they are forcing shots. Shooting good 3's at a high percentage is still a good strategy no matter how you cut it. Jacking up 3's without clearing space from your defender is always a bad strategy no matter how you cut it. The offense is broken, not the concept of 3 point shots.
Thats because the rockets whole offensive system is to jack up 3s. When that is your main goal, its extremely predictable and teams will design their defensive strategy to give you...bad looks. You could combat that by having an amazing post player or Kyle Korvers all around...but the rockets have neither. Which begs the question...why implement a system for 4 yrs now where it doesn't fit the strengths of the team.
Actually we're second to last in 3P%. Nets are shooting 3% worse. They also take only 16 a game, we take 32.
We don't even make a single play for a 3 point shot. It's always: -Transition Harden brick and -Pass the ball for a catch and shoot Ariza 3 even when its not open
fwiw: I checked the Team Tracking Stats at NBA.com, yesterday. The Rockets get the most open threes in the league (defender more than 4' away), as a %frequency of those 3FA to overall FGAs. 27.6% of our shots are open threes. Atlanta is second at 26.6%. So, Budenholzer does believe in a system that gets and shoots a lot of open 3s, as he did with the SAS for a title. Problem is (and to your point), we are also second in the league in Frequency of tightly guarded 3s (defender 2-4' away). (9% of our shots are contested threes.) Atlanta is second to last (best) in the league with the fewest of those. I don't think this is really by design, but maybe shows that we have more offensive breakdowns, scrabbling plays than Budenholzer. I'm sure Bud also heavily enforces "DO NOT TAKE CONTESTED SHOTS" keep passing. anyhoot, we do get the most open looks in the league from 3. Problem as I see it is we don't have the shooters to knock them down and a good enough clip for that to be our main weapon. Plus, our offense is too predictable and defenses force us into the second most contested threes in the leauge.
When our best offense to create an open three is covered, we resort to a contested three instead of moving the ball. Sounds about right.
This is a great post and great use of stats . We need to take less threes . Harden and Lawson MUST go to the rim with the intent to attack and score vs passing to a shooter . Because the volume we attempt is so great teams aren't sagging off of shooters as much and many of our threes are contested . AS Lawson and harden seek to score more and do so at an efficient rate , the defenses will be forced to heed that threat and commit harder to stop the drive , then our open three to contested three ratio will rise and our percentage should go up as well .
But we lead the league in open 3s as a % of shots taken. Being tops in the league in open 3s and second in the league in contested 3s doesn't mean to me teams are sticking to our "shooters." Sounds like we have too many busted possessions and start scrambling. And we see that a lot. That's when we are having to shoot the contested ones. Whereas ATL has second highest open 3, but second lowest contested 3s means to me their offense runs smoother and they don't scramble.
you gonne make a poll like this and not give an option for the brick bros? ARE YOU KIDDING ME? Spoiler ariza - 33 fg%, 31 3pt% lawson - 33 fg%, 27 3pt% beverley - 34 fg%, 33 3pt% brewer - 29 fg%, 13 3pt% ITS THE BRICK BROS! HARDEN HAS NO ONE TO PASS IT TO! ****IN ASSHOLES WONT MAKE THEIR SHOTS!
No, as stated, the stat is a % of total shots. It's not total open 3s 27.5% of our total shots taken are open 3s. No other team in the league gets as many open threes per shots taken. Atlanta is #2, which shows that Budenholzer condones shooting them when you are open, too.
What percentage of our shots are any 3's ? We probably lead the league in that . If you take the most 3's , the highest percentage of shots you take will be open 3's. There is no way you are gonna lead the league in % of shots being open 3's without also taking a huge # of threes .. this is what I was getting at. Everyone condones taking them when they are open , its a highly efficient shot.
I'm not sure if you are following. It's a zero sum game. By your logic, if we took 25% less threes, we'd no longer lead the league in open 3s. Well, 25% of our threes are contested. If we stop shooting those, and do what Atlanta does and convert those to 2s, our total shots remains the same, thus our open 3s would still be the same as a percentage of the total sum. Sure you have to take a high % of 3s to make the top 10 of this list, but there's more to it than that. Let me explain more Atlanta is 9th in the league in 3FA frequency vs total shots taken. But they are #2 in the league in open 3s. The Lakers are 6th in 3FA Frequency, but are like 20th in the league in open 3s. It doesn't matter how what % of 3s you take, it only matters how many open ones you take. We are #1 in % open 3s because our system is getting us more open looks[/B], thus why we shoot more as well. It's not about how many bad ones we take too. The fact we take the 2nd most contested ones (next to the Lakers) is what makes us #1 total 3s taken. If we had a sharper, crisper game and never took contested 3s, we'd be getting more layups and 2s, thus our total 3s would go down. But our % of open 3s for all shots taken would conceivably still be the same. The contested 3s would just become 2pt attempts, instead. It's a zero sum game.
Great analysis. Can you also see the % made on the open 3's vs. the highly contested 3's? A lot of this you can see from watching the games actually - when we are making the extra pass and getting the open 3's, they are good shots, and even if we miss - those are usually coming at times when our offense is flowing fairly well. Which does happen every game for a stretch - too bad it doesn't last the full 48 minutes. The highly contest ones, you can see from watching the games - usually come about as a result of bad ball movement, they are taken too late in the shot lock, and seem to be desperation attempts. I for one, think this is definitely hurting Ariza's % this season, as I've seen him get the ball several times at the end of the shot clock when he has no choice but to shoot it (or take the 24 second violation). If the offense was flowing better - less of these shots would exist.
Yes, but all our % made numbers are horrible. ~24% for tight (0-4') ~30% for >4' btw: GSW is making 51% tight threes when defender is 2-4' away at 4.5 attempts a game. That's probably a lot Curry. OKC is making over 403% tight as well at 4.5 attempts a game.
It's on Morey. I understand that 3s are more efficient if you can go above certain marks, say 35%. But at the same time you are also giving up mid-range 2s, reducing one defensive option for the opponents. When you declare that you'll shoot no mid-range twos but more threes, you are telling the opponents to push you harder on the three point line. Defending the Rockets becomes defending the post plus the 3 point line, not a harder full-court assignment anymore. That's much easier. So you start to see more and more low percentage contested three pointers taken by the Rockets. For many players with good range, OPEN long twos are good percentage shots. Make it a full court defense for the opponents again. Over-emphasizing any one aspect won't help the game.
No, this isn't correct. Threes spread the floor to open the lane and allow more layups. It is very hard to guard both the paint and the three point perimeter. That is why Budonholzer shoots as many as well. 3s makes the defensive assignments much harder. But you have to make them. You're just looking at the math of three points vs two, and not including what spreading the floor does to defensive assignments. The defense is cheating and packing the paint to stop Harden's drives. And our passes are so predictable that they get a lot of turnovers. We also hold the ball too much, much more than Atlanta, and that is causing late shot clock chaos, resulting in our #2 in the league contested 3 pointers. That is readily evident during the games. The defenses aren't guarding our three point shooters tightly resulting in contested threes. We can't make them at a high enough clip for them to worry about versus getting the ball out of Harden's hands. And our motion and cutting is none existent.
